Category: Family

In Trouble

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Well…apparently Dave and I caused a stir this afternoon!

I was suddenly told I was to go down for an xray around 3:00. News to me? what kind of xray? What part of my body? I had a button down shirt on, pants, socks a bra, the whole sh-abang. They told me it was a leg doppler scan sonogram. I’ve had one before…no big deal I just had to change out of my johnny (hospital gown) and into my robe.

I was wheeled down around 3:00. The scan doesn’t take long, but I had to wait a long time in the waiting area before being transferred back up to the 6th floor. I knew Dave was coming in, so I had left him a note on the bed about where I was.

I got back up around 4:00 and Dave was waiting. I changed back into my clothes and we headed down to the cafeteria. My first trip away from home-sweet-home on the 6th floor.

Dave hadn’t eaten lunch, but I was waiting for dinner at 5:00, so i wasn’t going to eat a lot. i had a cup of Earl Grey and a couple of cookies. While we were down there, Janet Schutte, who designs our catalog databases at Johnny’s stopped in to see me and finally caught up with me in the cafeteria. I knew dinner was coming up, but I didn’t want to blow Janet off since she had just come in, so we stopped and chatted until 5:30 then went back up.

Well, apparently…they were just getting ready to call security on me!! My new later afternoon shift nurse came on at 3:00 and had not seen me yet. They were getting concerned I had fallen AND to find out later, you’re not allowed to go off the floor unless you get the Dr’s permission!! I didn’t know that! Oopss! And i have missed my 4:00 pills, so it threw the whole schedule off now. Bad girl…bad girl!! I’m so glad we got upstairs when we did because I would have been wicked embarrassed if they had had to call security. I kept apologizing.

Dave walked me silly tonight in hopes I’ll fall sleep. My new room mate is very nice. A real sweet woman and I feel so sorry for her because she broke ribs and her arm and face is pretty bruised up. she has been in the hospital since last Friday night when she had her car accident. It was a horrible, horrible rain and wind storm. Apparently she hydroplaned.

She likes Dancing With The Stars, so we’ll watch that together. He son has been in and he’s awfully nice. We’ll see how we all sleep tonight. When I got back up to the floor my nurse told me she put ear plugs in my room..not because this woman is noisy, but because a man was brought up to the floor who is HORRIBLY loud…must be in a lot of pain. it’s very bad. I think he’ll be far enough away that I can get to sleep, but we’ll see.

I’ll be anxious to hear any news tomorrow on how I’m doing and when I might go home. I was still told Thursday. Dave thinks it’ll happen tomorrow…I’m not so sure. I know I DO want lamb this Sunday. Even if I have to cook it, I’ll do it.

So, we’re causing trouble here on the 6th floor!! They’ll probably keep an eye on us from now on that’s for sure! We’ll be good, I promise.

608 Ward

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On Monday or Tuesday, I was then moved “up” to the sixth floor to an open ward with six or seven other beds for special care patients. Most of them were all some kind of head injury. Most were pretty severe, so I saw the ugly side of brain injuries as well. Again….I’m VERY lucky.

This room was not my favorite. SOOO noisy and certainly not conducive to resting. I had to get medication every four hours, I had to have my catheter emptied every shift, if I needed to have a BM, I had to have a bed pan placed under me which was horribly uncomfortable.

I got very little sleep and nothing else remotely close to rest in that room and grew to hate it with a passion. Not the staff however. The nurses were wonderful and worked very hard in a difficult situation. Dealing with brain injuries present many different issues and they handled it amazingly well. The were a few bad eggs, like the one who insisted on trying to get a new IV in me four time before deciding to use my hand. Grrrr…. And the nurse who gave me a sponge bath who just didn’t have a clue. Not pleasant.

One night, I got paranoid. I can only chalk it up to not sleep and the brain injury. I overheard one of the nurses say that a new patient who had just been brought it may have menegitus. I thought it was contagious…first misunderstanding of the night.

Then there was a lot of activity surrounding some of the other beds. The doors were closed. Several EMTs with trays were brought in. Lots of whispering. A lot of “she is this”, “she is that”, “she’ll have to be transported”…etc. I thought they were discussing me…talking about transporting ME to another hospital because of the menegitus scare by this other patient. I got paranoid and angry that these nurses were not telling ME anything, so I blew up and wanted to know what was going on. They said they couldn’t tell me. Not a good answer for a patient in an agitate state with a brain injury! LOL

They blew me off. I got more paranoid. I actually told one of the nurses (ironically the one who stuck me with needles five times that morning) that I just didn’t want her near me. It wasn’t pretty. Not one of my best performances. I actually made one of the nurses call poor Dave at 2:00 in the morning to get down to the hospital to see me. So, he wasn’t sure what was going on, I just knew I needed him there and God bless him, he drove back down.

It wasn’t until one of the nurses slipped me a mickey in my IV and I calmed down, that I realized the nurses were discussing the female patient who had been brought in that night. I felt so stupid and embarrassed. The one nurse came in to check my vitals and I tearfully apologized. She was amazingly calm and tried to ease my mind. I was still paranoid after that, but not as much. I just new the nurses were still talking about me and my very inappropriate behavior. I was totally thrown by the whole episode.

ICU

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The next four days were spent in UCI at SCU3. I could not get out of bed. I had a catheter, wasn’t eating anything anyway, but had a ton of fluids going through me to flush out any access blood in my system. That blood was the main concern. If I had a spasm or a possible stroke, it could have been far more dangerous, so I was constantly monitored.

Since I was able to do nothing to but sit and think, I THEN started to think about what had just happened to me. Emotions take over quickly as I even have the slightest thought of the life/death issue. My family, my friends, my co-workers and of course Dave. How lucky I was to be here at all. It was almost too much to take, so I’d try to quickly avoid it. I think it WILL hit me the second I get home though.

Emotional issues are also a problem with recovering from a brain injury. Strange things happen, either because of the type of injury or other things. I had strange things happen in the ICU. I knew one room in the ICU was being used to administer last rights to someone during one day and perhaps that made me think of the following.

Considering I’m very isolated in one glass-walled room, it can be quite lonely at night and perhaps my mind just played tricks on me. I saw my co-worker Di. At least I could have sworn it was her. Then I heard, what I believed were, body bags being opened up for people in that room to identify. I heard someone say “Di just threw up”. Then I heard crying, then I heard someone say “what do we do about the wedding ring”? and I heard Di say very strongly, “I’ll take care of the damn ring!”. I heard a woman crying, then when it was all over, the “bodies” were taken away out a back door, the curtains were opened and all was done.

I was so upset. I knew Di’s only daughter was getting married this month. Not that there was anything I could do about it. I was bedridden, but I just really needed to know. I called in the nurse and asked her about it. I was having an anxiety attack for sure. I told her what I thought had happened to my co-worker. She assured me there were no bodies being identified there that night. Of course, I didn’t believe her and the mystery continued. I had no contact with anyone at Johnny’s to ask if something had happened to Di’s family. Frustrating.

It wasn’t until a week later when I finally asked someone at work, that I found out nothing had occurred with Di’s family. THANK GOD it didn’t, but that meant I imagined the entire thing. I still cannot believe that. Very, very odd and very, very real.

Surgery

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I don’t recall much about the day of the surgery. I remember being wheeled down the hallway to surgery mostly because it is painted with giant flowers. I remember being shaved in the groin and getting a shot there and that’s it.

Dori and Dave comforted each other during the surgery which lasted 2 hours. They visited the chapel and prayed for me and were greatly relieved to see Dr. Kwan come out of surgery with a smile on his face saying things went well, then to see me being wheeled out of surgery with my hand on my chin already complaining about the tape gunk on my chin from the feeding/air tube they had to insert for surgery.

Apparently, my post-anesthesia comedy show was a hit. I complained that Ashley from the ‘Dancing With The Stars’ television show was losing her microphone. Which is odd because they don’t sing anyway!

Then I said “The Care Bears are drowning”. Dori asked me if I wanted her to save the Care Bears, or if I wanted to do it? I then said with great disdain “Screw the Care Bears!”.  Comic relief. I was told nurses laughed as well. I’m glad I entertained! LOL I don’t recall a moment of it.

I vaguely recall the rest of that day and night because I got pretty sick. I could not stomach morphine, then they wanted me to swallow these massive horse pills called Nimodipin which were vital pills for me to take as they prevent vasospasms.