Category: Fear

Set Free!

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I was awakened at 6:00 this morning to hear my nurse say these were my last two pills of Nomidipin. I said “Don’t toy with me” and she said she thought I was going home today. Well….THAT woke me up!

Shortly there after, Dr. D’angelo came into tell me the final word. I could go home today. YIPPEEE!!!!

I emailed and IM’d Dave immediately, as well as all my friends and family and it was all I could do to not put my clothes on, pack up and sit there, but I knew Dave needed to get some things down at home first, then he still had to drive down to Portland. He said he’d be there around 10:00. What to do…what to do!

I ate breakfast, changed my clothes slowly, picked up some things….slowly! LOL I didn’t want to get everything together and sit and wait. I did walk the 6th floor my last two times…mostly looking for Lisa, the physical therapist who had helped me out so much. I really felt, as did Dave, that I had a kindred soul there in Lisa.

She actually ended up finding me back in my room once she had heard I was being discharged and we had a nice moment of appreciation towards one another. I truly appreciated her kindness, understanding and friendship during my stay there.

My new room mate also told me she’d miss me! So sweet. We had only spend one night together and we had both slept well, so if I had had to stay another night in the hospital, her company would have been very welcome. I hope she got a new room mate who was kind and quiet.

Dave arrived, we got my walking papers and packed up. As I was wheeled down to the elevator, we saw several of the nurses who had helped me and s a couple of the Dr’s. I think them all and they all seemed quite please I was doing so well and could finally go home and wished me well.

Dave pulled the car around, I climbed in and that was it! Going home.

When the aneurysm happened, we were getting close to making some final decisions on the bathroom remodeling, but this obviously put everything on hold. Dave had stopped at a place in Saco, south of Portland, where he found the shower and a similar tub, so since we were right there, I decided I should take advantage of it and stop by.

Getting into the car and driving proved to be difficult. After looking at the same walls and hallway for three weeks, the stimili provided by passing cars, houses, etc. was a bit difficult. But tolerable.

We stopped at the bath place. As I was getting ready to carefully climb into the empty tub for a “dry fit”, we explained to the sales girl where we had just come from and what happened. She then told us of a story of her 47 year old aunt who had an aneurysm and died instantly…she had six kids. I could not get that out of my head and had an emotional time with it. Again, it made me realize just how lucky I was…just how lucky I was to be here at all and made me question why I was given the gift of life and she wasn’t? I will no doubt struggle with that for a time. Survivor’s guilt?

I wanted one thing before we got home…a Big Mac!!! So we stopped at McDonalds for the big meal…fries, soda and the Big Mac! It tasted VERY good!!

We arrived home an hour later. I was expecting to be more emotional when we pulled into the driveway. It was more a relief to be here than anything else.

Entering the house a wave of relief washed over me, then the kitties came to greet me at the door. Lexie ran right up, but Smokey was very hesitant. He’s so funny. Took him awhile to get use to ME being there! And Dave hasn’t been home during the day for three weeks either, so the two of us being there, really threw them I think. I got emotional then. I was with my family and I was home and I was alive.

Dave needed to get groceries, so he left a short time later to get us some food. I called my mother and sat down with a nice, hot pot of good tea! I had been craving that for weeks. It tasted fantastic.

While Dave was out, I walked around the house a bit and it was very odd. When I had left the house that morning for the emergency room, the leaves were turning and it was warm outside. Upon entering the house this day, it was like I was gone three months, or that time had stood still….there were now NOW leaves on the trees, it was VERY chilly outside, my calendar in my computer room was still on September and things I had planned to do the next day (Oct. 5th) were still sitting there waiting to be done.

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.