September 30th, 2005, revisited

Home.

This is the third anniversary of me coming home from the hospital.

My wife came and took me home from the physical rehab hospital. It was a gorgeous day. It was cool and sunny, with high white clouds in a bright blue sky. It was wonderful.

All I wanted was to be home with my wife, and the sheer joy of riding in the car with her is hard to describe. Somehow I knew, I felt, how long I had been in the hospital. I had only been conscious for part of the time, but I had experienced the whole thing. I knew that I had been away. I wanted to be home. I wanted to be with my wife. Finally, I was. Just being in the car and enjoying the sun and the Autumn air, sitting beside my wife, being alive and going home, was all that I could ask for.

I was going home.

I am home, now, with my wife. What more could I ask for?

Older than dirt

So the other day I was writing some stuff about doctors and such, and MS Word wanted to correct my spelling. I may be old, but do I really need to be examined by a paleontologist?

Mind like a steel sieve

Oops. I said that the 22^nd was the day that I left the ICU. Nope. I left the ICU on the 17^th. The 22^nd was the day I was supposed to be transferred to a physical rehab hospital, which happened on the 23^rd because a bed wasn’t available on the 22^nd.

Oh well. Don’t know where that came from.

September 22, 2005, revisited

You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting much. I decided to stop the hospital update stuff. While I think that sharing my ICU experiences may help some people, I don’t think that the minute details are that important. I’ll mention a few things here, and if anyone wants to know more just ask.

I want to say that I have great respect for the nurses who work in the ICU, the doctors as well, but they come and go and the nurses are there all shift. The environment is designed to facilitate caring for critically ill patients; it is not congenial to normal living. There is something called ICU psychosis that affects patients, and the nurses are not immune to all of the effects. One of the things that can get to the nurses in the ICU is that their patients are so bad off. By way of evidence, I offer the following.

This is the day I was moved from the ICU to a regular room. Now, I understood that this was significant, but all I was doing was lying in bed. The nurses on duty told me I was going to be moved, and then when everything was set they came in to get all my stuff together – cards, the electric razor my wife bought for me because I was on blood thinners and a regular razor was a big no-no, a special card that my wife had brought for me, and there was the Black Knight that was watching over me.

Other ICU nurses started stopping by to help, but there wasn’t room for them. I didn’t really understand why they were all so excited. When they wheeled me out of the ICU space and over to the elevator on the other side of the ICU, every nurse working there said hi and wished me luck and congratulated me on getting out of the ICU, and they were all smiling like crazy and everyone knew me. Even the guy cleaning the floor knew who I was and was smiling and wishing me luck and all. I did not understand what was going on.

OK, maybe I’m dense. I had been in that ICU for 6 weeks (the first week was at another hospital), and I had been almost dead. They all knew that. I had been there so long everyone knew who I was. They all knew how sick I had been. They all knew that I almost died. They don’t see people that sick get out of the ICU that often, and when they do, they end up back there again. I was getting out because I had recovered and they knew that I was going to make it. They were all happy to see that I had survived. They were happy to see me going to a regular room. It was a big deal.

I think I’m beginning to get it.*

In my defense, I was still pretty drugged up, which not only kept me from worrying too much – I just kind of accepted everything and took it as it came – but may have made me slow on the uptake. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

And I still say that there was a cat in the ER.

*Yeah, I’m slow, I’ve had stuff on my mind.

We the People

Today is the 221st birthday of the Constitution. It has had a long and storied life since its birth in the 18th Century. It has both retained its original meaning and strength, changed to accommodate more enlightened thinking and has also been better understood – it had a funny accent and spoke with an early American dialect so sometimes people were confused about what it meant, it also had a habit of speaking in metaphor.

It has also been abused, attacked and ignored. It is not doing well in its old age, having been trampled and neglected in recent years. It’s on life support right now, waiting for its children – that would be the citizens of the US – to revive it. Well, I’ve been on life support myself, and while it is not a great place to be, I know that the right application of care and attention can do wonders for someone in that position. You may not come back exactly as you were before, but you can come back – maybe even better in some ways. It just takes the proper care.

But inattention and lack of concern is fatal.

Let's all pay attention.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Happy Birthday! And may you enjoy many more in good health.

September 12th, 2005, revisited

This is the anniversary of the beginning of my sequential memory. There are a few memories from the previous few days, some may even be from as early as the 5^th, but I don’t know for sure. There was my wife telling me that I had been unconscious for 6½ weeks and that New Orleans was gone. There were also some times when I was trying to communicate. I couldn’t even try to talk because of the trach, so my wife tried everything she could. A Scrabble board with words and letters arranged alphabetically – but when I tried to point to letters I couldn’t control my hand. I’d try to spell out words but I kept pointing at the same spot. I couldn’t write so all I could do was scribble on the whiteboard that she brought. And when I did try to make a sound, I was so fixated on what I wanted to say I wouldn’t try simpler words, but since nothing much came out it didn’t make a big difference.

My wife wrote words on a page but I couldn’t manage to point to the right word. I also didn’t understand what was going on, I apparently thought that the only thing wrong with me was that I was stuck in that bed with tubes coming out of me from so many places: I couldn’t talk, or move, or control my own body, I didn’t know what was happening, and I was frustrated and upset. My wife is an angel. She understood how I felt and did everything to help me.

My wife was really good at reading my mind, so she knew what I wanted and needed. Which was a good thing because I couldn’t make myself understood.

When they first woke me up, apparently the big thing was for the nurses to ask me to move so they could tell if I was all right: trying to see if I could understand and respond and still move. Someone, some doctors or nurses, kept scaring my wife for no reason, saying that I wasn’t waking up fast enough or responding right so there might be serious brain damage. Assholes. I was just having a hard time getting out of the sedatives. Some nurses did mention that, saying that some people take days or weeks to come out of it after being under for so long.

There was one time when my wife was there and everyone was asking me to wiggle my toes. I didn’t respond. Everyone thought that that was a bad sign. A friend was with my wife and said that I was probably just sick of doing it and was teasing them. I heard that and I smiled. Apparently that’s what I was doing. All I could do was wiggle my toes and they kept asking me and I got tired of it – I don’t remember, but it sounds like something that I would do.

I was frustrated. I didn’t know what was happening to me or why I had to prove that I could breathe on my own. I didn’t know that I had almost died; I just wanted the trach out. I wanted more control of myself.

What I remember from the 12^th, I think, was a nurse asking me if I knew where I was. Now, I had heard someone say that I had been transferred, but I thought I had heard California or Kentucky and I decided that wasn’t right. But I didn’t know what hospital I was in even though I did know that I was in a hospital. But I couldn’t see any signs, or even a laundry mark on the linen, and the nurse’s ID badge was turned around. I didn’t know I was in the ICU but I knew that I was in a hospital. So I told the nurse, who looked around and at their badge and realized that, no, there was no way to know where I was exactly. The important thing was that I knew that I was in a hospital.

That was the beginning of me getting out of the ICU. Well, maybe not that moment, but once I was more or less out of the sedation, and could interact, and could start working at improving, then I could start to get better.

September 9th, 2005, revisited

And you thought that I had forgotten. Nope, just waited until now.

There was one other milestone a few days ago, which is when I got off of dialysis after about 5 weeks. It’s a significant day, but I didn’t want to bore anyone with too many posts like this. But I do want those who may be interested to be able to read about the important parts, the major events that maybe we all share, the things that have redefined our lives. So on to today.

I think this is the day they did the tracheostomy. More to the point, this is the first day that I have a memory from. They started taking me off of the sedation a few days earlier, but after having that much in me for so long, it took a while to wear off enough. In fact, some of the effects lasted at least a year. But at some point on the 9^th I woke up enough to know that I was awake.

I remember two things, the first two things that I remember anyway, and for me they sum up the whole thing. I woke up, I saw my wife, and she told me that it had been six and a half weeks, and New Orleans was gone.

Everyone thought that I would be out for maybe three days. Somewhere in my head I knew that, and when my wife said six and a half weeks I was, well, I don’t think that there is a word for how I felt. Stunned works. With flabbergasted thrown in. And confused. I couldn’t believe it. I’m not sure I can even now. It’s too outrageous.

As for the New Orleans thing, well, I don’t think my wife said it like that, but I remember those two things so they get stuck together in my head. How could I have been under for that long? How does a city just disappear? Maybe you can understand my confusion.

Now, I’m not entirely sure that my memory of my wife telling me this is from this day. She told me several times and since I remember the 9^th I think of the memory as being of then – I put the two first memories, day and event, together. The truth is I don’t really remember that it was the 9^th. My first memory that stuck, the day that started a return of consecutive memory, was September 12^th. I remember things sequentially from then. I do remember that I was awake for three days where my memories were disjointed; I didn’t remember things in any particular order. I specifically remember one time when something happened and I thought to myself that I would remember it, but out of order. My brain was so mixed-up it noticed that it was mixed-up even in a mixed-up state. I don’t actually remember what that event was, though.

So I have a few memories scattered through the 9^th to the 11^th, and I’ll share some of them over the next few days.

A doctor a day – no wait, that’s not right

Today was another doctor day, number 24 I think. I’ve lost track. I have to check my calendar.

Anyway. I’m trying to be more active on-line, so I will post, but I can’t guarantee the content. Here’s some: Bob Newhart, Al Stewart, Dweezil Zappa, Loudon Wainwright III and Darryl Zanuck were all born on this day, though in different years.

It’s raining here, it’s been trying to get started for a couple of hours. Hanna has arrived, or at least sent a calling card to announce her approach. Tomorrow will be a day to stay inside, if you have that option.

See, words on the screen but not much content.

More later, of indeterminate quality. Just enough to prove that I’m still around. If you comment, or have a blog I should be reading and commenting on, give me a while. I’m having enough trouble keeping my own going. I’ll be more sociable in the future.

Near Death Inexperience

No, nothing recent. I was just thinking about something – amazing, huh? Someone, I don’t remember who, asked me if I had a near-death experience. I don’t remember one. There was one point when I was balancing, right on the point of the fulcrum, between life and death. At least it felt that way. My wife pulled me through that. It’s too personal to go into more detail.

But I think it was because my heart stopped once that I get that question. Maybe since it started again on its own it didn’t qualify. One interesting thing, though; there are people who say that NDOs are not real; that they are caused by the lack of oxygen as the brain begins to die. You know, lack of oxygen is something I have considerable experience with, and I never had an experience like that. My 02 levels went way down. Really low. Almost dead low. Ow my brain is starving for oxygen low. No tunnels of light or anything like that. I had some dreams with dead relatives in them, but I don’t think that counts.

I think it’s more complicated than what people think.

Or maybe I just suffered too much from a lack of oxygen.

My head's been spinning with other things lately, sorry I haven't posted. Maybe I'll start blogging about my daily experiences and really bore everybody. Anyway, I'm going to try to be more active here.