Anyone who knows me, knows that twelve years ago, on this day in November, I came home from the hospital. I had been in a coma for just over a month after a surgical complication. After waking in the ICU, I spent another 3 weeks in rehab trying to learn how to walk and feed myself again. And this is where our story picks up.
Stairs.
My physical therapist on the rehab floor, Lloyd, was a great fellow. Easy going, showed up in the ICU with a smile, and made sure that my hospital bed was arranged so that my body was propped and bent at the hips in bed, in hope of avoiding more back issues down the road. That was a big deal. For a month, they (the generic THEY) had left my body in a chemically induced coma. The plan was to keep the body from dying while it fought off nearly every ailment that can hit you in the ICU; sepsis, peritonitis, pneumonia, MRSA, pleural effusion, you name it.
What made Lloyd such a stand out guy was that he wasn't phased by it. When he walked into my ICU room, he was upbeat. He didn't have a treatment plan for me yet. The previous PT had left me terrified. At this point I had been unconscious for five weeks, and had near total muscular atrophy. I couldn't lift my arms to scratch my nose. They would prop me in a chair under the premise that it would help me move the crap that was in my lungs from the pneumonia. Bear in mind, I had a major abdominal wound big enough you could fit a fist into (past the wrist), plus no core muscle.... which made sitting in a chair an exercise. It felt like I was about to fall over. It was terrifying. The staff couldnt understand why I was so reluctant. Oh, I left out the fun part. I couldn't talk. I was still living with the tracheostomy at this point. No talking when you have a hole in your throat and tubes to help you breathe.
Let's talk about tubes. And hoses and wires and leads. Out of every orifice and into holes I wasnt born with, came tubes, lines, hoses and drips. In order to move me to the chair I required the use of a Hoyer Lift (https://www.hoyerlift.com/). Yes, they strapped me into this lift with straps under me, usually pinching my catheter, tugging at my O2 sensor, snagging on my IV lines... it was a mess. The pain was only made worse by the fact that I couldn't do anything to make it better. I couldn't say anything to tell anyone how much pain I was in. All I could do was cry. Once I was set down into the chair, I would be covered in tears and sweat. I think some of the staff thought that I would be happy... but I was terrified.
Back to Lloyd.
He came into the ICU one day and was talking about my potential treatment plan with Nancy. He wanted to know more about me. He was asking where I had gone to college. Nancy explained that I had gone to Hampshire College. Surprise! He know about Hampshire and the Five Colleges. He started trying to explain that the cartoon show, Scooby Doo was a reference to the Five Colleges. When he got to explaining that Shaggy represented Hampshire, I was smiling pretty hard. While probably not true in the least, it was funny. I hadn't heard anything funny in eons at that point.
The next day there was no PT but the nurse on duty realized that I was suffering from severe ICU syndrome, also known as ICU psychosis. All of the beeping, the lack of daylight, the lack of quiet, was all affecting my mind. So this nurse asked the ICU intensivist if I could be taken outside to see the sun. It was a glorious late October day, the day after it had snowed. She bundled me up like a swaddled baby, in layers of blankets and then they carefully lifted me into the same chair I had struggled to sit up in. They propped pillows and more rolled blankets beside me. (I came to find out later that nearly everyone who had cared for me had slept in this chair. Nancy had spent nearly a month camped out in it.)
Once I was adequately propped and blanketed, they proceeded to roll me down the hall to the elevator. IT HAD WHEELS! I know I shouldn't be surprised by wheels on a reclining chair, but I was amazed. They reclined me and slowly rolled me from the elevator into the main lobby and towards the front door. As the recliner went across the threshold, it went across a series of corrugations that felt like the biggest speed bumps... but it was just little divots across the entryway. The nurse, Lloyd and Nancy helped get my chair across the driveway and out onto a strip of land where I wouldnt be run into by cars rushing to the emergency room. It was so quiet. There were birds. I had forgotten about birds. The leaves were stunning gold. The air was so sharp and crisp. Everyone was wearing coats and jackets. I was steaming inside my mega-bundle of blankets. I asked the nurse if she could unwrap me so that I could cool down. Heat was my enemy. I had run a fever of over 104F during the pneumonia stage of the coma. It had left me terrified of being hot. Patiently, she unwrapped a few layers of my blankets, leaving me to steam out into the chill air. Everyone walking by must have wondered what on earth this guy was doing, steaming outside like that. Hard to explain.
Going back inside felt like going back to jail.
I knew I wasnt being punished, but I still could only talk with someone else putting their finger over my passy muir valve in my tracheostomy. I didnt have the strength to hold my hand to my throat yet. It also limited me to one word at a time. One breath, one syllable. Keep it simple, right? How do you try to explain all the craziness in your head, all of the questions, fears and delusions, when the very thing that lets you breathe keeps you to one syllable at a time. Two or three words and I was so exhausted that I would sleep for a few hours.
A few days later, after I had managed to pass the "swallow test" where they fed me blue dyed apple sauce and then watched it move through my intestines via x-ray (live!).... they finally released me from the ICU. I was initially moved into a step-down ward for a day before being allowed onto the rehab floor.
On the day that I arrived in rehab, I was intensely scared. Many of the nurses had told me "PT is gonna work you so hard. You are going to be so sore." I couldnt sit up on my own yet. I couldnt stand.
The first few people I met in rehab were the two occupational therapists and the head of the department. There was the most amazing smell of baking cookies coming from the room adjacent to my new room. I know that the staff was dutifully telling me something important about what my schedule of treatment would be and how my room worked or something like that.... but all I could think about was the smell of chocolate chip cookies. I interrupted one of them, asking where that smell was coming from. They explained that as people healed and were able to resume functionality, they would bake and cook as part of their occupational therapy. Oh, now this was something I could get behind.
As they wrapped up their conversation with Nancy and I, they said something about having the following day off. No PT. No torture. A day off. Oh, and I was allowed to order anything I wanted from kitchen at any time. Huh.
I had no idea.
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