Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: hospital

Back to normal?

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Shadow is in fine fettle. So fine, indeed, that he hopped on the kitchen counter, which he is not allowed to do. He likes drinking out of sinks, but normally, he ignores that one. I had to give him his last dose of antibiotics, which was a chore. I gave him his breakfast first. 3/4ths a (small) can of his normal wet food. He scarfed it down and then I grabbed him to dose him. Which he was not a fan of.

Side note: It is snowing. Big fat flakes gently wafting to the ground. We only got a few inches yesterday, unlike most of the state that got up to a foot (and maybe more). We got maybe three or four inches, but I’m just happy to have snow at all.

Shadow struggled as I tried to dose him, even though I had him scruffed. (Grabbing him by the back of the neck as a mother cat would, though she would use her mouth, obviously.) He was happy about second breakfast which was the rest of the small can of wet food, a tube of ground up meat, several Temptations/soft treats. I also put some salmon, but he’s no longer interested in it because it’s been a few days and it’s cold. Plus, all the juices are gone. He ate all the treats and the ground-up meat and about half of the wet food. I gave him several of the soft treats. He seems to self-regulate when he’s done eating, but he’s definitely eating much more than he normally would.

I think it’s partly because he’s ravenous from being sick, but I wonder if it’s also just that he’s not been getting enough in general. He does have a bowl of dry food from which he can free feed at any time. I’m committed to giving him more food because why not be spoiled even more in his older years?

He’s back to normal. He’s meowing when he needs something or when he just wants attention. He has a lively step that was absent when he was sick. He snuggles with me when he’s cold and fucks off when he’s had enough. Right now, he’s snuggling in one of the cubbies in the big cat tree, which is one of his favorite resting places.

It actually reminds me of when I came home from the hospital. The first few days, I was just exhausted and didn’t  want to do anything. That’s how Shadow was when I took him home from the vet. He was lethargic and didn’t really want to move. He ate a bit, but he was more interested in sleeping. That was partly because he was pumped full of drugs as I was when I came home from the hospital.

I did not have a leaky bum, thankfully. That was one thing that was under my control. Having to force liquid antibiotics down his throat every 12 hours was not fun. The first few times, he didn’t have much strength to fight it, but as he got better, the anger grew stronger.

I found the best way was to scruff him from the back and jam the syringe between his lips. One quick squirt and we were done. At least that was how it worked in theory. In reality, he would wiggle or turn his head at the last moment. I dribbled the liquid down his cheek more than once. One time, I didn’t manage to fill the syringe properly. Another time, I didn’t depress the syringe the whole way. In general, though, I got the hang of it by the last few days.


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Happy re-birthday to me!

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It’s my re-birthday today. It’ll be yesterday by the time this is posted–or maybe not. I may just post it immediately after I finish. Or not at all. It’s my re-birthday, and I’ll not post if I want to. Or don’t. Whichever.

I am so graceful to still be alive. It’s trite, but true that the specter of death can make you appreciate what you have. I will admit that a year later, I am not as conscious every minute about these being my bonus days as I was in the months following my getting out of the hospital.

I would actually say this is one of the best things that ever happened to me. I can say that with the full knowledge of hindsight. I would not have said that when I woke up or the first week after I was unconscious, I was bewildered, confused, and ready to fight whomever needed fighting. I wasn’t sure who needed fighting, but I knew someone did.

I remember that I was not one second and the next second, I was. I sat up with a start and had no idea what the hell was happening. The doctors had to explain it to me, and it took a hot second for me to understand what was actually going on.

Here’s the thing. I’ve been so incredibly lucky. I should be dead. I was dead. Twice I died. Then I woke up. I was told that it would be months if not years to get me back to normal, if that ever happened. I recently watched a video of a doctor explaining the side effects of a stroke. He was saying you had to forget normal and celebrate each step you make. It was very much, “Life as you know it is over and you better resign yourself to tough times for the rest of your life.”


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Get the hell out of here 2021

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The end (of the year) is nigh and I could not be happier. This was a shit year in so many ways and I cannot wait to see the back end of it. I am really hoping that 2022 kicks 2021’s ass up, down, and all around.

I know I’m going to sound like a broken record, but let me recap the biggest event of the year for me–possibly my whole life. That may be recency bias, but it’s also an experience that literally changed my life. And it didn’t change my life at the same time. I’m sitting on my couch, looking out the window at a barren land. We’re suppose to get 2-4 inches of snow today. I’m sipping pumpkin-flavored coffee as my cat, Shadow, is snuggled down on my legs. I’m eating Limon Lays, which are faaaaantastic. I also have strawberry-pineapple flavored Mio water, which is fantastic. I’m rewatching the gingerbread house episode of Without A Recipe by the Try Guys, easily my favorite video from them in a long time, and I’m just feeling grateful to be alive. This could have happened on any day in the last year or two, minus the feeling grateful to be alive part.

To recap. Late September 2nd/early September 3rd, I was having a hard time breathing. I called 9-1-1, walked to my front door to unlock it (probably at the behest of the operator) and promptly fainted. Down I went and I remember none of this. The cops came and oxygen bagged me until the EMTs came. I had a cardiac arrest. The EMTs shocked my heart back to life. I had another cardiac arrest. They shocked my heart again. They also jabbed me with an Epi pen one of these times. Oh and I had an ischemic stroke at some point as well. The stroke is always an afterthought for whatever reason. It shouldn’t be because it’s still serious, but it’s not as deadly as a cardiac arrest. Mortality rate for an ischemic stroke after a month is roughly 28%. That’s in comparison to a sudden cardiac arrest mortality rate of 90%. I don’t think it’s cumulative, though, because if that were the case, I’d be dead twice over. Then again, I did die twice. I just happened to be resurrected twice as well.

I remained unconscious throughout this, I think? At any rate, I arrived unconscious. I can’t stop thinking of all the things that had to line up exactly right for me to survive, even to this point. My brother told me had I waited even a minute, I probably would not have been able to make the call. I’m lucky in that the cops of my city don’t really have that much to do and were able to get to me so quickly. And that they knew to bag me. I’m lucky that the EMTs were so damn good at their jobs. And I’m lucky that my heart responded to the defibs and the Epi pen.

More luck: I was taken to Regions Hospital, which has one of the best heart centers in the state. Award winning, in fact. Hell, not just the state, but the country, maybe. My brother has a friend who had a heart attack/cardiac arrest a month or so before my own medical experience. He was taken to Regions, but they didn’t have a bed, so he was taken somewhere else. He died at the other hospital.


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Sleep is my newest best buddy

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Before the hospital, I had an epic battle with sleep. I’ve written reams about it, including a full-length novel including The Endless from Neil Gaiman’s incomparable Sandman. I’ve cursed Morpheus under my breath and overtly as well. In my twenties, I had nightmares all the time. I could remember four or five a night and there was a length of time when my friends were dying in my dreams in very creative ways. It became a running joke that you weren’t really a friend of mine if you hadn’t died in one of my dreams. Hell, I died in a dream of mine once as well.

Short history: Never had good sleep. Turned out I had undiagnosed hyperthyroidism, which didn’t help. That turned into hypothyroidism when I was fourteen (destroyed thyroid) and a lifetime of bad sleep.

When I was in college, I got four hours of sleep a night. I had a portable alarm clock that I kept on my desk. One day, I woke up and couldn’t find it. It wasn’t anywhere in my dorm room, so I gave up. I opened the mini-fridge to grab a Diet Pepsi and there it was–my portable clock, I mean.

After I started Taiji, my sleep got better by increments. I was able to sleep six hours a night, but let’s talk about what made up a night. I’ve been a night owl since I was a little kid. My mom would put me to bed around eight or so and I would promptly put a towel in the crack under the door. I would read until midnight or so before going to sleep.

After college, I became a total night owl. I mean, I was one in college, but I had to attend class so I couldn’t keep my preferred hours, which were 3 or 4 a.m. (going to bed) and getting up when I got up. In my forties, I had a steady rhythm of going to bed around six in the morning and getting up at noon. Recently, I wanted to have a more ‘normal’ bedtime so I started pushing back/forward my bedtime (going to bed earlier). I made it to midnight a few times before it started creeping up again. Forward? Back? Later in the night/earlier in the morning. Soon, it had crept back to four or five in the morning.


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Doing the big shop

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Yesterday was a big day for me. I say that with tongue firmly in cheek, but it’s also true. It wouldn’t have been a big day before the hospital, but it was after. Why? Because the most noticeable change to me after what happened to me is the loss of stamina. So, yeah, what would be a normal day for me before I had my incident is now a Big Deal.

I had to get my labs done at Regions Hospital and had been putting it off for reasons. Not the jabbing (I1’m used to that by now and am not fazed by it), but familial reasons (driving. The bane of my existence at this moment). My brother agreed to drive me and I was pleasantly surprised when my parents decided not to go.

You have to understand. I am very much a loner. I need a lot of space and am used to spending most of my time on my own. I prefer it that way, honestly. So having my parents around 24/7 has been a trial. I haven’t had to live with them for this long in decades and it’s wearing me down.

At any rate, I expected them to come along yesterday, especially as we had planned to go to Costco, but they decided to stay home. It was great to be on the road with my brother in his Tesla, windows down, wind in my hair. No, it wasn’t the same as  being alone, but it was a relief to be away from my parents for a few hours. It didn’t hurt that the weather was unusually mild and the sun was beaming in the sky. I don’t normally like too much sun, but it hit the right spot yesterday.

At the hospital, my brother was pointing out what happened the first time he went there. I had read about it in the Caring Bridge, obviously, but it was different to hear it from him. It was surreal to chime in because I knew the story. It was as if he were talking about someone else and it was interesting to look at things through his eyes. Obviously, I was unconscious at that time so I was unaware of all of this.


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Don’t call it a comeback (miracle)

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If my life were a movie, it would start with me collapsing in my front hallway and the credits would roll as I woke up from a week’s long ‘sleep’ (i.e., drug-induced unconsciousness), ready to fight whomever and whatever needed fighting. I had a tube in my nose to help me breathe, but I didn’t know anything about that. All I knew was that I was in a strange place with strangers all around me, and I was having none of that. But the movie would have ended before any of my cussing was heard. The last shot would be of my eyes flying opens and the medical team cheering.

Credits roll as there’s my  Rocky montage of me leaving the hospital and taking a brisk morning constitutional every day–going a bit farther with each walk. No, it’s not that inspirational so maybe roll credits as I leave the hospital. That’ll leave them crying, right? I’m being sarcastic because I’m becoming more and more uncomfortable with the miracle label.

Look. I get that these are hard times. We’re still in the middle of a pandemic in which the best we can hope for is that it becomes like the flu. A few thousand people die from it every year, but it’s mostly treatable. We get a shot that covers the five or six most likely strains per use and roll the dice. The best we can hope for is that wearing masks will remain a thing along with social distancing, but I don’t hold out hope for that. The Republicans are Republicanning and I have all but checked out of politics because it’s just grim.

I know more than one person has mentioned that they needed good news such as my medical story arc. I don’t begrudge people that, but it’s my actual life–the one I’m still living. That one slice of my life is inspiring, sure, but only if you keep a tight focus on that one week. If you pull back the camera to show more of the context, well, it becomes less inspirational. And, not to be too cynical, but’s not actually about me, the person. Why do I say that? Because it could have happened to anyone. I didn’t have a hand in the miracle that everyone keeps claiming happened. Ok, yes, my fourteen years of Taiji practice has probably helped me come back as close to ‘normal’ as I did, but the rest was love and luck. Neither of which I had anything to do with.


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The biggest change

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Before I went into the hospital, my sleep sucked. A brief summary: I was hyperthyoid when I was a kid and severely depressed. I rarely fell asleep before midnight and my sleep was sparse. I got maybe four hours a night in college, which was not nearly enough. Every time I went home for vacation or summer, I slept fifteen hours the first night. In college, I had a light purple portable alarm clock that I kept on my desk (which was right by my bed). One day, I woke up and couldn’t find my alarm clock. I looked all over the dorm room and couldn’t find it. I finally gave up and opened my mini-fridge so I could grab a Diet Pepsi. Hey, it’s caffeine. No reason I couldn’t drink it instead of coffee in the morning. Anyway, when I opened the door to the mini-fridge and there was my portable alarm clock.

Taiji helped me with my sleep–marginally. In increments. After several year, I was able to sleep six hours a night, waking up twice. I went from going to bed at between six and eight in the morning, waking up six hours later. I worked on pushing my sleep time back. Or is it forward? Earlier is what I mean. I managed to get it to one in the morning before I started slipping back. I am an inveterate night owl and I couldn’t help staying up a little bit longer each night. By the time I went into the hospital, I was going to bed around three or four in the morning.

All that came to a crashing halt when I went into the hospital. First of all, I was kept sedated and unconscious for a week. When I woke up, I had to get my vitals taken every four hours so my sleep was constantly interrupted. I slept a  lot, though, despite that because of the sedation meds still in my blood and the trauma my body went through. I was sleeping most of the time for the first few days I was awake.

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In the beginning

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It’s been a minute, hasn’t it? My last post is from September 3rd, which is the day my life changed. I’m not exaggerating, by the way. I know it sounds like hyperbole, but if anything, I’m underselling it. You se, I was in the hospital and unconscious a few hours after this was posted. It’s a lot for me to digest and even though I’ve been home three weeks, I’m still mulling over what happened.

I’m not ready to get into all the gruesome details, but suffice to say that I was unconscious for a week in ICU, woke up, and spent another week in PCU regaining myself to the point where I could be discharged. The first few days I was awake, there was talk of intensive physical therapy (PT) and other therapies as well (including occupational and speech). On the second or third day, the physical therapist said that she had nothing else for me because I had succeeded all expectations.

After waking up, I learned that I had not been expected to live. With all that was going on with me, I was given a 10% chance to make it through. When I woke up (and would not stop talking, apparently), there was talk of months of rehab and maybe me staying at a rehab facility before going home.


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