Breaking in on

(the more historical part of) my tale of the rare and harrowing journey, I'm going to give you, Reader Dear, a more current and up-to-date episode (Think of it as a late-breaking report!  Think of it as me shooting you a news bulletin!)  

I'VE BEEN SHOOTING MYSELF DAILY!  

Yes, yes, it's with syringes-full of medication that I inject into my belly (belly shots, anyone?)

When the doctor first intoned these words,"You will need to give yourself injections of the Lovenox during the time you are not taking blood thinners," I'd have to say it loomed overwhelmingly large in my psyche!

 I paled slightly, gulped, and whispered, "What?!  I must stab myself with a needle?!"
When he assured me that the intention was definitely for me to play nurse to myself, I then suggested hopefully "Could I come here to the office, or go to a nearby lab, or something, and get them to do it for me?"

"Well," he replied, "It must be given twice per day, about twelve hours apart."

All the way home from the doctor's office I scurried around in my mind, searching for some solution to the problem.  One thing was for sure--I could not do this! I would not be poking needles into my own flesh!
The Yard Man offered to do the task for me.  "I've stabbed horses with needles many times!" he said. (I shuddered!)

Now, Reader Dear, the necessity of stopping the blood-thinning medications was in order to go through the procedure of having my feeding tube removed (For weeks and weeks it has dangled by my side.  I have not used it during these weeks! I have changed the dressing at the point-of-entry and flushed the tube daily, but I have ingested NO nutrition through the tube in all these weeks!) There were countless communications with the gastroenterologist's office and the cardiologist's office.  Countless!  (As in, too many to bore you with the whole debacle of finding a date for the removal!)  As all things worked out, the date is set for tomorrow (We shall see.  [The cardiologist has a way of throwing a monkey wrench into the matter (again and again)])!)



So as the time drew near, I made a trip to the drugstore to collect the syringes of medication.  The druggist gave me a few pointers regarding injection of the pointy weapons (alas, it's how I thought of them),  and I carried that Rx home, trying not to dwell on the upcoming task.  I preached myself a little sermon.  If you can just do it once, you'll be okay! Millions of folks, many just as fraidy-cat as you, have done this down through the ages (well, at least the modern medical ages).  You can do it!  




Seeing as how you've already read the headline, Dear Reader Dear, you know that I did do the deed!
I looked at that long shining needle, I cringed, I gulped, I quaked, I gritted my teeth.  I mustered up all my courage and I plunged that needle into my own belly!

( Cut up a plastic jug, the drug guy said, to dispose of your syringes)

It took a moment or two for the truth to sink in--I'd actually done this frightening task!  I'd risen to the challenge!*
.......................

*It's not one of the drugs commonly injected for its buoyant and elevating effects, but it certainly gave me a HIGH, Reader Dear!

Out of the Frying Pan,

into the fire!

It's what I wrote, and what I felt.  This new place in the rehab unit in Harrisburg would nearly prove to be my undoing.




Viewer Dear, I have a record of my exact words!  Scribbled and difficult to read as they may be, it's clear I was feeling low.  Feeling helpless and hopeless!

About this time I was experiencing a strong craving for ICE CHIPS.  My throat, I suppose, was feeling the need for something cold and wet!
Because all of my sustenance was coming from a bagful of flesh-colored formula dripping into me via a tube into my belly (don't be squeamish), nothing cold or wet had gone down my throat for quite a while.  So I fantasized about crunching on ice chips. I was very nearly obsessed with the thought of ice chips! 

Now, I've never been a big fan of ice or ice chips previous to this, Reader Dear.  Nor had I any idea that when the Speech Therapist summoned me to her work room, she would first of all say to me, "I've got some ice chips to start you out with.  Ice chips and applesauce!"
Oh, the joy!
"They are blue," she said.  "That's so we can see it if you have problems."
She watched me carefully as I swallowed carefully.   I was worried about the tracheotomy tube, which entered through a hole in my neck (You wouldn't believe, Reader Dear, how many times they punctured me during this long journey!)

Everything seemed to go well with the ice chips.  My mouth turned a brilliant blue.  The Speech Therapist fed me the blue applesauce, and it seemed she was as eager to get it all into me as a harried young mother who's got to feed three other kiddies!  Then she commended me on the excellent job I'd done.  She crowed about the fact that I could now ingest real food!
"Tell your daughter," she said, "that she can make pureed things for you!  Anything that's soft and smooth!  She can bring them in to the hospital for you to EAT!"
I was already picturing the large cup of ice chips I'd be calling for an hour later!
                                                                      
.........................................................................................(My [very] blue tongue)
Except, OOPS!                                                
(It's an exceedingly bad word for one to hear in a hospital setting, Reader Dear!  Obviously, much worse to hear it from a surgeon...but quite unpleasant in any situation!)
Turns out that I began to cough.  And cough and cough and cough.  Nurses starting seeing BLUE!
(Meanwhile, I was seeing red!)

The Speech Therapist (as you may have guessed, she was the swallowing pro as well as the one in charge of forming oral words) stopped by to give me the unhappy notification that she'd been wrong.  No eating!  No more ice chips! Nothing by mouth for the foreseeable future (at least not until an X-ray  "swallowing study" had taken place.

Meanwhile, I kept on coughing.  Coughing! Coughing!
I would cough until I gagged. 

Nurses were constantly suctioning my throat.  It did not seem to help.  My throat was raw and inflamed. I was miserable.  I was getting little sleep.

Clearly, I was having a rough time!

Until about three days later.

"We're going to give you a smaller trach!" they told me.

And (skipping right over many details) they did!


Things rapidly improved.
But...
the highlight of my week was yet to come, and it has nothing to do with food, but a lot to
do with my feet!

...........

The room on 5E

was smaller than my room in the ICU.  I felt cramped (though I realize now it was my spirit that felt hemmed in).  I was so weak.  I couldn't talk.  I couldn't walk. It was a thrill just to dangle!
"Dangle?!" you may ask.  Reader Dear, it was part of the hospital jargon; it's the title for sitting on the edge of one's bed with one's feet dangling free!

I requested to dangle often. What a wonderful perspective to be had by sitting up!  Looking at the world from a reasonable angle!

After the advent of dangling, it wasn't long before I began taking tiny little steps (with a walker, or hanging onto someone, to be sure!)

And after I felt the thrill of that independence, well, I was itching to scratch "hospital stay" off my list!

There was a lot of talk about which rehab facility I should be transferred to, and which would take me.

Anywhere, anywhere! was my thought. The Yard Man and Elder Daughter made a trip to Harrisburg, PA (about 45 miles distant) to check out a hospital there, the one with a whole floor dedicated to rehab patients.  I wanted to go, sight unseen!

But the report was dismal: No! Not a good place!  The Yard Man and Elder Daughter convinced me that I would be better off spending a few more days in my current bed in 5E until they could find an opening elsewhere.  But, dear me, they had no sooner persuaded me that Harrisburg  was not the place for me than I found myself in the back of an ambulance, heading for Harrisburg!  (The local rehab facility looked at my chart and was convinced I couldn't handle their strenuous exercises; I had continued to beg for an exit from 5E ASAP! Options were severely limited!)

The ambulance ride was thrilling for its wow-I'm-out-in-the-free-world aspect!  I savored the brief glimpses of the sky from my gurney rides leaving location one and entering location two!  It was a cold and windy winter day, but if I'd have had a nice warm blanket, Dear Reader, I'd have given up six (or perhaps seven) whole days of (the upcoming) spring season for six (or perhaps seven) whole minutes outside!
  

When Mother Mary

escorted me back to reality as I've always known it, I was greeted by happy, sobbing loved ones!  There was a room with extravagant decorations--a wall banner engineered by Younger Sis and labored over with care by my little actors!  There were several vases of beautiful flowers!  There were "Thinking of You" and "Get Well Soon" cards arriving by the score! 

The family lavished attention on me!  They watched over my care with hawk-like scrutiny! They brought me the notebook and studied my scribbled notes repeatedly!

But then, too, there was round-the-clock care afforded me by the medical staff:  medications at 11:00 p.m., vital signs obtained at 12:00 a.m.,  adjustment of tubes and wires at 1:00 a.m.,  blood work at 3:00 a.m., administration of medication at 6:00 a.m., procedures (anyone for breathing tube removal?) at 8:00 a.m., vital signs at 9:00 a.m.  Ad infinitum! Night and Day!  If you are reading between the lines, Reader Dear, you will see that SLEEP was not on the schedule!

Three days after I switched from blinking my eyes to communicate and began making scratchy notes on paper, I was moved out of the Intensive Care Unit to a room on the fifth floor of the hospital, east side (5E to the initiated).  The paper wall-banner moved along with me.  The vases of flowers.  The cards and notes.  And,  (aargh) the constant interruption of sleep!

Elder Daughter brought me my own bed pillow, and a fleecy blanket, hoping to facilitate my brief trips into dreamland.  But, alas, I grew ever more sleep-deprived.  Ever more aware of my debilitated condition!

Oh, how I yearned to be out of that place!
I dreamed of sleeping long enough to dream!

He figured it out!

"Holy Mother!" Only Son exclaimed. "Holy Madre de Dios!  Is that it?! You wrote it in Spanish?!
 Oh, I was so elated! 
Yes, yes! I nodded. 
 "Mother of God?" he asked, "Holy Mother of God!?"
 Yes!  I was beaming as I verified it again.

"You wrote it in Spanish!" he repeated, somewhat incredulously.  And then he asked, "Did you see her?!"

Yes!  I nodded.

Soon after that I returned to wherever I'd come from.  Or, well, I drifted back into Land-out-of-Time.
So there you have it, Reader Dear!  My tell-all doesn't provide many details, but I tend to believe I was hobnobbing in the heavenly realms!

Of course, this curious episode raises many questions:
Obviously, I was only visiting, but why didn't more of the memory return to earth with me?!  
Was Mother Mary speaking Spanish?!  Or perhaps French?!* Am I secretly a Catholic?!
 
There's a tiny bit more to the tale of my brief expedition to another world.
The day following the one I just mentioned, Only Son and Dark-haired Daughter were by my bed.  Only Son was showing Dark-haired Daughter my scratchy Spanish words and they were exclaiming together about the revelation.
Then Dark-haired Daughter asked, "Was she wearing white?"
I requested the note pad.
This is what I wrote:  Oui *
 (Naturally, I had to make two attempts to write the word.  And naturally, my children had to catch on to the fact that I'd switched languages!)



*Do you know, Reader Dear, it is French for Yes.
And, alas, yes (oui, si, a head nod) that is my only clue to the puzzle of my journey elsewhere!