Drugs, Healthcare Workers and, Meeting a Red-Pilled Nurse in the Wild.

So a few things happened in the next few weeks during my December stay in the hospital.

I woke early one morning as a nurse came in for vitals. I was drugged and groggy. I remember looking at her badge and noticing it was different than the hospital badges. I assumed she was a travelling nurse. I remember looking at her face, and noticing her coral lipstick. She had no mask. I had been sleeping with mine on. She was asking me questions as she was taking my vitals. Then she asked if I was vaccinated. I replied I was, and was just set to get the new bivariant shot, but wound up admitted again the day before the appointment. She sighed and looked troubled.

She told me she was from India and that in India they know the body is an amazing machine. I started looking at her badge as she was talking. I remember two crossed palm trees and repeated letter Vs in her name. She then said words that were like a punch in the gut with two drain lines in it.

You know, she said, You did this to yourself by getting those vaccines. They are not FDA approved and are being used under an emergency use clause. Many people are getting sick from them. What you should have been doing was taking plenty of vitamin C, eating well with lots of vegetables, and getting good sleep. The vaccine isn’t safe and you wouldn’t be here if you had avoided it.

I was stunned. I wanted to slap her and push her away. I focused on her badge and turned away because I felt deeply hurt at her words. As much as I wanted to attack her, I couldn’t, and didn’t have the energy to do anything other than turn my heard and literally feel myself disassociate. I nodded out on the drugs. When I opened my eyes, her portable computer and vitals cart were there, but she was not. I nodded out again. When I came to: her carts were gone and so was she.

Later that day I had to go back to IR and have my drains checked and possibly adjusted. I was having the “I know I remember what they are doing to me when I’m partially sedated” anxiety by the time they wheeled me in to prep I was really spinning on that and on the nurse who took vitals at dark thirty. My IR team member who was prepping me under the Mylar blanket with warm air lines asked how I was doing? I felt like I was going to cry. I remember her kindness from my first IR procedure and I just broke down and told her that something had happened last night and I didn’t know who to talk to about it. She stopped what she was doing and moved up closer to my face. She asked if I felt unsafe and I said yes. She adjusted her mask and asked why. I told her about the night nurse. The no mask, coral lipstick wearing, anti-vaccine nurse and how she vaccine shamed me, frightened me, angered me and BLAMED ME for everything that brought me to the ER and all the resulting complications that went on with my diverticulitis case.

As I spoke and she listened, I could actually see her masked jaw, hit the ground as she went through the roof at the same time. She was angry and made sure to tell me that was abusive and a violation of my patient rights. She wanted to know if I remembered her name. I told her all I remembered were repeated Vs and two crossed palm trees on her badge. She expressed how angry she was and told me she was going to elevate the issue. She apologized a few times for the nurse’s behavior to me. I thanked her for her kindness and told her I was hesitant to say anything because I was having medication issues, like night terrors and paranoia as well as having hallucinations and I was afraid my nurse experience would be seen as a hallucination if I told my various surgical teams on their multiple daily visits. She took the time to talk to me about the drugs and my reactions to them, not being abnormal. She assured me it was OK to tell my doctors what I was experiencing after so long on the pain pump. Then she wheeled me into the procedure room and the doctors and I began the procedure to check my drains and possibly move the number one drain.

I’d like to point out here that a procedure done under partial anesthesia is NOT surgery. Surgery, I was informed only happens under full sedation. I replied, “But you cut me!”. They were small cuts, but they were deep into my belly, through fat, muscle and tissue all the way down to insert a plastic tube with a bag on the other end, all that way into my sigmoid colon. Nope, they were procedures, not surgery.

This particular procedure told my surgeon that the drain would stay in till I could have the sigmoid removed, but I had to have an ileostomy, so a few days later I had actual surgery to receive a poop bag. The surgery was fine. My surgeon was great and she took excellent care of me and really helped me be less anxious. The ileostomy on top of the two drain remaining lines was not amazing. I was discharged on Christmas day. It was the first Christmas in 8 years that I wasn’t lost in the anniversary of Mel’s stroke. I was aware of it, but I was really present in the here and now and how foreign my body had become to me.

Back at my sister’s and under her amazing care I had six to eight weeks to recover from the surgery, to then FINALLY going in for the sigmoid removal. I slowly got better at moving and showering and I saw myself in the mirror for the first time. I had lost all of my pandemic weight and then some. My face was narrow, my arms were smaller and I had skinny legs. I didn’t recognize myself. Nothing fit, and if it did, I had drain lines and an ostomy bag in the way. My skin was so sore from continual taping of the lines as well as the adhesive on the ostomy bag. Depending on the weight of the bag and what I was doing, tape would pull tensions on my skin.

I will never be able to express my gratitude and love for the empathetic, compassionate care my little sister willingly and fairly selflessly gave from November till I had and recovered from my sigmoid removal. She is so fucking good at wound care and has a compassion and bedside manner that no one else came close to. Part of it is because we are sisters, the other part is that she is just very good at wound care. She is gentle, detailed, anal-retentive and compulsive-obsessive with her taping, and very able to put herself in the person’s place and affords a loving care that I feel is rare.

The IR visit where I told my nurse about the anti-vax nurse, they gave me completely new drain lines and bags as well as repositioning the number 1 drain. the number 1 line was a bigger tube and it wanted to bend and kink so I actually had to have it replaced between the ostomy and the sigmoid surgeries. I have a final IR procedure to write about.

I don’t want to go into it now though. I suppose the next time I have a panic attack during coffee and I’m fighting tears, I’ll return.

PS, if you are an anti-vax healthcare worker or student planning on going into the medical field, you have NO FUCKING BUSINESS in that profession and you need to:

The Fall (TRIGGER WARNING: Trauma and photos)

On the morning of November 6th, 2022 I was at work. Around 9:30 AM I was on the line cooking when suddenly I felt the most intense pain in my lower abdomen and doubled over. I did some breathing and pushed through it, continued working, but was very uncomfortable.

At around 11:00, the executive chef came in and not long after that the intense pain began again. I sat in the abandoned Director’s office and began crying. My executive chef told me to go to the Emergency room. I couldn’t walk down stairs to the time clock, so his wife took my badge, and went and clocked me out.

I remember going home, driving to a nearby urgent care and discovering it was closed. I went back home trying to decide where to go, and what hospital accepted the new insurance I acquired with the job I started in July of 22. I doubled over in pain, and passed out. When I woke up I had my mom take me to the ER where various tests were run. I know the appendicitis test involves pushing down on the right side of the abdomen, then when the pressure is released, the patient usually yells and they rush you off for an appendectomy. I didn’t yelp. When they moved to the left side and pushed, I cried at the pressure and begged for them to stop the pain.

This is where it gets fuzzy.

Drugs.

CT scan.

SO much bloodwork.

Dark room.

Doctor, after doctor, after nurse after nurse and hour upon hour. More drugs. All while knowing I wasn’t going home that night, or to work anytime soon. After many hours and many people working to keep me out of pain a surgeon came in and told me I had acute diverticulitis, with a perforated bowel and I needed part of my sigmoid colon removed. They were admitting me for IV antibiotics to lower my white blood count. I’d be on a liquid diet and work back up to solids, get my white blood count down, then go home, let my system recover, get back to work and schedule my pending sigmoid removal.

Now to lay out the proper official time line, I’d have to pull out my folder of admittance sheets and the bills that are pouring in to give accurate dates and at the moment, I can’t deal with it so the time line is rough at best.

Five days later I was sent home, told to rest for a week and then return to work. The day before I was to return to work, the pain was back and more intense. My mother was sick and couldn’t get out of bed (chronic pain, 80 years old and I’m usually caring for her) so she called a friend of mine who came and got me to return me to the ER, where I was told I had one, possibly more abscesses and needed an Interventional Radiology procedure to drain the abscess. I was again admitted and scheduled for my IR procedure.

The IR procedure I had was a partial sedation, which freaked me out. They explained what drug combo and why and all I heard was Fentanyl and it scared me. Also the thought of wanting me aware enough to communicate freaked me out.

I was wheeled in bed to the IR floor, where the first team to care for a freaked out and pain riddled me began buzzing all around me. I decided this was a good time to have a panic attack or something and the administration of sedation began. They were all so kind and so caring. I barely remember being wheeled in the “procedure room” and moved onto the table. The next thing I remember, I am waking up with the team buzzing around me telling me it was over and I did good. Then someone put something in my hand. I was confused and still sedation groggy.

At 5:01 PM on November 14th, I found out I was the proud owner of a wound drain running to the abscess and fistula in my sigmoid colon.

By November 17th, I had two more drains added so I had two in front and one in back to the right of my lower spine area. More IV antibiotics, blood work and a pain pump.

Each time I had to go back into the IR, it caused me so much anxiety, even though I don’t remember the procedure. I had the sense I knew exactly what happened and it was buried. Turns out one of the drugs used creates an amnesia of sorts.

On Thanksgiving I was released again and told to go home and come back if I had any issues, otherwise, see you in two weeks for a follow up. I couldn’t go home, because I needed help with wound/drain care, and my living area is tiny, small and not contusive to the healing I needed to do. I went to my sister’s place and took advantage of her CNA skills. On the tenth morning, I woke up and went to lift my gown and got a handful of green puss.

On December 4th, I was admitted again. More IV antibiotics, liquid diets and drugs.

Most of my life I was told I am allergic to most opiates and therefore have spent years suffering through some chronic flares from inflammatory type of auto immune diseases. It was during all of this, I was told that most of the symptoms I listed with drugs taken, were not allergic reactions, but side effects of the drugs, so they opened the door of narcotics to me and I was given Dilaudid® in the pain pump, as well as oxycodone, tramadol and some other pain meds.

At some point during my December stay, I began having medication night terrors, I began hallucinating. I saw a portal in the wall and could see a hallway that wasn’t there, and I began thinking my night nurse wanted to kill me, because even though I had the privacy curtain closed, I could see his reflection in the highly polished floor. He was just sitting there, listening. Drug paranoia was strong in me. I had been having night terrors and I woke up crying and telling someone to “FUCK OFF!”. I am sure he was just doing his job and monitoring me, but I just became suspicious and afraid of him, every time he came in to flush my drains and give me more drugs.

I also began blowing out IV’s because I guess IV antibiotics are hard on your veins. My normal healthy veins, usually stand up a bit and people in labs always comment on what pretty veins I have so to have IV blow outs and lab workers being unable to find veins was a totally new and traumatizing event.

A word of advice here on IV’s. Sometimes lab workers will use this little tool that makes a ratchetting sound to be able to use the IV line to do blood draws. DON’T let them. Make them draw through your skin. They have less chance of blowing out the IV vein. I had to have ultra sounds to move IV lines and they FINALLY gave me a midline which wound up being traumatic because the technician had tremors and blew the first attempt out. I started to panic because the tremors he was having hurt me and I had to do it again. They wound up having to give me something for anxiety in order to let him continue, so he went and got some Novocain for attempt two. It worked and the line was in. He said he was sorry for the pain and asked me if I was OK? I said yes, but that the movement I felt while he did the first one was quite painful. He apologized again and said he was sorry, that he lives with tremors that he usually is able to control. He then asked me to tell him where I was. To show him I recovered and had my faculties, I stated my name, the hospital I was in and that I knew Joe Biden is President. He turned and looked at me with real anger and snapped back at me, “That last thing is HIGHLY debatable!” The nurse and I just looked at one another and said nothing. When he left, she looked at me and said she was sorry for that comment.

I think I’ll stop here for now, but when I write again. I will write about telling my doctors about the night terrors, paranoia and hallucinations. I’ll write about the POS antivax nurse that crossed my path not too long after this happened, and the next IR procedure along with the amazing nurse who listened to me break down right before the drain checks and possible repositioning.

I want to clarify, that I am writing all this, because for the last week, when I go outside to have my morning coffee, I have had flashbacks that have left me feeling teary, overwhelmed and dancing with trauma. I keep pushing those things down when what I need to do is process them. They really tie into the loss of Mel too because of some of the drugs they had me on, were drugs they found in her system after her stroke. I also saw her in the portal hallway and I really could have used my best friend during everything that was happening, but she’s been gone 8 years now. This medical trauma has weaved itself onto the best friend loss trauma.

I’m really thinking of looking into EDMR for all of this.

Letting Go of His Hand

New Job, new insurance and as far as I know my therapist is not covered.

It’s been 9 years.

I first saw him in 2013 about “The Girl”. I would go for 4 to 6 months, talk a bit, process a bit then go back. We did that off and on for the first year, then Mel died. I went quiet on a lot of it and saw him a few times the first few years, but wasn’t ready to be unstuck from the grief. I wasn’t ready to tell him the things I saw, or felt, of how out of control my life was because I was so angry and so, so stuck in the anger, the collateral damage grief causes and not knowing how to just get out of the oncoming traffic.

I went back in 2018 and had regular weekly visits. It took me till 2019 to tell him everything.

I remember telling him about what I call the “waterboarding”. I remember telling him the fear I saw in her eyes, and how that was the last moment her eyes were open, and we ever looked at one another, and she was full of fear. I remember telling him of her mother exposing her body to everyone in the room, and feeling my body lean over my best friend, and deciding if grabbing her mother by her pony tail and beating the fuck out of her, would be worth going to jail in Texas. I remember looking up and seeing my therapist crying at what I was telling him my best friend and I went through in those moments and I thought, “Oh fuck, I broke my therapists!” I remember asking him if everyone was as fucked up and as broken as me? I remember him gently telling me I have PTSD (again, still, whatever) but that mine was a little more complicated…

I just shared with him, in my last visit that the moment I saw his tears caused that fear I broke him, but later, I saw it for what it was: empathy and compassion and that what I went through, was horrible and traumatic. I wasn’t making things up in my head. The diagnosis, relieved even more weight and pressure, because I knew there were reasons I was fucked up, stuck and broken.

I asked him to never change that part of how he treats people, because that moment was a turning point for me.

So anyway, today was our last official visit and I’m immediately struck by how instantly I felt him letting go of my hand and I had myself a little cry. I didn’t realize how safe I had come to feel with him in my head and being there for me the last decade.

I got through one heavy layer of trauma and think when I finally get back to the others, I’ll have more tools to navigate the emotions and baggage I have never had the tools to do so with before.

I fell better about knowing I have some tools and coping skills now, as I see me effortlessly incorporating them into my life, but I feel sad too.

I just let go of his hand…

53 Days

Life is pretty different. I lost my words after Melissa died. They slowly dried up and I’m sad about that. So many things left with her and I am always mourning old things I’ve lost of myself.

I’ve been shut in now for 53 days. Actually 54, but it’s dark thirty and I just haven’t scratched today’s mark. I think I have been out maybe 7 times since March 03, 2020. I started staying home 5 days prior to the official call of Covid-19 becoming a pandemic. I stopped my side gig work on Feb 29, 2020, because I didn’t like elevators and apartment buildings for delivery. My full time job called it on March 8th, when is was federally recognized and we were all but a few, placed into a shared work unemployment program. It means we were sent home for lack of work, but not released. Our insurance would remain in effect, we didn’t have to search for new jobs on any unemployment forms, and we file weekly unemployment claims, until we are slowly called back in. We lost 90% of our business in a few short days. We were a recognized and still rapidly growing, woman owned catering company. Many of our clients are tied to big name tech companies in the Greater Seattle Area. We were set to move into a new building, as we slowly outgrew our original single space in a strip style business park, after taking over 8 different spaces. With no other neighbors leaving, after getting fed up with all our work vans, personal vehicles, and people, we had no where left to expand. Our move was to begin March 01, 2020 and finish the first week. We had started, but it was ongoing as the pandemic was called and the few people out of about 500 who were left, moved everything.

Meanwhile, I’m at home, thinking,”I’m all introverted now…I got this.”, and for the most part, I do. I miss my mom. I miss my sister. I miss my friend I do side summer work with and play in his yard, learning so much about planting and maintaining a nice English style garden.

I keep weird hours now. I was so used to getting up at 1:30 AM, four days a week and working ten hour days. I’ve kept that schedule for 3 years now and been OK with it, as long as the kids upstairs aren’t being kids till 9 PM. I’ve gone from barely making it, working my ass off, to always be a little behind, to being OK. I’m rested in a way I haven’t been in years, but I am also exhausted from the panic and fear. The beginning of panic and fear was the worst.

At the start of it, it was intense and everything and every person I came in contact with, caused fear in me. I knew my health issues and age would heighten my chances of getting a more severe case, were I to become infected. So everything, caused fear. I began harping at work for masks. Being catering, gloves were plentiful. Once I spent a few days in panic mode, I was able to plan. I was ahead of the curve and managed to get some dry goods and non perishable stuff. I was able to get hand sanitizer, which I still have 2/3 of. I rely mostly on soap and water since it’s more effective and less harmful to bacteria I need. I was able to get my unemployment claim started, that would pay rent and leave me $125.00 for everything else. I called a different state agency and was able to get SNAP food assistance. I was able to talk to my landlords and let them know my status and suspected schedules at staying up on my rent. I was able to get my car insurance to continue billing me, but stop asking for money till my unenjoyment claim was deposited, same with my TV. Luckily for me, all utilities, including basic cable, internet and laundry are included in my rent. My bills are manageable, but I lost my cell phone in the grey area between normal and pandemic. Luckily, I have a work issued phone and hopefully will be able to get it all set up before I have to return it.

My days are long and monotonous. Groundhog day every day with a different TV line-up. I’ve had 53 days to drift in and out of my own head. 53 days to see my life play out before my eyes. 53 days to examine lots of ghosts in the closet. Things I’ve not delved deeply into for years, because I haven’t really allowed myself to seriously dig. It’s hard to dig childhood traumas, without a really good trigger. It arrived.

We are solving a family mystery. One we never thought we would have the answer to. My sister started digging and knew a few people who have been in a position to help with information. So far, my sister and I are the only ones who know, and we are unable to share any of it right now because it is going to impact our mother. It’s going to disrupt her life and I’m not sure how well it will play out, even though she will finally have answers, there appears to probably remain some questions. In other words, none of this is e-mail, text, phone call type news. We need to be with her and we need to see her.

This news has caused my younger sister and I to have some heavy conversations about our lives and the status of our family. We have talked about things in a way we have never talked about and traded information that has been hard to trade and digest. It has caused us to speak, listen and hear each other in ways we have never done. I’ve been heard and understood in ways I’ve deserved to be heard, as well as understood. I have also seen my sister in new ways and have a new found respect for the little ditz.

I continue to miss Mel. I miss the kids super bad too. I’ve not heard from her oldest since before the pandemic began and since he works for UPS, I’ve been worried sick about him.

I think about Mel and her untimely exit. How maybe some of us just weren’t meant to live through this bullshit. How she was lucky to not see the world as it is today. In 30 years, we have changed so much. She wouldn’t recognize the difference that 5 years and three months has made. I’m grateful in one way, she is not living through this. But the other part of me is wishing that for her kids and my selfish ass, she was still here and in fact I wish we were living through this together, even if from different states.

I don’t know what it’s going to be like when it’s time to go back out. I don’t want to go back out too soon, because I am high risk. More so due to the fact I get bronchitis. So far, they aren’t too worried about my Auto Immune diseases, because I am not on biologics. I worry though anyway, because of white blood counts. It’s s o different now, that I received a knock on my door three days ago and panicked, because I wasn’t expecting anyone and I wasn’t wanting to open the door to a virus.

What has happened to my world (our world) in 53 days, is traumatizing. A month ago I saw two co-workers, while grocery shopping in an over-crowded store. We recognized each other through masks, but couldn’t stop and couldn’t Spanglish with one another at the time. I cried outside the store. I went to work the other day to pick up a 2 meal care package and bottle of wine. Saw the new building, saw the owner of the company and a few co-workers from a distance. It was emotional. I cried out in  my car.

I get emotional a lot. Commercials and sappy TV make me cry. Anything that ties back to my current family mystery, makes me cry. Life is full of tears right now. And I can’t explain what some of the tears are for. They just are. Life is so different. The future though always “unknown” is unknown in a different way. Do we hope? Do we leave Covid-19 with a different set of values? We need to. I don’t want to return to the way we were.

Will I ever post again? I don’t know. I could be sick right now from my last trip out for essentials and not even know it. That’s how uncertain the future is. Will I ever get to share my mystery? I don’t know. I hope I do. But I can’t risk anyone accident;y reading anything online before I get a change to meet with my family.

When they say we can go back out? Will we (I) be able to walk outside and interact with people again without severe anxiety? I have had panic attacks prior to store runs and immediately after them. I’d do all my shopping online if the system was set up for EBT, but they aren’t right now.

If a vaccine is found, will those of us who are still here have a giant collective case of survivors guilt aside from you asshats, protesting Stay at Home orders?

Till next time…

I’m trying…

It’s insurance renewal time at work. This year they  added a ten thousand dollar life insurance from the company, no buy-in necessary. I bought an additional amount to be split between the three older kids and your granddaughter.

I am falling short though. I didn’t include TXR or your grandson. I’ve never met the baby mama or Liam. Maybe one day, I’ll be able to include them. I’ve got nothing, not even for You Know Who Shall Not Be Named.

Part way through the month.