Note: This is a 'serial'. Read Pt 1 (below) first.
THUR: Someone is addressing me by my last name, but I can't see them through my eyelids, which I can't seem to open. They ask me if I'm awake. Of course I'm awake. How could I be listening to you if I were asleep? What a stupid question.
Then I remember. The blood. The ER.
I force my eyes open. I'm in a curtain cube in a hospital. Man, these lights are bright. Ouch.
There's a worried-woman looking at me. She's the one talking to me. There's also a guy moving beeping things around and talking to someone that I can't see.
Yes. I'm awake.
Can I tell her what's happening?
I tell her. (See yesterday's post)
She asks me a battery of questions: Am I allergic to anything?Do I have Diabetes? High BP? Hep? Am on drugs or alcohol? ( Thank Godzilla I hadn't been drinking, otherwise there'd be no morphine for me). Have I had a stroke or cardiac incident? Got HIV/AIDS? Cancer? Etc...
She needs to do things to me, but I need to sign a consent waiver in case the things she does wind up killing me. I'm dying anyway, so what've I got to lose? I sign.
I'm immediately stuck with a thousand needles. Wow. There's all sorts of IV bags headed my way. Someone puts a mask on my face. It's tastes like the inside of a ballon, but it clears my head a little. The mask comes off.A different woman is talking to me. She shows me a long clear
tube with a huge plastic syringe at one end. She intends on putting the tube into my nose , through my mouth and into my stomach. Then they will suck all the festering blood out of my stomach . I need to stay awake so I can help swallow the tube.
This sounds pretty fucking horrible, but in reality it's a lot worse. First it really hurts my sinuses and then it kicks my gag reflex into overdrive. I lose it, my body goes into choking panic mode. I cough blood everywhere. Please, please make this stop.
They do this twice before I'm purged.
All of that came out of me? Oh shit.
A warm feeling creeps up on me. I recognize it from my arm surgery. Sweet anaesthesia. I decide that I want to have a daughter just I can name her Anaesthesia. She could tell people it's Russian. I start having another brilliant idea, but I instantly forget it. I shouldn't feel happy, but I do.
Things go away.
4 comments:
For future reference -
You are not allowed to die until you visit my house, meet our dogs, and attend my wedding. I don't know about the first two, but you've got until at least mid-2007 for the last one.
Now that this is clear... I hope you're feeling well, not just better. It hurts my heart to think of you going through all this nastiness.
Please take good care of your body while you heal - somebody I care about lives there.
sorry some tech time. I worked in medicine long enough and dealt with them enough over my and my son's health issues that I never take what docs say initially without some inquisition hehe. Did they do an endoscopy on you? (tube with camera on it down your throat) What did they say they think caused the tear? Have you been vomiting a lot over some time or have a really really bad bout of vomiting or hacking recently? If it is a tear, then it should heal on its own for the most part, but the endoscopy will show if it's bad enough for surgery. Need to figure out what caused it so that you can avoid that, if possible.
Well my dear, I know you feel like crap right now. Hehe, I totally empathized with your NG tube story. Had to practice that on a person and have it practiced on me b4 - if I didn't believe in having it done to me so I know how it feels I would have rammed that tube up someone's ass afterwards lol. But the good news out of all of this is that if it is indeed a tear, then you are fortunate in that it could have been much ooglier things. I'm afraid I've been sick so long that I always look at how things could be worse in order to keep my wits about me. Hang in there buddy and keep us informed.
Thanks Liz- see ya at some point before the dirtnap! And yeah, I actually feel better now than I have for a long time-details to follow...
Susanne-Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of "How I almost..." for the answers to those and other exciting questions!
I hope you and yours are doing OK.
Great descriptions! I love how you explain how the mask smelled and what swallowing the tube was like.
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