Part 127 Still more truth


I was originally informed that I would probably spend one night in ICU for monitoring during the surgery, about six more days resting in the hospital, and then return home for a few weeks of recovery. On this moment, a the very end of two weeks thus far in the hospital, my tube is successfully pulled out of my throat as I project phlegm wildly through the air.

I am asking for Puffs Kleenex with aloe, laughing and probably delirious. I am very weak and unable to stand without serious assistance. To others, I am dangerously thin and probably resemble a prisoner of war.

I didn’t sign up for this insanity. And speaking of insanity, I find that my thoughts are crazy as I come down off the heavy drugs they sedated me with. A stern nurse has become almost demonic in my eyes. Her sarcastic and eye rolling demeanor, interspersed among her smiles and attempts at genuine concern, are seriously disturbing to me. There is an Arabic patient that apparently has refused to sign consent for treatment, and it seems that much time is spent trying to coerce him to comply (authority figures, attractive nurses, and intimidating men have all been used and no one succeeds). He seems to have many friends visiting him, but in my mind they are co-conspirators in some deranged plot – from his veiled wife who arrives after visiting hours to the husky gentlemen in dark attire that look like bouncers or bodyguards. An IV bag of his has apparently some code on it that elicits suspicion.

I have even managed to drag Elvis into all this, because I somehow see paraphernalia of his image right in the room. And the hallucinations aren’t limited to just visual – I hear suspicious street talking outside even though our being three floors above street level would have made that impossible.

There was no Elvis paraphernalia. The nurse, the Arabic man and his visitors, though, as well as the IV bag, were real (and a large group of physicians really gathered to examine it for some irregularity). The sick and dying patients in the room were real. I did frantically write notes to communicate, sometimes having trouble spelling words and sometimes writing illegibly. I was frightened because I couldn’t talk and frustrated that my writing could often not be understood. I had extreme difficulty swallowing and breathing at times, and my panic from that was real. My mind was disoriented and I was afraid.

All of these things were real. My mind, fueled by strong drugs, concocted the crazy conspiracy story.

My need to escape all this was so real that it was palatable.