Wednesday, November 11, 2009

The lighter side

As I've mentioned before my first admisssion to hospital was August of 2001 for transplant #1. Back then you'd be allocated a head nurse who would tend to you throughout most of your stay - not so anymore. I had the best one, her name was Tamira. She'd make me smoothies, sit and talk with me for hours and played a large role in getting me through that process with my mind in tact. I was such a rookie to the medical world never having been hospitalized before. I remember after the first two weeks of being bed ridden and quarantined to my room I became very depressed. Tamira came in took one look at me, asked me a few questions then said she'd be back in a minute. She pounced back in the room a few minutes later with a grey and white capsule for me to take. She said it might help me get through the days and I was all for that. Maybe an hour later something began to come over me. Over the next few hours i bet every nurse working the ward that day came in my room to see the giggling idiot. It was just like I'd smoked some of the sweet sweet herb. I was blasted but it brought me out of my funk. Later that day several friends and my parents happened to show up at the same time. I can still see their faces standing at the edge of my bed staring at me not really knowing what to say... probably cause I wouldn't shut up.

(Slighlty Graphic)During my hospital stay for the second transplant after all the drama had subsided I was moved back up to the BMT ward for my final week. I'd been through alot and was on plenty of narcotics. My days were going ok but the evenings would bring some ridiculous events. Due to an earlier catheter accident I was peeing heavy blood and clots that the nurses would call "merlot with giant leaches". Anyway I slept with a pee bottle attached to my bed. One night I must have been really out of it and had managed to fall asleep with a full bottle of this "merlot and leaches" resting on my chest. I woke up in the middle of the night with the entire thing spilled all over me. I buzz the nurse who comes in to see this horror movie and even worse she has to clean it up. The very next night I managed to get myself to the bathroom to do my business but became disoriented and confused about where I should be peeing- in the bottle or the toilet!? I started spinning around pissing merlot all over the bathroom . I buzz the nurse and she opens the bathroom door to see me standing in the middle of the bathroom with another blood bath surrounding me. Of course it was the same nurse as the previous night and to this day she does not like me. The next night one of my favorite nurses was sitting at the nursing station as I was walking the ward. Just as I was passing in front of her she says to me, without looking up and in this sarcastic voice .."So what are you going to do for us tonight..." Too funny. Last week she was my nurse one night and I couldn't help but laugh when she walked in for the first time.

2 comments:

  1. on a much lighter side...... i think i had a very similar experience the time you came down to visit me and we ate the three week old "brownies" that you told me would make me "feel better".... while in the process i thought you were running around in a pink tooto and singing barenaked ladies songs in opera.... man was that a good day....lol

    hang tough man and keep the stories up...i love re thinking all of the laughs

    B

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear Chad:

    I was afraid to read your blog
    Knowing full well your pain would be unbearable.
    I was afraid to read your blog
    Knowing my life has been untouched by such human pain.
    But you do not ask for sympathy, only an ear.
    Your articulate commentary lays out for someone like me just what it's like to courageously fight every minute a disease that has no mercy.

    I am reading your blog
    And I am struck by your honesty and candour.
    You have bared your soul and sometimes your body. You are not afraid to be an authentic human being. You have been on a journey of horrors that no one should experience. Along the way, you have been touched by angels and small miracles. Your family and friends will walk with you and hopefully you will be triumphant.

    Your determination to give back enhances the human spirit. You are giving hope to all those similarly afflicted and insight to those waltzing through life. God bless you and heal you - you have touched our hearts.

    Barb Ortmann

    ReplyDelete