(Wherein I continue to describe, as coherently and chronologically as I can manage, the subjective experience of my being an ICU patient this time last year.)
Today is February 16, 2011. It's warm (again) here in Charlotte. Again, I feel like I am acutely aware that I am living through weeks that did not exist a year ago for me.
Yesterday, I'd left off with my departure in a strongly-dosed state down the hall. Rather, I had presented it in the second person. That seemed to work well. We'll do it some more below the break until it gets tedious. We're all Bright Lights, Big City like that.
Today I'm going to stitch together some of the events leading up to the moment I truly blacked out. It's amazing what you can remember if you have a year to try.
Ah, yes. Time to swap to second person. Here you go....
No one just dashes directly from ER to OR. That's just crazy talk. They want to scan you first. Get an idea where's the damage. Map you out without cutting you open. Don't worry about lingering radiation from dozens of CTs and MRIs - it's all win if it's either that or you die that very same day.
Thing is, laying down at all really effing hurts. It places incredible pressure on your ribs. On your collarbone too. They try to go nice on you but you yelp in considerable pain. Alas, you are going to be on that incredibly cold slab and run through the big giant donut shaped torus that's really a low level cyclotron (or something). Congratulations. You just got snapshot by a mini-atom smasher. W00t.
Oh. Minor detail. You get to wait a while in the cold. You ask for a blanket or something. You get a radiation vest. Hey, they're warm. You're golden. No, you don't really mean that.
You get left alone for a while.
Now you are actually scared.
Now you have a vestigial moment of clarity. You are on your way to fracking surgery and you might not wake up from it, not ever.
And the incredible nasty putrescent coughing-up of wrongness most foul is back.
And your throat really hurts.
And you are damn thirsty.
And it's cold.
And moving hurts.. but being still hurts more...then suddenly you realize.
You're not really able to move well. You are pretty much where they put you. You can move your head and protest incoherently but that's the pretty-much of it.
You contemplate the ceiling. The harsh lighting. The fact that it's really effing cold. The loud variety of noises. The plastic binders in the steel rack nearby. You reach over to touch the aluminum... but, no. It's too far away. Your arm flails through empty cold air.
One of the dark blue-clad people (you later learn they're the radiology techs, a generally cool bunch), shows up, realizes you're kinda not responsive in productive ways, and fusses over the placement of your arms as you are about to get run through the CT scanner.
It hurts to get your arm bent quite that far.. but then again you were never that flexible.
There is talking. It's at you. Questions about comfort, no you can't have water. You will get sick of that last one later on I promise you.
You doze off.
Then you are wheeling off to toward a room with lots of green tile. You think it's that but then again you wear glasses and you are off your gourd on morphine drip so what do you know. But you see people in greens and masks and washing soap lather up past their elbows.
You've seen all the movies. You used to watch ER. You know the score.
You're there.
THUMP!
Your gurney is moving through double doors.
You don't know any of these people. Later on, one will seem familiar to you because you just remember you saw him first here.
Then comes the mask. You are asked to breathe deeply. You protest, holding up a hand. The mask is drawn back.
You were going to say either something clever or make some sort of "I I don't wake up tell my wife... " statement. No, it was that last one.
You don't.
You just shake your head. "Heh, never mind. I'll see her soon."
Then you hold up again "So, I will go under, and next thing I know it will be all done."
You are told, yes, that's so.
Alrighty, let's do this. You are scared something-less but you just want to get on with it.
And off into the dark you go.
And you DO experience time.
More on that next episode.
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