Wow....so much has happened today. I'll start with Jim first. I went to see him right before my doctor's appointment today and he was pretty comfortable. Then Dr. Dolan and Dr. Tannas came in. Jim's got this drain thing coming out of his neck thay looks like a little squeeze pump- it's round on one end and collects "goop" and you can squeeze the stuff out of. The stuff that was in there suddenly looked like the color of the i.v. "food" they're giving him through his feeding tube. Now they're thinking maybe Jim sprung another leak somewhere because that "food" should not be in there. So they get their flashlights out and they're looking all over the stiches in his mouth....Oh, that one looks good...that one looks good...where is this coming from? So they decide to send him for a barium swallow study so they can see any leaks that might be on the inside. I'm thinking, how the hell is he going to swallow the barium? But they decide to do it anyway. I headed out to my appointment then, but when I got back he told me what happened. The bottom line is nothing's leaking. The technician was a crotchety old biddy who told Jim to stand up and support himself holding onto the left bar (whatever that was). So here is his with all this apparatus hanging off of him and he's weak as hell- he's not even able to go to the bathroom by himself yet- how the hell is going to support himself on anything, but he managed to do it. Then Old Biddy comes back out and barks at him...."No, not THAT bar, THIS bar." He tells her, "So how am I supposed to SEE that, with my fourth eye?" Well, he enjoyed the barium because it was chocolate flavored (now that's a desperate man who enjoys a drink of barium- that shit is NASTY) but he was able to see his swallowing process on the camera and ALL of the liquid went down into his stomach and none down his lungs. They said he did beautifully on the test. And no leaks. So the doctor thinks the goop might just be infection draining, but he's on tons of antibiotics, so hopefully that will clear up soon. They did decide to wrap the compression badage around his whole head again so he looks like he's wearing a turban. He still has a LOT of swelling that has to be reduced.
Now for me: I had a 2:30 appointment with the Internist, Dr. Frank. What a nice woman! And I really appreciated the Social Worker going all out to get me in there. I told her all my history and also that for the past week it feels to me, when I'm stadning still, like the ground is shaking...kind of like what you'd feel in a small earthquake. Plus, as some of you know, I've had a history going back about 20 years of psych problems which I never followed through to treat. I was always afraid of getting drugged up and winding up a zombie or not being able to think clearly or winding up with meds that bothered my stomach. I just "cured" myself by keeping busy so my mind didn't have time or energy to start wigging out. You know, I've told many people that if you see that something's really not RIGHT with me, please tell me and I'll follow through on getting my meds. Nobody's told me that yet, but I figured if I know that I'm crazy then I really can't be THAT crazy. So Dr. Frank adjusted my Xanax and Valium doses slightly (I got it pretty close on my own), wrote me a legitimate, legal prescription, and told me to take BOTH of them every day, three times a day, and don't stop. And she also told me NOT to quit smoking yet. Normally she would never say that, but in my case it would be too much for my body to handle, so wait until this is all over. (And if any of you skeptics don't believe me, I'll be glad to give you her number.) She also gave me the results of my stress test the other day. I have no blockages, but my heart is not compressing properly. I told her that my echocardiagram results and holter monitor results are SUPPOSEDLY on their way here from Deborah Heart and Lung, so hopefully I don't have to do those tests again before I see the cardiologist here next Thursday. But Dr. Frank sent me for a ton of bloodwork, because now she's going to start checking the thyroid and looking for a pheochomocytoma, which was what I would have had done at Deborah if I wasn't stuck here. They've got to get all of this done so they can get me on medication to slow the heart rate down. My blood pressure was also a little high: 160/100. Not horrific, but not good either.
Then she immediately sent me down to the shrink- Dr. Metcalf and he took me right away. And DAMN....you should see where this psych office is located....WAY down in a dungeon. I guess that where they keep all the crazies. Since I've had a history (both physical and mental) I was already not starting out on this journey with Jim in a good position, and the trauma's only made it worse. Now I had tried to get a phsych consult on my own here, but no luck. So when I got down there I told the doctor....hey- I called for an appointment on my own and your people basically told me to go "f" myself. Aren't you sorry they treated me that way? (A little Jewish mother guilt can't hurt). Now, in the past I've been diagnosed with all kinds of crazy shit, none of which I 100 percent believe, everything from obsessive-compulsive disorder to manic-depression to some form of ADHD....yeah....WHATEVER. So he's asking about my family history....hell- we're ALL crazy! It's definitely genetic. And yeah Mom, I know you're reading this, but face it...you're a little nuts too. And he's listening to me talk and he asks me, "Do you ALWAYS talk this fast?" Well, yeah- I guess I do. So he's not sure about me yet, says I'm a very interesting psych case, (boy, THAT'S an understatement) and I have to come back down to the dungeon again on Monday to see Dr. Moon, then come back again next Friday and see him again. He's leaning a little toward manic-depression, but he's not quite sure yet. I mean, when I was starting junior year in high school I was starting to get depressed and felt myself burning out. I managed to convince the school to let me skip that year and move on to senior year because I wanted to get out of there before I blew my GPA, so I graduated a year early. That was 1981. I stayed that way all through college (until they threw me out) until 1990 when I re-enrolled at night. Then the mania started. Since my first husband was such a jerk and always telling me I wasn't smart enought to get a degree, my goal was to graduate with honors (which I did, magna cum laude- missed summa cum laude by one one-hundredth of a point and they don't round up- thanks Philospohy professor). My plan all along was to take a copy of my diploma with magna cum laude on it, sit on the copier machine and take a picture of my bare butt, put a big lip print on it with lipstick, write "KISS THIS" on it, and mail it to him. In the end I decided that was a little childish and I didn't do it, but it kept me going. So how could you be depressed for 10 years and then manic for 16? I'm no shrink, but I would call that "recovery", wouldn't you? I thought bi-polar people went up and down, up and down, and that's not me. So I don't know. We'll let these Harvard grads figure it out. Like my grandmother used so say, though....somtimes you're so smart you're stupid.
I went back to the hotel to grab some dinner and I popped my two pills. They made me slightly loopy for about 1/2 hour, but BOY...what a difference. I can feel it already. The ground's not vibrating under my feet anymore.
Then tonight around 8 pm they moved Jim to a regular room, but not in the same wing as the last time, and this room has one of two room cameras in that unit where they can watch him from the nurses' station at all times. They didn't have those in his last ward. I told his nurse and the nurses' aid what happened to him in 6 Southeast. I plan on telling EVERY nurse that gets assigned to him what happened, and I told them in no uncertain terms...you hear my husband say the word "blood" and you'd better make sure someone hauls ass to his room. You know, I'm a psych patient here so you never know what I might do if someone neglects my husband...wink wink.
Now for the faith and God stuff. If this is not your bag, you can go ahead and roll your eyes. Neither Jim nor I have ever really been into organized religion. We were raised Catholic but over the years have become disgusted with the Catholic Church. Yeah, I went though the motions of getting Jimmy baptized in one, but just because it was something I felt I HAD to do. We tried the Methodist church for awhile, but that didn't seem like a good fit, either. However, I've always had a strong faith. Faith and religion to me are two different things. Now, you might call me crazy (hell- the shrink thinks so) but I've had one or two of what I would call "divine encounters" over the years, so I know that God's out there. I'm not afraid to go in the least bit. Before we travelled to Boston Jim and I had to talk about a lot of things...what will happen if he doesn't make it, etc., etc., etc. and I asked him if he TRULY had any faith. He was 50/50 on the subject. I told him that yes, this is a horrible thing that he's got to go through, but trying to find some good in the situation I told him that I'll bet he's meant for a divine encounter of some sort. Maybe this is the reason why all of this is happening to us. Well, he wrote me a note today and I asked his permission to share it. I'm going to condense it a little because it's fairly long. He told me that when he coded last Saturday, he definitely felt someone with him holding him up- that he wasn't going it alone:
I am writing this during the period of my recovery at 12:05 AM because I have to get this out before I forget the details. I am not going to claim anything grandiouse like I spoke with God or witnessed His presence, but I have no other way of expressing the knowledge that a deity of some form EXISTS. I know it. I need zero evidence. I found the way to get through it was the "let yourself fall" off the Earth, as if gravity no longer bonded you to it's surface which is a complete leap of faith. I didn't think that someone with my background (not an angel) would be able to accomplish this. I can remember vividly when they put me under. I focused on the clock with ALL my attention, and I could see the room color change to a more reddish- yellowing haze- along with the screams- a low roar of billions of souls in pain. Whatever pain I could not see, feel, or think about. I was spared of it. When it happened it uplifted me and was what got me through.
So when you think about it, although this is really hellish to go through, I think a lot of things happened for a reason. If Jim hadn't popped his stitches in his chin, he might have passed his swallow test last week and been sent home. Then his carotid would have blew at home and he would have been a goner. If the doctors were not so extra-cautious right now with him I might not have been here long enough to get the evaluations that I need. And some of those poor, poor people in the ICU that I saw every day...there were two men in comas right next to Jim. One looked like a very young man...maybe in his 20's or ealy 30's. The other man was older- maybe my age. I think of the hell we're going through but it's nothing compared to what those poor families are going through. It's a rough for us, but in the end it's working out this way for the best. But please God...no more bumps in the road! You hear me?
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