The Following May Be DIsturbing To Some...

As many of you may (or may NOT?) know, I cheated death BIG TIME this year in August. The end of July and the whole month of August seem to be crappy months for me. I'm 2 for 2 right now...hoping 2011 is a LOT better for me...

Let me give you the *condensed* version of what happened....

7/25 - got to ER w chest pains & am admitted. They say I have bacterial pneumonia. I stay until 7/29 & am released with anti-biotics and o2 @ home.

8/13 - I wake up @ 445am with a tight chest and shortness of breath even though I am on o2. I call my Mom to come sit with the kids. I call the ambulance (bc Ralph is still @ work until 7a & I can't drive myself). The EMTs and (CUTE!) firefighters come. They do a few tests and radio the hospital that they are enroute with one for ADMIT - right then I knew it wasn't good.

I get admitted, they start treating for pneumonia again. I seem OK but am retaining a LOT of fluid. On the night of 8/15 (which from here until 8/21 - I remember NOTHING) I went into acute organ failure: pericardial effusion & heart failure. lungs were full of fluid - lung failure, and bc my kidneys couldn't handle everything, I went into acute kidney failure.

I am transferred from our satellite hospital here in Prescott Valley to the Cardiovascular ICU in Prescott @ the main hospital & am put on Life Support (ventilator) on 8/16. They used massive amounts of IV Lasix to pull 50 pounds of fluid out of my body and high doses of steroids to keep me alive and keep my organs functioning. I remain on the machines until 8/21 when I wake up on my own. Ralph was by my bedside and was trying to explain things to me, but I was REAL REAL fuzzy!
I thought I'd had a heart attack or something?

I remained on IV pain meds including Dilaudid ("lab quality heroin"...) for 2 days. I kept drifting in and out of consciousness for 36 hours bc they were over-medicating me. I had horrible nightmares and dreams and all kinds of auditory and visual hallucinations! Once I said NO MORE DILAUDID, I came around a bit more and could stay awake and began eating real food on 8/22. By 8/23 I was coherent and knew everything that happened to me - only I couldn't comprehend the severity of what I'd just been through.

I stayed in ICU until 8/26 (then they put me in a regular patient room one floor up) working with physical therapists and such--my muscles had atrophied so bad and I was SO weak. I had to walk with a walker. My left shoulder was almost to the point where I couldn't lift my arm. I had to work hard to do simple things.

On 8/31, I was transferred to a place called Mountain Valley Rehb Hosp where I worked strenuously 3 hours a day with physical therapists to regain my strength and be able to get to where I would walk w/o a device & so forth. Total, I was hospitalized for 2 weeks, 5days.

They let me come home on Sept. 2nd and I was never so happy to see this messy house as I was that day! Ralph had done the best he could with help from my parents helping with the kids and him working nights and so forth. He maintained things like laundry and dishes but not a whole lot else! LOL!

So now, I am under the watchful eye of a new cardiologist here in Prescott Valley instead of going to PHX to Mayo Clinic. Everyone agreed that was for the better since I tend to fall hard when I go down as far as getting sick, CHF, etc. I also have a nephrologist (kidney Dr) now that I see once a month. I am at the lab so often that they KNOW ME by name & face & everything now. I am friends with the check in clerk, Ernie! :p My PCP follows up with me monthly for my thyroid, diabetes, and chronic pain issues. I see a psychiatrist quarterly and see my case manager at the behavioral health clinic every month also.

Maintaining my health all around has become a full time job. I have good days where I feel good & can get a lot done & I have bad days where I don't move much from my chair. It's a crap shoot, basically. I never know what I am going to get.

Also, after we got home, Ralph told me the WHOLE story about me being on the ventilator and that the first 3 days I was on it, they couldn't tell him whether I was going to pull through or not because I WAS SO unstable as far as the organ failure. That's when it hit me that I've got a 2nd chance at life and I am trying to make the most of every day and not take anything for granted.

The Lord puts us in the dark sometimes so that we can see that He is the light and I feel that's my situation. I also feel that everything I am going through helps me to be more compassionate to those in our society that seem forgotten--the disabled. *IF* I make it to Medical Assistant (I have 2 more classes to go), then these experiences will make me a more empathetic caregiver also. I feel my calling is to be a healer of some sort - it's in His hands.

So, that's my story - not so condensed, but that's my story & I'm stickin' to it...

(Actual post date: December 29, 2010)