It is what it is: Part 2

If you haven’t read my last post, you’re not a part of the cool club.  It’s time to get with the program, check out my blog, “It is what it is: Part 1.” You might want to do that before you go any further.  You don’t want to be left out, do you?

How I lost my mind

 My mom had landed in Orange County with no phone.  You don’t realize how much we rely on our phones until you are forced to go to another state, get dropped off at the airport, and try to get to your daughter’s home address.  She couldn’t take Uber or Lyft, which requires a phone.   She couldn’t call me and see what hospital I was at, didn’t know the address of said hospital, let alone what room I was in. She was able to borrow a random person’s phone at the airport and called my dad to get all the information she needed.  Then she found a Taxi that would let her pay with cash, and she was on her way to me.  

I am completely out of it by now.  Hours pass by in a fog. The next morning, my mom made it to me. It was a relief that I wasn’t alone anymore.  Except for one thing, the man outside my hospital window was still there. I rationally thought out, maybe he takes his cigarette break at the same time every day.  It did seem a little off to me that he was still wearing the same clothes and was in the exact spot I saw him before… hey, that could be true. I ask my mom, “Is there a man standing out there by that tree?” as I point outside the window.  Squinting her eyes, she stares outside and tells me she doesn’t see anybody.   This was the first of many visits from the man we call “dude”.  Dude was with me most of my hospital stay.  I eventually realized that the random man was a hallucination.  This is still crazy because even today, as I am writing this post, I can still see him in my head and can describe his manly features.  He was real to me. My mom went along with it, probably out of fear of upsetting me any more than I already was. She would joke and say, “Is dude still hanging out there?” As I am sure many of you can tell by now, where I get my comedic tone. My family uses humor to cope with challenging times.  

I can’t concentrate enough to watch television, even if I could get my mind to focus, I couldn’t use my fingers to press the remote control button.  The sudden drop in my Parkinson’s medications has left my body slow, rigid, and complete loss of my fine motor skills.  If that wasn’t upsetting enough, I started having blurry and double vision.  It got so bad that I either had to have my eyes closed or only open one eye to see the doctors and nurses that came into my room. I wondered how Penny was doing and if she thought her mom just disappeared on her. I don’t have children of my own, but being single with a dog is challenging enough.  I couldn’t imagine what she thought of me. Maybe she questioned my ability to be a good dog mom.  But I couldn’t worry about her at this point because now I’m seeing spiders and bugs covering the floor and crawling up the walls. 

Be careful because it’s about to get bumpy. For your safety, keep your arms and hands in the vehicle at all times.  I spend days in an opioid haze, just trying to keep my wits about me. My mom was running between the hospital to be with me and then racing to my apartment to feed and water Penny.  I had this image of my dog, whimpering in a dark room, all alone. I told my mom it wasn’t very productive sitting beside me watching me sleep, I would feel more comfortable if she went home to be with Penny. At that point, I was just having moments of consciousness, except for random, incoherent, strange questions.   There was no reason for her to sit there.  I mean, come on, I was at a fully staffed hospital.  What could go wrong?                

It was the evening of my 4^th night, and I still had the NG tube in my stomach. My NPO order was still in place, which also meant no medications. I noticed the nurses were acting differently, whispering when they came around my bed.  They were going behind my back, planning something cunning, dishonest. I started listening in on their conversations.  According to the conversations I heard, there was a rap singer at the hospital filming his latest music video who wanted to kill a dude on camera. What? The stoic, easy-going man who had kept me company and who had so diligently been standing outside my window? 

I’ve got to warn him.  I started asking about the rap singer who was at the hospital. Maybe I could get the nursing staff to understand what was happening and that an innocent man was going to get hurt. I pleaded with them, but no one would listen to me. Then, outside the window, with vivid detail, a crowd of people surrounded dude and started throwing blows.  The group moves with fluidity, taking turns hitting, kicking, and spitting on him.  I hear someone scream, but it was more of a muffled gurgle.  I start gagging, coming to the terrifying reality that it was me, trying to scream with a tube down my throat. I see a crowd of the nursing staff running into my room.  Finally, someone will help me notify the police or at least security.  Do you know what the standard care of someone who is freaking out because they believe with no uncertainty that someone is being murdered?  I found out when I was restrained by 2 nurses holding my ankles, 2 nurses holding my wrists, and 2 more holding my shoulders down.  

They lifted the side rails on my hospital bed and physically held me down. I was screaming with everything I had, and they just kept saying, “calm down, you’re alright, take some deep breaths”. I thought to myself that this couldn’t be real.  They can’t do this to patients. I need help, so I kept screaming, begging for anyone to listen to me. Please, please, don’t restrain me. I have Parkinson’s disease!  Then I hear the charge nurse say, “shut that bitch up!” I felt like I was in a dream, more of a nightmare or an Alfred Hitchcock movie. I made eye contact with a young man whom I recognized as the medical assistant who had helped me when I was first admitted.  I’m crying now, I say directly to him, “You know me, tell them this isn’t me. Tell them to call my Dad. You need to help me.” I could see some uncertainty in how he should respond.  He was actively holding my wrist, but I still saw the care and concern in his glance.  This nurse was having a small doubt about his current ethical choices. He finally says, “Will you calm down if we get your Dad on the phone?” Yes, I would of course, then someone hands me my phone with the contact displayed “My Daddy” and I push the screen to call.

Now, remember my mom still doesn’t have her phone, and she left earlier that evening to be with Penny and take a break from the hospital. My dad gets a phone call in Arizona around 3 in the morning. I’m crying, I have snot running down my face, and by now, I have no voice from screaming with an NG tube down my throat. With a raspy voice, I say,” Dad, help me, they won’t let me go, they’re holding me down. I don’t want to be here anymore.”  My dad commented that everyone was there to help me, and I just need to let them do their job. He calmed me down enough to focus on relaxing my body and slowing my breathing.  There was no need to tell him about the rapper making a musical murder video, because at that moment, I realized it was all in my head.      

Even as I type about it, I mean, come on, people! I am pissed!  Why didn’t they stop and look at my chart and try to find out why I was acting out?  They had all the documentation to know what medication I should be receiving daily list of all my medication, which I had been taking for over a decade, and stopped them abruptly.  Didn’t they know to prepare for the shit storm that was heading my way.   Adding insult to injury is the fact that they had a list of all my physicians’ contact information; they even had my neurologist’s cell phone number. No one tried to reach out to one of my doctors.  

To summarize:

-After recognizing that dude wasn’t real, I knew my brain couldn’t be trusted. It didn’t matter that I still could see the details of the hallucinations. That was my reality.  

-I was admitted on February 26^th and had not received any of my medications for 5 days.

-I was in a state of delirium brought on by extreme amounts of Diluadid and Valium.

 -I felt in my bones that everyone had it out for me.  I had severe paranoia and felt that the staff at the hospital were watching me.

-I was discharged the following evening. Patients usually get released during the day, but they made sure that I wouldn’t be around for another night, causing more shenanigans.                  

-They assured us that there was nothing more they could do for me that I couldn’t do by myself at home.

For my readers, I found this picture of me in the middle of my madness on my phone weeks after my hospital stay.  I will share it with you because it documents a very dark time in my life.  I’m holding my baby blanket in my hand, I have my NG tube in my nose, and you can even see the dark fluid in the canister that they sucked out of my stomach above my bed.  Fun Fact: My mom swears she doesn’t remember taking this picture.  Maybe dude did it, or maybe the nurses were messing with me.  But I do have to admit, my hair looks awesome!

Removing the NG tube sucked. At least it was a deep breath and then a quick pull… ugh, it was out, but my throat hurt like a mother.  Talking and swallowing was almost unbearable. I was itching to get out. Dude, you’re on your own. I left the hellish hospital.  My mom was happy to get me home, and although it sounds like everything was looking up.  It was just the beginning of my battle, which will be detailed in my next blog, “Going home”. Till next time…