Unhappy Anniversary
Yesterday, I joylessly marked a full week since my surgery. Today, I observe the one week anniversary of the worst day of my life.
While the hours following waking up from surgery were no doubt terrible, it was the day after that shit truly hit the pain and depression fan.
My night nurse was a total bitch — she told me that she didn’t want to hear my loud voice or complaints, regardless the chainsaw that had cut through my body just hours ago. My chest screamed; vibrating tubes jutted between my lungs and other organs buzzed mercilessly; and my temples throbbed, but please, hold the urgency, the ICU was no place for that.
After catching a few morphine-induced hours of sleep, I found myself alone in my room in the ICU, pain coursing through my body. Yet whenever that nurse came by, she told me that any more pain killers might send me into overdose.
The doors were open and the glass windows unobstructed, yet it seemed no one noticed that I was in there — nurses and techs would walk by, concerned with other patients or nothing at all, sampling bags of Fritos and talking of plans for nights unencumbered by whiny patients.
I’d yell out for help, shouting, “please!” and “help me!” as loud as my broken chest and burning throat would allow. Aside from one kind doctor who assured me I wouldn’t overdose and forced the nasty night nurse to loosen her death grip on the morphine I so desperately needed, I was virtually ignored. It seemed putting on the gown required to enter my room was a burden that outweighed the Hippocratic oath.
Eventually, the shift change brought me a kinder nurse, though she was swamped with other, older patients and could sparsely visit.
I finally made it out of the ICU, but it wasn’t much better in the step down unit. As my video detailed, I was thrown around on the cart as I was brought to my bed, and then again denied the medicine I so needed by a nurse who loved to scare me about overdosing when I wasn’t even sniffing a Hendrix.
The chest tubes had to stay in for another day, because as multi-surgery patient, they needed to be extra cautious. That guaranteed another sleepless night as I shivered each time I tried to breathe.
It was at some point that afternoon that I really began to doubt that the pain would ever subside. I knew in the back of my head that it would — I had had those doubts the last time, and obviously made it through — but I couldn’t imagine ever feeling better.
So when you ask why I’m fucked up, print out this post. Thanks.
