Trying to recall my lost summer of discontent
Several weeks ago, in June to be precise, I shared with our readers the story of the loss of my left baby toe and the challenges I was facing.
Little did I know that the challenges would last the bulk of the last 12 weeks, pretty much cashing in my summer. The good news is that I seemed to have missed the heat wave. Always got to find the bright side, right?
I left Clarendon Memorial Hospital on June 24 after having been there for 17 days … and nights. I had excellent care from the staff there, who would, by the end of my ordeal, come to treat me as family. Then again, they seem to treat everyone that way.
From there, I went to the Tuomey Acute Rehab Unit where I was expected to participate in three hours a day of physical and occupational therapy. That unit is outstanding but there was a significant difference from that freestanding, independently owned unit and the rest of that “big” hospital. I will tell you this … the food there, even on a controlled diet, is excellent.
I left Tuomey Rehab on July 7, feeling pretty fit. I was weaker than I would have liked, but all my “systems” were functioning well and I was happy to be back.
On July 15, I went back to Dr. Dominici, only to be told that my foot was infected again, and I was going back into the hospital.
To say that I was in despair was an understatement. I don’t think, at that moment in time, I had ever felt such utter bleakness. I was letting down my mom, my co-workers, a paper that was still in its infancy and a life that I had once enjoyed living.
The insurance company, who shall remain nameless, kicked me out of CMH on July 26 as my condition “no longer warranted hospital care.” When I tried to get into my own vehicle (passenger side of course), I was so weak I literally could not lift my own foot into the car. An ambulance had to take me home. How embarrassing … though those good folks never acted like it was anything out of the ordinary.
I was home for just five hours when I collapsed on the floor of my home office. I was trying to sit in a rolling chair when my legs just would not hold me up.
The good folks from Jake and Chuck’s Bug Destruction Service had been to the house the day before and I had noted one of the corpses on the carpet not too far from my desk. Lying there on the floor I remembered said bug, of which I am deathly afraid. The idea that it was close to me, or worse, under me, was enough to make me ask the good Lord to just go ahead and take me. As I looked slowly to my left, I saw his exterminated body about an arm’s length away from me. I flicked him with all my might, and though my legs may have been weak, my flicking finger shot that bug to Paxville, I do believe. After the bug ordeal, the fall didn’t seem so bad.
The good Cypress Medical folks came again to my house (for the second time) and quickly got me back on my feet, only to determine that I really needed to be back in the hospital. I was home for less than five hours.
I finally got re-admitted about 11 that evening where it was thought I might have pneumonia. Great … something else to deal with. Lord, why were you testing me so?
It was later determined that I did not have pneumonia, but a severe case of fluid overload that some very strong drugs would take care of over the next few days. The good docs and nurses would remove over seven gallons of fluid from my tissues. No wonder I couldn’t lift my feet or hold myself up. I was water logged!
I got sprung again Aug. 11. I was so very happy to be free again. I truly felt like a prisoner who had been pardoned for a crime they did not commit, though in retrospect, I should have known that I would eventually pay for my crimes.
I fell down two more times in the next 10 days. Neither was very bad and both were entirely my fault for not paying attention. In none of my three falls, did I think I had been injured at all. I will tell you it can be very exciting when 10 or more, generally very good looking men show up to your house to help an old lady get up. I’ll have to have them over for dinner sometime. They are so very, very nice.
Dancing with the Clarendon Stars was on Aug. 21. I was not going to miss the fun as my dear friend/brother Pat Goodwin was showing off and I had to be there in support. Only problem was, I was freezing while everyone else was sweating. I was also not feeling so great but I just thought it was being out and about for the first time in forever.
The next day I tried to go to work only to have the shakes so bad I could not type. Luckily the High Commander was in the house and he immediately rushed me over to Urgent Care where Dr. Ken determined my foot was afire again. I was about at the end of my rope. What lesson was I supposed to be getting that I was missing … over and over again?
Back into CMH where two days later the source of my illness made itself known. Three falls had apparently caused a hematoma in my, um, hindquarter and it was trying to work its way out of my body by becoming inflamed and angry.
Yet another surgery and another nine days. I confess that at my lowest point, I just asked God to take me from this planet, that I was tired of being here and had lost my reason for living.
A very skilled but completely goofy nurse storm-troopered into my room, complete with wall decorations and told me that self-pity and death-wishes were not allowed and that I simply had to snap out of it. Joi, I will never be able to thank you enough. You heard my tears and squashed my hopelessness.
I awoke the next morning with a new sense of purpose and a decision to not be sick anymore. I got up, put on my clothes, set up a little desk area in my room and went to work, the one thing I know I do pretty well.
I came home the next day and went to work the day after that. That was three days ago, and I still feel terrific. My foot is almost healed and my, um, hindquarter is healing as well. I feel energized and excited about what lies before me and determined to not dwell in what is now behind me.
I have buckets of medicine to take and hours of doctors’ appointments to attend to and I plan to show up for every one. I have a terrific food plan that I am following religiously and the High Commander is intent on breaking me of my workaholic ways. I am renewed and refreshed.
And I am so grateful. To be alive. To be out of the hospital. To be back with my biological and work families … I love them so. Grateful to feel the heat on my face.
And grateful to be back here. In your paper. Nothing makes me happier. As my favorite philosopher Forrest Gump says, “And that’s all I have to say about that.”
