Sunday, February 22, 2015
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Lucky for him, I am the best mean nurse in town.
This sick bug is about deadly.All it took was about a month and a half in two hospitals, bottles of milk of amnesia (propofal), every antibiotic known to man and a tracheotomy. A central line, a picc line, a pee line and a food peg line. Every kind of test you could get on a human body. Oh a tiny weeny heart attack.
To find out he had pnuemonia.
He didn't know he was in some Lewis Carroll dream.
So I folded up like a pretzel in a chair in the ICU units to cat nap, working for sometimes 18 hours a day, walking from one end to another of the hospital. I texted his sister every time he moved. Held calls in the ICU halls, set up interviews in elevators and argued with future clients in Waffle House parking lots. None of my clients knew, for they were my sanity. Not many of my friends knew. I know I probably am making some of you mad, but I had to keep it close.
Hubby didn't wanna go anywhere that day. He didn't want to spend New Year's Eve at Kaiser's urgent care so we waited til Jan 1 still fought me on it. Finally he began look ashen and I said we're going. Last thing I told him was I love you.
He had to go Kennestone - the few minutes extra to KP approved Northside would've killed him.
The last thing the Kaiser doctor said was he's septic.
They sealed off his room for 5 days in case he was contagious. Just in case.
I went in anyways. I am a rebel you know.
The first thing the ICU nurse said, was he will be fine.
I knew how to read all the screens of all 15 machines in his room.
He didn't know he was in some Lewis Carroll dream.
The first and last thing I told him each time I saw him was I love you.
He had every machine in the room with him, a cooling blanket, boxing gloves to keep from pulling the cords out, he was a House episode, he was in MASH, he was in Dr Jane Medicine Woman, he was Robin Williams in Patches.
All roads lead to Rome right? MacLand to Hardy Parkway to Smith to 101 to Kindred in Rome, GA. They got him off the trachea and his lungs got better after just 10 days. Drove 100 miles a day.
But he was gonna be fine. So was I.
I sang to Mariah Carey's O Holy Night about every day for a month after Christmas.
When little things happened to him I listened to Joy to the World.
I turned off the TV for over a month. I read the news on Twitter.
He thought that Jan 15 was really Jan 3 - see he was in a medically induced coma for 15 days dreaming about Alice In Wonderland. Propofal is a wonder drug - for it makes you forget everything but dream about anything.
Next time you feel like you have the flu, you probably don't, you probably have bi-lateral pneumonia with a staph infection.
Lucky for him, I am the best mean nurse in town.
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