I am very sorry I did not follow my normal practice when writing with strong emotions when I composed this blog entry. Normally I do not publish anything that leaves me with strong feelings until I have a chance to review it the next day, or sometimes have a writer I respect review it for me. I did not follow that practice that night. I just published a chunk of the accumulated writing from my ten days in the hospital.
It was wrong and I apologize to the people who took offense. I feel very badly about it. The offensive parts are removed. This will not happen again. I will not bother you again. I will call my Dr's tomorrow to ask for some emotional support to make sure that I am as ok as can be and you will not have to suffer any further outburst from me.
I offer no excuse, wrong is wrong. My only mitigating circumstance is I was still so drugged from the hospital stay which had ended the day before. I tossed out a med that I felt was making me crazy, rivotril. Nicole tells me I was literally falling from wall to wall to wall while navigating around the house until Sunday. My Dr. was pissed I was issued it. This also was an emotional and inappropriate reaction to something that I have allowed to cause me a lot of pain over a long period of time. This is no excuse. I did a bad thing. I am sorry I did. I regret my action and apologize.
I am sure that virtually every medical account is plein de merde. I will get my charts somewhere along the line and start making this semi honest.
I lost about 26 hours this week. My lungs collapsed somewhere around 3 AM on Wed. morning. I remember seeing 3:01 on the digital clock when I gave up on alleviating my breathing distress by sitting up in bed. I am fairly lucky since most folks with lungs in my condition have to sleep sitting upright, I normally do not. I could not recover my breath that way so I felt I had to get up. The distress turned into a major breathing attack, worse than any before. I actually got it under control for about 5 minutes before it launched off again at 5 AM. This time Nicole woke up and she called 911 right away. I lost consciousness before I was loaded into the ambulance.
I was treated for a heart attack as someone with COPD and intutubated at about 6 AM yesterday. The tube was removed at 11 AM today, 29 hours later. I did not have a heart attack. My heart simply stopped, went into some other rhythm, or something I do not grasp yet. They had to sedate me more than is normal. Apparently I was violent and extremely difficult to deal with. I regained consciousness at about 9 AM this morning. What woke me up was the feeling I was being water boarded, and I pretty much was. I could feel the tube down my throat and it was suffocating me and on top of that they had a screen over my face and misting ventolin and other meds down the tube. As I tried to move I realized I was restrained in the most complete manner you can possibly imagine. I only could wiggle my toes. Not even my fingers. They were restrained, too. They left me with no means to communicate. I tried to use my toes but my reputation preceded me and they simply presumed I was trying to hurt them and made jokes about it. I tried to point with my toes to the water jug. Please wet my lips. Nothing.
Finally at about 11 AM the Dr came in and ordered the tube out. I was so fucking relieved. He later told me there was no real need to have ever intubate me. Nicole told them I had severe COPD, the ambulance drivers told them I flat lined in the truck, they had actually stopped because of it. Since they were close to the hospital the senior guy told them to finish the delivery, and they did. They got my heart back into rhythm and because I have severe COPD they intubated me. The lab results that proved I did not have a heart attack took 29 hours to get into the Doctors hands. 29 Hours unnecessarily intubated. 29 hours in a drug induced coma. Does this make It sense? Do not get me wrong. I don’t know for sure a mistake was made, but somehow I think you can determine if someone has had a heart attack faster than that. The test the Doctor told me about measured enzymes that had leached out of my heart on account of the trauma of not receiving O2. The heart muscle had received virtually no damage. (I have a report for my cardiologist and in fact there has been some manner of damage, we shall see) He told me today that I have an incredibly strong heart still.
Tonight, sitting here in ICU in my bed, I am both glad they saved me and glad they did not kill me.
Today I feel quite odd, emotional, often sad. I cried earlier for a minute, something that has only happened a single time since I got sick. That was the day that Nicole and I realized that my lung disease was a major deal and destined to kill me at a young age. I never did cry again a single time again until today. Today I cried for what I have done to myself. My parents provided me with a magnificent powerful strong body. I spent my life thinking it was a weak, small, useless and unfair body. Instead of being happy I chose to be unhappy. I chose! It has taken imminent death for me to even get a glimpse at the damage my ego has caused to my life, to my friends, to my family over the last 35 years.
I have hidden myself from the world for the last year. I do not go out. I do not call my old friends. I think I have chased everybody away. This is wrong. This is a waste of a precious gift of life. I should suffer publicly, openly and show my love for everyone and everything good in this world. I should cry over my fate until I need to no longer cry. I should allow myself to be weak.
The care I am receiving is beyond compare. I am in a 12 bed ICU unit with a nurse for each bed and a half a dozen support staff and Dr's on hand at all times. The technology is mind boggling. My hear Dr. spoke to me yesterday and today he ordered up nuclear imaging for my heart. He knows I do not need that test for what happened to me a couple of days ago. He knows I did not have a heart attack. He ordered the test to support my lung transplant application. He was so versed in my chart he was able to tell me that my cancer had not grown at all!!! He also was versed in the lack of transplant/cancer protocols in Quebec. His opinion is that it is on a case by case basis and I think I got one or two more excellent Doctors on my side. I am going to get that transplant. I am going to get another little shot at life. I am.
No longer will I accept putting others first. No more. No more will I care what anyone thinks of me. Not one shit will I give. I spent my life thinking about others first, and, fuck you to the end of time if you do not think this is so. Stop reading and go away now.
Last week, one morning I came out of my office with a revelation. I needed to tell Nicole before I lost it. The thought was perhaps original or maybe I read it somewhere and stole it. I don't really know for sure. The revelation was that I was hard at work at having a "polite death." That hit me like a ton of bricks. Who the fuck ever worked at having a polite death? What was the point? You die they cry. Pretending that you are cool with dying don't ease anybody's pain. It is fucking absurd to the max. We laughed and laughed and laughed. I still have so far to go, so much to learn, to see, to understand. I know nothing about myself. I am an enigma to me, and, time is running out very fast.
I am very sad today. I feel lonely and alone. Lana came to see me and Nicole called me a lot. She needed to rest she was exhausted. My aunt called.
It is Sunday today, August 31. I am thinking a lot about the time on early Wed morning when my heart stopped. There was nothing from my point of view. No light, no warm glow, no mother or father. At my desk I lost consciousness Some ten minutes later my heart stopped. There was nothing. An absence of being. I cannot decide what my beliefs are, as far as life after death. If forced to I would say that we simply cease to be. We go back to the state of nothingness that we were in prior to being born. Yet, that entire cosmic miasma as unlikely as anything else. I have no glimmer. Given a choice I would like to be me, one more time, see how much better I do this time.
I am very weak. Very little stamina. I can get out of bed into a chair with some help. Early Saturday morning my blood pressure went out of control. Blood pressure, pulse everything way north of 200. Let me tell you two bouts of that in one week and you got some mighty sore ribs and a heart that feels like its been punched over and over again. Also pretty sure I broke a couple of ribs coughing a couple of weeks ago. Was hardly worth mentioning at the time :)
I had to be ventilated, again for about six hours. It was really terrifying. For the first time ever since I got sick I really wanted to die if dying would stop the attack. I would have pushed that button. The two nurses with me kept me together enough so that I could try to follow instructions. One of them would not let my hand go. She gripped it and gripped it and squeezed and talked to me with so much love and compassion I cannot begin to describe the experience. These women and men in this ICU unit are truly cut from special cloth. Every single one of them. From the lowliest to the chief they demonstrate what teamwork is all about. They do it with joy and compassion. The whole event lasted about 8 hours, it felt like an infinity. Getting all those tubes out of your throat is better than sex.
I miss Xamie, I have no idea what's going on in the places we keep our eyes on. I don't know what those asshole Americans have done or are going to do. I want to tell everybody I will be back and I love you all. I miss Monica, Ellim, Stacey, Gareth, Paula and a whole lot more of you.
I miss my left wing politics, my steampunk, Monica's Lego adventures, my photographers, the scientists who teach me every day. God how I miss you all. I Miss my posts, your comments, that connection we share.
There are tubes coming our of me all over the place. Blood gas monitor, 3 iv's, many many wires hooking up to the ECG as well as the ventilator on standby. Moving around in bed in an immense technical challenge. The steroids have turned my skin paper thin and my arms are both red, raw and bloody, the right one with a very large clot that looks like a spilled bowl of red jello. I am getting additional prednisone, instead of 15 mg a day its now 65 and there are also other steroids in the iv drips I am still on.
Today is Tuesday (hah! they let me out Friday) and it may be the day I get to go home. I hope so. I have the second part of the nuclear stress test this morning. At the same time as I am pleased to be going home, I am afraid, too. The breathing attacks, the tachycardia are painful and so distressing and difficult that death soon seems an enviable option. My life was saved a second time on Friday morning. A boatload of equipment, respirologists, two nurses and a Dr took 8 hours to keep me alive. I don't have any of that at home. Brave Russ shivers just a little at that thought.
It was wrong and I apologize to the people who took offense. I feel very badly about it. The offensive parts are removed. This will not happen again. I will not bother you again. I will call my Dr's tomorrow to ask for some emotional support to make sure that I am as ok as can be and you will not have to suffer any further outburst from me.
I offer no excuse, wrong is wrong. My only mitigating circumstance is I was still so drugged from the hospital stay which had ended the day before. I tossed out a med that I felt was making me crazy, rivotril. Nicole tells me I was literally falling from wall to wall to wall while navigating around the house until Sunday. My Dr. was pissed I was issued it. This also was an emotional and inappropriate reaction to something that I have allowed to cause me a lot of pain over a long period of time. This is no excuse. I did a bad thing. I am sorry I did. I regret my action and apologize.
I am sure that virtually every medical account is plein de merde. I will get my charts somewhere along the line and start making this semi honest.
I lost about 26 hours this week. My lungs collapsed somewhere around 3 AM on Wed. morning. I remember seeing 3:01 on the digital clock when I gave up on alleviating my breathing distress by sitting up in bed. I am fairly lucky since most folks with lungs in my condition have to sleep sitting upright, I normally do not. I could not recover my breath that way so I felt I had to get up. The distress turned into a major breathing attack, worse than any before. I actually got it under control for about 5 minutes before it launched off again at 5 AM. This time Nicole woke up and she called 911 right away. I lost consciousness before I was loaded into the ambulance.
I was treated for a heart attack as someone with COPD and intutubated at about 6 AM yesterday. The tube was removed at 11 AM today, 29 hours later. I did not have a heart attack. My heart simply stopped, went into some other rhythm, or something I do not grasp yet. They had to sedate me more than is normal. Apparently I was violent and extremely difficult to deal with. I regained consciousness at about 9 AM this morning. What woke me up was the feeling I was being water boarded, and I pretty much was. I could feel the tube down my throat and it was suffocating me and on top of that they had a screen over my face and misting ventolin and other meds down the tube. As I tried to move I realized I was restrained in the most complete manner you can possibly imagine. I only could wiggle my toes. Not even my fingers. They were restrained, too. They left me with no means to communicate. I tried to use my toes but my reputation preceded me and they simply presumed I was trying to hurt them and made jokes about it. I tried to point with my toes to the water jug. Please wet my lips. Nothing.
Finally at about 11 AM the Dr came in and ordered the tube out. I was so fucking relieved. He later told me there was no real need to have ever intubate me. Nicole told them I had severe COPD, the ambulance drivers told them I flat lined in the truck, they had actually stopped because of it. Since they were close to the hospital the senior guy told them to finish the delivery, and they did. They got my heart back into rhythm and because I have severe COPD they intubated me. The lab results that proved I did not have a heart attack took 29 hours to get into the Doctors hands. 29 Hours unnecessarily intubated. 29 hours in a drug induced coma. Does this make It sense? Do not get me wrong. I don’t know for sure a mistake was made, but somehow I think you can determine if someone has had a heart attack faster than that. The test the Doctor told me about measured enzymes that had leached out of my heart on account of the trauma of not receiving O2. The heart muscle had received virtually no damage. (I have a report for my cardiologist and in fact there has been some manner of damage, we shall see) He told me today that I have an incredibly strong heart still.
Tonight, sitting here in ICU in my bed, I am both glad they saved me and glad they did not kill me.
Today I feel quite odd, emotional, often sad. I cried earlier for a minute, something that has only happened a single time since I got sick. That was the day that Nicole and I realized that my lung disease was a major deal and destined to kill me at a young age. I never did cry again a single time again until today. Today I cried for what I have done to myself. My parents provided me with a magnificent powerful strong body. I spent my life thinking it was a weak, small, useless and unfair body. Instead of being happy I chose to be unhappy. I chose! It has taken imminent death for me to even get a glimpse at the damage my ego has caused to my life, to my friends, to my family over the last 35 years.
I have hidden myself from the world for the last year. I do not go out. I do not call my old friends. I think I have chased everybody away. This is wrong. This is a waste of a precious gift of life. I should suffer publicly, openly and show my love for everyone and everything good in this world. I should cry over my fate until I need to no longer cry. I should allow myself to be weak.
The care I am receiving is beyond compare. I am in a 12 bed ICU unit with a nurse for each bed and a half a dozen support staff and Dr's on hand at all times. The technology is mind boggling. My hear Dr. spoke to me yesterday and today he ordered up nuclear imaging for my heart. He knows I do not need that test for what happened to me a couple of days ago. He knows I did not have a heart attack. He ordered the test to support my lung transplant application. He was so versed in my chart he was able to tell me that my cancer had not grown at all!!! He also was versed in the lack of transplant/cancer protocols in Quebec. His opinion is that it is on a case by case basis and I think I got one or two more excellent Doctors on my side. I am going to get that transplant. I am going to get another little shot at life. I am.
No longer will I accept putting others first. No more. No more will I care what anyone thinks of me. Not one shit will I give. I spent my life thinking about others first, and, fuck you to the end of time if you do not think this is so. Stop reading and go away now.
Last week, one morning I came out of my office with a revelation. I needed to tell Nicole before I lost it. The thought was perhaps original or maybe I read it somewhere and stole it. I don't really know for sure. The revelation was that I was hard at work at having a "polite death." That hit me like a ton of bricks. Who the fuck ever worked at having a polite death? What was the point? You die they cry. Pretending that you are cool with dying don't ease anybody's pain. It is fucking absurd to the max. We laughed and laughed and laughed. I still have so far to go, so much to learn, to see, to understand. I know nothing about myself. I am an enigma to me, and, time is running out very fast.
I am very sad today. I feel lonely and alone. Lana came to see me and Nicole called me a lot. She needed to rest she was exhausted. My aunt called.
It is Sunday today, August 31. I am thinking a lot about the time on early Wed morning when my heart stopped. There was nothing from my point of view. No light, no warm glow, no mother or father. At my desk I lost consciousness Some ten minutes later my heart stopped. There was nothing. An absence of being. I cannot decide what my beliefs are, as far as life after death. If forced to I would say that we simply cease to be. We go back to the state of nothingness that we were in prior to being born. Yet, that entire cosmic miasma as unlikely as anything else. I have no glimmer. Given a choice I would like to be me, one more time, see how much better I do this time.
I am very weak. Very little stamina. I can get out of bed into a chair with some help. Early Saturday morning my blood pressure went out of control. Blood pressure, pulse everything way north of 200. Let me tell you two bouts of that in one week and you got some mighty sore ribs and a heart that feels like its been punched over and over again. Also pretty sure I broke a couple of ribs coughing a couple of weeks ago. Was hardly worth mentioning at the time :)
I had to be ventilated, again for about six hours. It was really terrifying. For the first time ever since I got sick I really wanted to die if dying would stop the attack. I would have pushed that button. The two nurses with me kept me together enough so that I could try to follow instructions. One of them would not let my hand go. She gripped it and gripped it and squeezed and talked to me with so much love and compassion I cannot begin to describe the experience. These women and men in this ICU unit are truly cut from special cloth. Every single one of them. From the lowliest to the chief they demonstrate what teamwork is all about. They do it with joy and compassion. The whole event lasted about 8 hours, it felt like an infinity. Getting all those tubes out of your throat is better than sex.
I miss Xamie, I have no idea what's going on in the places we keep our eyes on. I don't know what those asshole Americans have done or are going to do. I want to tell everybody I will be back and I love you all. I miss Monica, Ellim, Stacey, Gareth, Paula and a whole lot more of you.
I miss my left wing politics, my steampunk, Monica's Lego adventures, my photographers, the scientists who teach me every day. God how I miss you all. I Miss my posts, your comments, that connection we share.
There are tubes coming our of me all over the place. Blood gas monitor, 3 iv's, many many wires hooking up to the ECG as well as the ventilator on standby. Moving around in bed in an immense technical challenge. The steroids have turned my skin paper thin and my arms are both red, raw and bloody, the right one with a very large clot that looks like a spilled bowl of red jello. I am getting additional prednisone, instead of 15 mg a day its now 65 and there are also other steroids in the iv drips I am still on.
Today is Tuesday (hah! they let me out Friday) and it may be the day I get to go home. I hope so. I have the second part of the nuclear stress test this morning. At the same time as I am pleased to be going home, I am afraid, too. The breathing attacks, the tachycardia are painful and so distressing and difficult that death soon seems an enviable option. My life was saved a second time on Friday morning. A boatload of equipment, respirologists, two nurses and a Dr took 8 hours to keep me alive. I don't have any of that at home. Brave Russ shivers just a little at that thought.
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