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dcnovice -> DC Update: No Place Like Home (11/22/2014 3:57:00 PM)
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November 22, 2014
No Place Like Home
Dear Ones ---
It’s good to be home. (I tried to think of a more original opening, but no luck.) I returned to my dear old apartment last night after six nights at, yes, Georgetown University Hospital, where I was treated for shortness of breath (aptly called SOB among medical folk) stemming from excess fluid in my lungs.
My stay was both easy and excruciating. Physically, it was a breeze. My breathing returned to normal almost instantly, I shed at least ten pounds of fluid in just a few days, and my walking without O2 assistance improved each day. Mentally, things were tougher. Hospitals are surreal ecosystems, and I think I’ve lost the patience for dealing with them. It was particularly maddening to have to battle for things I needed, especially to get my medications sorted out. It didn’t improve my mood that I was not allowed to get out of bed unaided. After several days’ confinement, I felt like a caged animal: edgy and angry. And I hated being dependent on the call button for even the smallest things.
Then there were the roommates. I had three, in quick succession. The first was a befuddled, elderly man who groaned day and night. He either couldn’t find or use his call button, so he cried “Help!” again and again and again. His successor had landed in the ICU after same-day surgery (I think) went awry. He awoke with a breathing tube down his throat—a hideous experience, as I know firsthand. The staff kept saying, “Try to relax,” probably the three most stressful words one can hear while in distress. Even hearing his agony secondhand was rough.
Roomie two turned out to have a heartbreaking backstory. Earlier in life, he’d endured two courses (one involuntary) of shock treatment. They’d damaged his brain big-time, destroying his ability to read, at least temporarily. (One of the difficulties of eavesdropping is that you can’t ask for clarification!) He was convinced that he hadn’t been adequately warned before consenting to his second course of treatment, so he was balking at consenting to a second attempt at his surgery.
My final roommate was a kind, pious man with a large brain tumor and a (related?) clot in his heart. He became dismayingly agitated anytime his wife left the room. First he’d call her name a dozen or so times. Then he’d cry out to Jesus for help. Due to the tumor and/or a recent head injury, he was fairly disoriented. When anyone would ask the usual alertness-test questions—where are you, what day is it, who’s the President—he struggled to answer. At times, even his name escaped him. One evening, a nurse kept asking, “What’s your name?” I growled “Goddammit, he doesn’t know!” She didn’t hear me, but my own nurse, standing nearby to take vitals, did. He chuckled ruefully.
This latest medical misadventure has brought a few more bits of gadgetry into my life. I’m now the proud owner of an oxygen “concentrator”—a blue, rolling box about the size of a space heater. It sucks in air, snatches the O2, and pumps it my way. At night, the air flows into my sleep apnea machine and then into me. I tried it last night and slept beautifully. I’m hoping that’s not just a coincidence!
During the day, I’m meant to use oxygen as needed during “exertion”—which, in my case, is anything more than typing. The concentrator does the job at home, and I have a portable (broadly defined) tank for when I’m out and about. Exciting, no? Still, it’s better than calling 911 from a street corner, as I did last Saturday when I felt I couldn’t get any air.
This afternoon, Mom and I went to lunch (awesome comfort food at Circa Dupont), then met Dad at the AT&T store. I’d dutifully stowed the oxygen tank in the car trunk, but, despite a fair amount of walking, never needed it. And the level of O2 in my blood remained high. I know this thanks to a cute little gizmo called a pulse oximeter. It looks like an overgrown binder clip. I slip my finger inside, then get the results on a wee screen atop the device.
As always, love to you all!
Cheers,
DC
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