Part 3: Return Of The Immune System!

So, where were we........

5 days after I black out, I come out of it. I remember looking to my left and seeing Lake Michigan out of my window. I look to my right and see machines. I have a sense of confusion, and had NO clue where I was. Am I dead? I try to move, but of course I can't. Then I remember. I'm paralyzed. I'm in the hospital. and I am alive. ALIVE! The nurse comes in and she is shocked that I am awake. She asks me questions that i of course cannot answer. But I can move my lips. Wait....no mask on my face? How can I breathe so well? That is when she informs me that I had a tracheotomy, and my breathing was controlled by a machine. I was also informed that a feeding tube had been inserted into my stomach, a catheter in my, well you know as well as a med tap in my chest.

Wow. I must look like a wreck.

Turns out I still had not had a bowel movement since I came in, and they were concerned.

Now let me say one thing. I had NO control over what I did. Nothing. If I had to go, I just went. No holding it, no squuezing it. Nothing. All of the muscles that controlled this were dead. You'll never know how much you take advantage of a bathroom until you can never use one.

Apparently I had a heart attack from the stress my body had been under. (I don't actually remember this, I was informed later). And had to be brought back to life. And was now being monitored with a machine. I looked around me and was just scared, but alive.

The next 6 weeks is a blur of tests and probes. Specialists came and went as they tried to find out what had caused my illness. Thy were able to stop me from dying, and stabalized me, but I was still in danger unless they could find a cure. to find a cure, they needed to know what it was.

I would love to tell you about everyday life in my room, but they kept me in a drug-induced coma 75% of the time, so I will just share some of the things I experienced during my 7 week stay in ICU.

I threw up. ALOT. My diet consisted of 3 cans of Ensure injected directly into my stomach via the feeding tube. The sensation was horrible as they kept it refigerated. And they were not gentle about it being injected. It hit my stomach COLD and fast. Sometimes resulting in it coming back up.

Ever wonder what it's like to throw up with a trache in your throat? Not so pretty. They have to disconect it and clean it out. they also have to make sure none went down my throat, and if it did, they put a tube in to suck it out. Yeah, it's as bad as it sounds. And it hurt.

I could only move my head and neck. So they had a touch button placed next to my head in case I needed the nurse. Simply put,, I would press my head against the button and they would come in.

I would stare at the ceiling all day. The TV was on, but you can only handle The Weather Channel for so long, I had no control to change the station. I was however able to find every letter of the alphabet in the ceiling tiles. there were little holes that made patterns. I found then all!

There was what I call "The Torture Table". What they did was move me from my bed to this flat board with straps on it. The ran a strap across my chest, and my legs. Then tilted the board to where I was at an angle facing the wll. The pain was SO horrible. It felt like my insides were sliding out of me and into my legs. I would beg for them to stop, but I guess it was some sort of therapy. Whatever. To me it was just evil.

The meds I was on used to make me see things and and give me weird sensations. I used to see faces in the window outside even though I was 6 floors up. I used to also think I had nails in my mouth. The sensation was there I could fell them. I had to be convinced by the nurses that  they were not there. Then it was razor blades. I could feel them cutting my mouth and swallowing them. Then it was string stuck to the roof of my mouth, and I was choking on it. No matter what the nurse told me, I swear it was there.

There were times I wanted to just die. I never thought I would have a normal life and I didn''t want others to have to take care of me. I never told anyone this before. I tried to take my own life several times.

I was able to work out the trache tube if I moved my neck enough. I would start to suffocate when it came out. I would close my eyes and wait to die. They always came in and fixed it though. I tried over and over to just end it, but I couldn't. I'm not sure if they knew what I was doing or not.

Whenever I had a blockage of fluid in my throat, they would have to dig in the trache hole, and suck it out. Picture a fork running across the inside of your mouth. Then swallow it and have it stick there. It was worse than that. It always drew alot of blood.

I forgot to mention that the nurses had got pretty good at reading my lips. I still couldn't talk, but I could comunicate by moving my lips. I was also able to make a clicking sound with my tongue if they had their back to me to get their attention. It worked.

Then I started having seizures. About 3 weeks in. i would wake up and the room would be full of nurses. i would have NO idea where i was when I came out of them. It was like not knowing who you were, or where you were. It was so fun playing the "Do you know who you are, and where you are?" game. So they decided that they need to find out why I was having these seizures.

"Hey, his eyes are open!"

That is what I heard when as I woke up while they were drilling a hole in my skull. I felt it. I heard it, and I smelled it. 3 of the most horrifying seconds ever. The room went nuts as they rushed to put me back out. I woke up later in my room with a tube in my head. They drilled to relieve pressure that was not even there to try and stop the seizures. they still had no idea why they were happening, so on the meds for THAT as well.

A doctor came in one day when my father was visiting. I would LOVE to mention his name. But I won't. I will say however that he is a very well known docor at Northern Michigan Hospital. He was a royal DICK. He was asking me questions about my heart that I could not answer. He kept pressing me to answer question after question. My dad did the best he could. there was a letter board that I could use if someone held my hand to it, I tried to spell something out, but he got pissed and told my dad that when I figured out what I wanted to say to call him. I made my clicking sound, and he turned to me.

I used every ounce of energy I had, but I flipped him off. With my dad's help of course.

 "Fuck you!" I whispered to the nice doctor.

He left. I never saw him again.

Progress was being made, and one day they figured out what I was suffering from. GBS. The virus had been dormant after I had the food poisoning. It supressed my immune system. That was why the viral pneumonia was able to kick my ass. When I was treated for that, my immune system recovered. But the virus was in my spinal fluid. It made my white blood cell count shoot through the roof, and it attacked. Sadly it attacked me as well. It corroded the sheath around my nerves that send the signal to my brain, cutting off all communication, and paralyzing me.

I had been tested for everything from AIDS to Lyme Disease. Seeing I had been living in Mojave in Southern California, there was an even WIDER range of things it could have been. But a simple blood test would have shown that my white blood cell count was out of control

"Go home. You'll be fine"

If they would only have done that blood test. Dr Lo was the ONLY doctor that listened to me, and he suspected what it was. I love that man. He is a great doctor. He came to see me when i was in the hospital. the other doctor that sent me home, never did. And he was a friend of the family.

Dr. Mackenzie was my new doctor. It had now been almost 6 weeks since I was admitted. A great guy. He wanted to get me off the respirator and back breathing on my own. I had made so much progress and he want to move me to Munson to start rehab. The first time I had the trache out, it was weird. It felt like I was was inhaling water, but after 5 days i was doing it. Breathing on my own. My first words in 6 weeks came from my mouth.

"Can I get a drink?" were my first words. Laughter. And I smiled. I was going to live, and I was going to Traverse City to start a long road of recovery. And it was going to be TOUGH!

7 weeks. I was supposed to be in ICU for 3 months. I was able to recover in 7 weeks. Not bad for someone who was clinically dead.

Did I mention I now had NO muscle tone, and had lost nearly 100lbs in that amount of time? yeah, The GBS diet plan. I don't recommend it!

The story continues tomorrow.......stick around!