I was told by the nurses at Wentworth-Douglas that I would be placed in the Intensive Care Unit so I could be more closely monitored because of my recent diagnosis of having pancreatitis. When they told me I got really scared because I didn't know if that meant I was really in dire straits or what was going on. Imagine being told you're possibly terminally sick while medicated enough that your brain can't really process what's going on. Scary. When I arrived at the ICU the transport guy put me in my new bed and my nurse was very helpful and attentive. She hooked me up to all kinds of monitors and things and told me I would have to be monitored 24/7, no matter what because if they lost signal they'd think I was dead or something. Great, I can't have a bowel movement without assistance or they'll think I was really in trouble. At this point I really thought this was how life was going to be from now on. After trying in vain for a bit to get comfortable enough to sleep I started to take in my surroundings and for some reason kept thinking about Lost. When they first wheeled me in to the ICU I thought it looked like an octagon which made me think of the Dharma Initiative logos and so I associated this place with Lost. Anyway, I think I managed to sleep a little and was later visited by my parents as well as Kelley and her family. Her sister Liza was home for the holidays and I felt sorry for all of them having to be there in the ICU with me around Christmas time. I remember Kelley fighting back tears and that made me feel really awful too. Seeing her cry is far from the top of my awesome list. One good point about this point was it was the first time our parents had met. Sick people: bringing families together since the dawn of time. They hung out for a bit and left. Later that night my Lost fixation proved to get me kicked out of the ICU when I was having this bizarre series of dreams about being locked in some Dharma station. I kept hearing the beep from the Swan computer and thought I heard the Others and all of this crazy stuff. The fact that I kept having the same dream over and over proved to be too much because I finally woke up and just said "fuck this" and took all of the IV's out of my arms, I believe I had four in at the time. Needless to say my nurse rushed in and was not happy to see her patient a raving bloody mess. I kept telling her I had to prove that I was awake and not crazy so that's why I did it. She and another nurse cleaned and bandaged me up and had to look all over for enough supplies to get me re-IV-ed. I don't remember how much longer I was in that room but it wasn't very long until I was placed back in a gen-pop hospital room. This would not be the end to my craziness, unfortunately. While I was back in the normal rooms I truly, truly believed I was being held prisoner by my new nurses and tried to escape. Not sure if that was real or not but it freaked me out enough that I was being very combative with the nurses and may or may not have had hospital security restrain me from actually trying to leave.
As a quick sidenote, let's call this a public service announcement. When I was initially hospitalized I was still drunk (lesson, kids: it takes as long as you've been drinking to get alcohol out of your system so if you've been drinking for four hours at a bar it'll take you at least that long to fully sober up. And no, eating food or drinking water/tea/coffee will not make you any more sober.) for a bit and THEN detoxed so add very strong painkillers to that cocktail and I was very messed up for a good amount of time. I will never, ever tell someone they shouldn't drink or anything like that but at least in my case what starts out normal, social and innocent can quickly steamroll into something you don't want. True story.
As I said before this was around Christmas and I felt like an asshole for missing out on the holiday and being away from Kelley and our families. My parents brought me some cool Christmas stuff like a Lego castle and sticker book (grown men can still play with Lego's, ok?!) and the Official Lost Encyclopedia. This was an epic win for me because it's as close to the Lost bible as a civilian can get and very few people know how far my Lost geekdom truly stretches. Unfortunately the book weighs about twenty pounds so it was a little tough to try and read in my current state. Actually, ha! Hell, I should send Darlton a letter and tell them how much of their stuff ended up in my medical emergency. I'll have to remember to do that. Also, and this is important to mention, my parents brought me my own Charlie Brown tree for my room. That tree kept me company and was the subject of endless questions from nursing staff. I'm sorry, Wentworth-Douglas nurses, you may be great at health care but how do you not know what a Charlie Brown tree is?! Do you live in caves? This tree was important because I was transferred to a different room and they somehow lost my tree. Gone. Kaput. Someone at that hospital walked off with my sad little tree. Thanks, bros. I think at this point I had been in the hospital for two weeks and lived in four or five different rooms, mostly on the third floor. I still have to send them flowers and cookies because those poor people dealt with a lot of bullshit from me and did it with smiles on their faces. God bless you fine folks.
Ok, that about does it for now. Next we get to how I got to spend New Year's in a hospital bed, other visitations, further crazy stories that may or may not have actually happened and transfer to the fateful Lahey Clinic.
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Oh, and as for those pictures at the top, I'm figuring out how to add photos to my entries and not make it look awkward. As for the pictures themselves, I realized not everyone will know what I'm talking about when I mention specific medical bits so those are current pictures of my Jackson Pratt drains. (Notice the sweet scar on my belly courtesy of Dr. James Pomposelli, the man who effectively saved my tookus.) As of this writing I have had seven seperate JP's in my abdomen/flank/back. They're fun.
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