Deja Vu

I got a call today that one of my best friends was admitted to the hospital. Turns out her 'laziness' this weekend...she 'rested' while we painted and moved furniture, was actually warranted. She has gall stones and is having her gall bladder removed on Thursday. The minute her Mom told me she had been admitted, I instantly felt different. I got a pain deep in my chest. It was hard to catch my breath. I started feeling sweaty. I think it was a panic attack. I knew I would have to go to the hospital to visit her. After being in and out of hospitals for 6 months, I guess you could say I am a little 'paranoid'.

Sure I've gone to the hospital for check ups with my surgeon. But, I don't have to go to the building where I 'lived' or be in a hospital room. It's actually very simple. I pull up to the Valet - get out, take the elevator to the 12th floor (but I always think it's on the 9th floor, so I have to go there first), see my surgeon, and then I'm out. Way too easy! Me thinking that I'm so 'past' it all. That I've dealt with it.

What is dealing with something? Everyone says, 'You have to accept it, and move on'. Accept what exactly? Move on to where again? This isn't new to me, I've always felt this was a contradiction. And I've never really understood how you can do either gracefully or willingly. My therapist says this to me often. I ask for more clarification to which I've yet to get an answer - or maybe she did tell me, but I have no short term memory so I have forgotten!

So anyway, as we (my daughter, Abigail) approached the hospital, I got more nervous. A place that most consider 'safe', I find haunting. So why do I have a fear of hospitals? Let me see if I can do this as painless as possible for both you the reader, as well as me the 'wannabe writer'.

On Thursday, August 31 of 2006, I went in for a routine laprascopic procedure to finish a prior partial hysterectomy. I was in at 7a and out and home by 3p. However, by that evening, something just wasn't right. After calls to the answering service, trips to the pharmacy, my 'non confrontational' husband forced me to go to the ER on Sunday morning. Little did he know, he would be saving my life for the second time - the first was when he married me almost 15 years ago, but that is another story, for another time.

When I was admitted to the hospital, they said I was severely dehydrated and my temperature was dropping rapidly. After a lot of poking and prodding, the on call surgeon came in to see me, after the insertion of a swan catheter, he noticed the red swollen area on the left upper side of my abdomen. He inserted a syringe and determined, by the looks of the yuck he was draining, that I must have a 'bowel perforation'. I'd heard of it before...didn't quite know what it meant, and had been told this was common with a laprascopic procedure, but what wasn't common was to leave an OR with one...or in my case two.

So, he scheduled surgery for late that night, he wanted me hydrated...gave me lots more morphine and alas, I was more comfortable. Chris left to take the kids clothes to our neighbors, they would spend the night there. Minutes after Chris left, a team of white coats with panic stricken faces entered my ER cubby. The only words I remember are - kidney failure, dialysis, organs shutting down, surgery now as they ran with me on the gurney.

I do remember looking up at my mom, who was running beside my gurney and asking if I was going to die. She grabbed my hand, and said, 'No f#$%ing way are you going to die. Right?' (yeah, she wasn't real convincing, especially when the doctor wouldn't answer or look at us). I realized then the severity, and although I didn't understand it, I 'accepted' it. I grabbed my sister's hand and said, 'Please take care of Chris and my kids if something happens. And please don't call Grandma Bonnie (my dad passed away on Aug 2, 2006, but again...that's another story). My sister looked deep into my eyes, staring at me and began to cry.

I woke up a month later from my 'drug induced' coma. The trauma to my abdomen was so significant that conscious I would not have been able to handle the pain. My family suffered the most during that time. My husband afraid he was going to bury his wife, just as he had buried his mother all those years ago. My children were shipped out all over our neighborhood and not able to see me at all. They would later tell me that they thought I had died, and no one had told them. My mother would have to come to terms with the fact, that deep down she did love me - ALL of me. And my baby sister, well, she realized that we're closer than even she realized.

So, that is why I HATE hospitals, and have so much distrust for doctors. I know we all make mistakes, and I know while not intentional, it was sloppy and the whole mess could have been avoided. So, when your doctor tells you, or your friend, that it's just a simple laprascopic day procedure, please ask this very important question - 'Doctor, will you be using an optical lense on that trocar or will you be blindly inserting into my abdomen (not once, not twice, but third times a charm)?'

Hind sight is 20/20, isn't it?