I'm at the hospital now. I called before I came and they told me he
was the same. When I arrived, the nurse
told me he was downgraded. Wow! That's a heart-stopper. However, it means he's improved. They are thinking of taking him out of the
ICU and moving him to 'the floor.' This is excellent news.
As it stands now, he is still on
that powerful breathing mask and has a 24/7 sitter. Given how feisty he is, I am hoping they keep
the sitter. It is a great relief to
me.
Mike asked me to do the rosary with
him. I would much rather it be the
Powerbook. I am exhausted. I'm sleeping well when I sleep, but I don't sleep as
much as I usually do. I get six hours
here. At home, it's more like 8 to 10 at
night and then another nap during the day.
When this all started, I was up for
36 hours straight. They called me from the dialysis center, told me he had
thrown up. The dialysis was going to have to be stopped, I was to grab a clean pair of pants and come
pick him up. That didn't sound bad. When
I got there 45 minutes later, he was in the bathroom with severe diarrhea and
throwing up at the same time. I went
into the bathroom to be with him. I couldn't stay there because the smell was
so bad, and I have a high tolerance for organic odors. He was already groaning and complaining of
abdominal pain.
I proposed calling an
ambulance. The nurse on duty called the
kidney doctor in Honolulu. I have no
idea why, but he reported the doctor as saying it sounded like a GI virus and
to send him home. He'd be fine. Mike had had a big protein chocolate chip
cookie and felt that was the cause of his problem. The nurse concurred. I
argued he needed to go to the hospital. The nurse shrugged, turned his back on
me, walked away, and told me to do what I wanted. I didn't call an ambulance, which was just as
well. If I had, we would have had to
wait for it to arrive. When it did, it
would have eliminated problems like heart attack and stroke and told me to take
him to the hospital. The dialysis
clinic is halfway between the hospital and our home, so it was great it
happened there instead of at home.
By the time we got there, his pain
level had increased. He was calling for something just to knock him out. When
the doctor finally saw him, he probed his abdomen and order morphine. I suspect he knew what the problem was
immediately. They gave him another dose of morphine, and something else
starting with an A, Ativan? That last one knocked him out. The drugs also depressed his breathing, and
he was put on oxygen. The Kona hospital
did a sonar gram and a CTC scan. They
told me that he would probably have to go to the Honolulu hospital ( we live on
the Big Island). I went home to
pack.
I got home around 12 midnight. I quickly put Elsa, our dog, on her leash and
rushed her down to Yvette. I called
Yvette's name, explained the problem, and she took Elsa in immediately. Poor Elsa ran after me as I went to
leave. She had never been so summarily
dropped off before.
I was back at the hospital by
1:30. They had told me the ambulance
wouldn't be there till three. They were there early. I wheeled in my suitcase. They took one look at it and said that it
wouldn't be allowed on the plane. They told me that the pilot would
decide. I would have had to leave it on
the tarmac. As I left to drive myself to the airport, the ER doctor told me my
husband was in critical condition and gave me a sympathetic hug. No, it didn't make me feel better.
I drove myself to the airport at a
good clip. Mike was still in the ER when
I left. I pulled into the parking lot and watched the ambulance pull up
immediately. I thought they said they
would meet me at the entrance. They
didn't.
I had some shopping bags in the
back of the car. I repacked what I
could. Then loaded down with these
shopping bags, I made my way into the driveway where I had seen them pull in.
I'm screaming, "Hello, hello!?" There is no answer. Here I am an old lady, loaded with shopping
bags, making my way down a driveway at 3 am. Finally, I hear a voice say,
"Stop yelling." Okay, let's
say his hemorrhoids had the better of him.
Why couldn't he have answered? I'm scared to death they're going to
leave without me. I'm alone. I'm frightened.
I went through this large gate when
the grouch opened it. He gestured randomly and said, "They're over
there." I see three planes. Let us
remember that I'm under a little bit of stress. I asked which one. He said
where the light is." His tone makes it clear that he thinks I'm a waste of
space. Now there are bright lights all over the place. Finally, I see the one nearest one plane and
head over there.
This plane is about the size of a
large pencil. The attendants managed to get my stuff into the "cargo
section," which is a cargo net hanging from the ceiling in the seat next
to me. Besides Mike's stretcher, there
are two attendants, me and this cargo net.
Oh, yes, two pilots in the cockpit. Fortunately, it was a clear night,
and the flight was smooth.
Unfortunately, it was pitch black, and I couldn't see the ocean surface
to enjoy the view. The landing was one
of the smoothest I have ever experienced.
It is my understanding the smaller the plane, the harder it is to land a
little plane smoothly.
Then we were in the ER. I sat with him; he was quiet because he is so
doped up. We waited. I don't know how long.
We are finally given a room on the first floor. It was a double room;
they told me they would move him when a single opened. He was entitled to a single because he's
off-island. All patients who don't live in Oahu are given private rooms so
their caretakers can stay with them. Where else are we going to go?
They finally move him to a single
room. I ask for a lounge chair which
opens up into a cot; it's called a cot because that's how wide it is, the width of a chair. They tell me they have none available.
"What am I going to do?" They told me to go to a hotel or sleep in a
chair. I told them the hotel is out. I'm not leaving him. It was
6 pm. I had been up for 35 hours. I was tired. I start to fall asleep in
the chair. It was too
uncomfortable. I slid down to the floor,
using my arm as a pillow. It was too cold.
I asked for some sleeping pillows.
They give me two pillows, saying that was all they had and several
hospital blankets. I put the two pillows
on the floor end to end, one blanket on top of the pillows, the others on top
of me, and slept peacefully for twelve hours.
The next day they brought me a cot.
Fortunately, Mike had a sitter with him because he asked to go to the bathroom
every 15 minutes to half an hour. His distended abdomen, from the pancreatitis
inflammation, put pressure on his bladder, and the chemicals from the fluids in
his gut were also provoking his bladder.
He didn't have to urinate at all.
The man was being tortured as far as I'm concerned, not by the medical
profession but by some other force.
We came on Friday; early Tuesday
morning, I was awakened by, "Mrs. Ross, you have to get out. This room is
about to be filled with people." It was the first call by the emergency
relief team. They didn't give me any
information at the time. I called my
friend Judy at 1 in the morning. She
stayed on the phone with me until they stabilized him. They moved me and my cot
back into the room, and I went back to sleep. Only to be awakened again around
7 am when the dialysis team came in.
Mike couldn't go to the dialysis unit because he was suffering from
diarrhea, and they were concerned he had c difficle. (As it wound up, he
didn't). The room was jammed with people and machinery. I got up, went to use the public bathroom for
a little self-repair, and went to have breakfast in the cafeteria.
When I came downstairs, the hallway
looked like people were in line for a rock concert. I asked one of the transport attendants,
"Is it me?" It sounded like a good question to me at the time. He said, "No! It's room 103.
""That is me!" This time he was moved to the ICU.
This sweet male doctor knelt by my
side and tried to explain what was going on. He had his hand on my knee as he
spoke. I told him that it felt comforting.
Oops! He hadn't even realized he
was doing it. He apologized. I told him
not to worry, it wasn't a "Me, too" moment.
I had been in touch with Jean,
Mike's first wife, and Damon's mother, previously and said I might want her to
come out. She was at Damon's at the
time. She babysat their 15-year-old son,
August, while they vacationed in NYC. Now, with this development, I called
Damon. He booked a flight for both of them for that day.
When we got to the ICU, I was sent
to the waiting room. I immediately called someone Mike knows well through the
diaconate program and said, "I can't be alone." He said it would take
him and his wife 30 minutes to get there. However, someone was there before I
even left to follow Mike to the ICU unit. Lina, the diaconate secretary, who
lives right around the corner from the hospital, got the message and came right
over. I hadn't had a lot of direct
contact with her and didn't even recognize her outside of the office. However,
she was a blessing. John and Kathy
arrived once I was upstairs. There was a
third person, the Chaplin with the diaconate program. She is a lovely Korean
lady whose name I dare not try to spell for fear of mutilating it.
Lina, the Chaplin, and John left,
but Kathy stayed with me the whole time.
I made a sleeping area for myself in the lounge and fell asleep. John came back, and the two of them stayed
with me until Jean and Damon arrived shortly before ten. They left once they had handed me over.
We have so much support here in
Hawaii. Mike has provided all of it.
Even the friends I have are ones I have met through him. And then there
is the whole deacon program, the entire parish, all the folks from the seminary
where he worked in Ohio, the list goes on.
There are so many people praying for him. Whatever the outcome, I will
assume it is what is best for him.
This attitude is
not borne out of Catholicism. No, I was
taught it when I was still a child. My
uncle, Werner, taught me the army clean-up philosophy of life: "Move
everything you can move. What you can't move, paint green and call good."
It always sounded like a good philosophy to live by to me.
Next entry will be what happened
after Damon and Jean, and finally, Shivani arrived.
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