I'm not at the hospital yet, so
this will be more information about last night. He continued communicating with
his sitter. The sitter is literally
someone who sits with him 24/7. When he
was on the' floor' (meaning not the ICU), he needed one because he was always
getting up on his own to go to the bathroom.
Now he needed one, so he didn't pull out any of the things the staff had
sticking in him to save his life.
Next, he wrote "The dialogue
is in . . . . English? Latin? That last
part wasn't clear. Ah, background
information. I set his Powerbook by his
head with Catholic prayers on it from YouTube. He was listening peacefully for
a long time. Then he started complaining
about something being in Latin, he was right. Latin Chants were playing. I stopped that one and put on prayers in
English. He still complained. However, he was on this breathing mask at
that point that made him sound like he was learning to play the kazoo, very
noisy. He may have confused, not
understanding with something being in Latin.
The next thing he wrote in LARGE
LETTERS was" BE GENTLE." That was addressed to me. The respiratory therapist assured him that I
was being entirely appropriate. However, I think Mike was referring to a previous
interaction I had with a nurse where I wasn't so gentle. I had a few
unsatisfactory interactions with her and was telling her I didn't like what she
was doing.
In my first interaction with her, I
told her that I was under the impression that he had aspirated the fluid from
his stomach into his lungs. She kindly
informed me that they weren't the same organ. Really??? What a surprise. She
must think I'm someone who didn't make it past sixth grade. Okay. So I patiently explained to her that others
had told me that they thought he had brought the liquid up from his stomach to
his mouth and breathed that liquid in. I
didn't want to strain her understanding.
But I wasn't sarcastic or anything like that as I spoke to her. Mike did
not observe this interaction.
The second interaction is the one
that got me. She told him just to relax
and stop thinking. It is my understanding that these are challenging things to
do unless you have extensive training. I
asked her if she could JUST stop thinking. She assured me that she could. Okay.
I told her that I thought it was a cruel thing to say to someone who didn't
have her level of expertise. She then told me that she thought he was someone
who overthought. Let me see, as I
recall, he is an academic who spends a great deal of time in his mind thinking
and has no training as to how to shut it off. When my tone got tense, and I
told her I thought was she was doing was cruel, we were standing on either side
of Mike's bed. Mike has a low tolerance
for people arguing.
There was one moment the day before
yesterday, when he said, "Turn off the TV. People are arguing." The
TV wasn't on, but there was some commotion out around the nurse's station. He heard it and got upset. Mike remembers his parents as not stop
arguers. Well, his mother as a nonstop
yeller. He is very, very sensitive to
those bad vibes.
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