Restraints
Saturday morning, I woke up in a bed at Duke Hospital in wrist restraints. Technically, 'woke up' is probably inaccurate - More like 'came to'. So, show of hands, way up high, everyone who has been in a hospital bed with restraints on... Crazy how a simple overhand knotted strap combined with a compromised mental state results in total capitulation and acceptance.
Forgive me for jumping ahead. Previously, I introduced the Chekhov’s gun of chemotherapy. Now we're off in a whole different direction of emergency hospital stays, and CT scans, and Foley catheters. Look, I'm along for the ride with y'all. I don't know where this is headed. Based on recent history, endless digressions seem to form the path.
What I do know is that between late Thursday morning and Saturday afternoon, I lost about 8 pounds and 36 hours. The weight I'll get back, but the time - It's gone-gone. We'll have to rely on witness testimony to fill in the gaps, along with some sparse text exchange records.
Wednesday afternoon I started my 2nd round of chemo. Things went well, all things considered. I came home with the pressure pump that jams the 5FU into the port in my chest. It was a long day at a medical facility based on the scale I had experienced to that point - 6 hours is a lot of sitting around. Went to bed Wednesday night without major issues.
The last thing I remember Thursday is vomiting in the toilet. According to text records, Karen was worried that the kids might be home and see that. We were still in the stage where 'Dad throwing up' might be stressful for the children. I joked that the vomit was melting the grout in our newly refinished bathroom. Evidently I also complained that I didn't get any work done at all.
Friday AM, Karen found me on my usual throne, unable to follow commands. Lights on, no one home. The lone eyewitness account states that I walked over to the bed, Depends around my ankles, and just sat down. Karen was comforted by my gait, in that it was regular. This suggests that the patient has not had a stroke in the motor portion of the brain. The patient wasn’t speaking or following commands. So it was time for a ride in the ambulance to the ER. I remember not one bit of the ride, nor the rest of Friday.
Karen then spent from 9AM until 11PM with me at the ER, taking a slight break in the afternoon so she could go receive her 4th of 5 radiation treatments for breast cancer. That's a 14 hour slog. She had to drive herself, because COVID restrictions prevented her from joining me on my ambulance ride. She also helped hold me down in the ER when they inserted a Foley catheter in my urethra. She's more woman than I am man. And she proofreads this journal for medical accuracy! I’m lucky to have her and love her very much.
The CT and MRI that they did showed some brain inflammation – Encephalopathy for the medically minded. Best they can figure, the cause was a bad reaction to the 5FU chemotherapy. This wasn't evident to me when I came to around 6AM, restrained, in a hospital bed. I was plenty confused, dehydrated, and all-around out of it.
My nurse Cecil was a lovely man from Sierra Leone. We were alone together for some time. He asked me if I knew why I had restraints on - I did not. He asked me why I was in the hospital, and I replied something-something-'cancer'-something. This seemed to convince him that I had no intentions for self harm, so he removed the restraints. Cecil was the most lovely man I hope never to need the services of again. Although I do wish he would have challenged me to take the restraints off Houdini-style. Part of me thinks I could have managed it.
Around 9AM, some doctors came busting in the room. One of them had the disembodied voice of my wife. The other 2 were working for pay, and asking inane questions. Some examples: 'Do you remember why you are here?', 'Do you know what year it is?', and 'Can you tell me the month?'. I'm proud to live in the here and now, with little regard for the constraints of the Gregorian calendar. Come to think of it, next time, that's what I'll say. Instead, I said something about 2020. And then 2022. And December. No? January?
I still had my sense of humor throughout. Jokes about experiments with heroin as an anti-cancer drug go over well when they have a full toxicology report on you.
Once we were alone, Karen relayed the rest of the story. She also increased the urgency level by reminding me that the snowpocalpyse was impending, and that I'd probably be better off and all around happier observing that from the vantage of our home, rather than a hospital window. The docs at Duke seemed amenable to letting Karen spring me – I’m not sure they'd do the same if my partner wasn't a doctor. All I had to do was show them I could eat something.
Sad to say, the thing they wanted me to eat was (spoiler alert) hospital food. The food therapist started me out with applesauce. After a few bites, I mentioned my mild allergy to apples. We progressed to Graham crackers - They were outstanding. After being cleared to eat, it was time to select from the vast Duke Hospital menu. No joke - It's like a diner menu. Karen chose the turkey and mashed potatoes for me, after which I passed out for a couple of hours.
Waking, around 1PM, Karen let me know it was now or never. Turkey is normally pretty taste free, but this was exceptionally dry as well. Adding salt improved things somewhat, in that afterwards it tasted like salt. And etc. When the nurse came in and asked if I had eaten all of that, I didn't reply 'Well, my wife ate some'. Even in my state, I knew what the right answers were.
After arriving home, I was granted just about any food wish I desired. All I wanted was some Hutchins pizza, which went down just fine.
I wasn't able to play guitar when I got back home, which was extremely distressing. My fingers weren't able to do the alternate bass picking that I use most of the time - Kept striking the wrong strings. It's something that means a lot to me, given how much time it took to develop those skills. It's not a facet of my life that most people see, but playing is a big part of my inner identity. Seeing that skill disappear in a matter of days was maybe the most difficult moment of the weekend. Happy to report that I was able to play this morning. Not especially well, but well enough that I'm feeling OK about where I'm at.
Sunday night I gained probably 2 pounds in carbonara weight alone. I'm feeling better every day - Today I'm pretty much back where I was early last week. It's like the whole thing never happened (which is at least half true for my brain).
Last, thanks to all the neighbors and friends who helped or offered to help Karen and the kids get thru the weekend. I'm happy to be back home. I promise (?) that my next update will have less drama.
~Ed