Fight or Fight

 

Welcome to the eternal mystery that is.....Me

I am full of stories that will surprise you, shock you, make you laugh until your tummy hurts, maybe make you ill, but all-in-all, they will make you want to hug everyone you love and tell them just that, that you love them. See, life is never truly easy, not for anyone. Life's challenges rank from annoying to a real bitch. A former boss once said:  "Life can be easy, life can be difficult.  It is how you adjust that makes the difference."  Not sure who said that, as my boss explained that it was a quote he found somewhere, but I think it is true.  

There are times when you are just cruising through life, all is good, you feel good, you have a good attitude, the job is good, personal life is awesome, and then "Babayuuuum!!!"  

You find yourself in the ER and then the Med floor with congestive heart failure. Yep. That is me in all my glory.  I did not quite tell the truth above.  Not about me, anyway.  I had not been feeling well for a month. Meds were not filled on time, I did not have enough money to go to the doctor for necessary chem panel bloodwork, I had not slept more than thirty minutes per night for 28 days. I had been without my thyroid meds for that long, and I had been put on a super blood pressure/water pill that wiped out my electrolytes in a matter of a week. 

I began losing my words.  Slurring my words as if I were drunk. I'd be giving direct instruction and then lose myself in a fog, repeatedly, forget the point of my discussion, forget the lesson I was teaching. I think I even nodded off at times.  My colleagues told me to just go and get help.  But I had no money.  It had been a seriously tough financial month and I could not afford to.  It was a giant cluster you-know-what. 

One night, after an extremely tough week, where I'd felt so awful, I asked my son to take me to the ER.  There, the diligent doctors ruled out a heart attack or stroke (though it seemed to present itself that way, but I'd experienced no paralysis). That is all they would tell me. The doctor we had met with last said that is what ER is for, to rule out what it could be, not determine what is wrong, necessarily.  Scratch your head at that one for a spell.  

May 17th.  My class and I had planted a flower garden in a raised box the community had built for us. Who knew the physiological battle being waged deep inside me?

May 21st.  I am swollen and lethargic, starting to lose my thoughts, slur my words, get lost in a fog.  My legs hurt, swollen and in pain, and I often have to sit down, huffing and puffing for oxygen while walking even short distances on campus. 

Three days later, I fell in the middle of the night.  I'd been hit with what I called "the grabbies".  I felt like something grabbed hold of my arms and I'd cave to dizziness and fall.  

Three days afterward, at 4:55am, as I struggled to sleep, struggled to breathe, just fighting to make it three more days until the end of the school year, I fell twice.  The first time I fell half on the carpet and half on the hard linoleum in the doorway.  The second, I fell in the kitchen and had banged my head and knee.  I had lost consciousness for a few minutes and when I came to, I struggled to find my phone.  I could not get up - like the old lady in the commercial:  "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!" I crawled to where I thought my phone was.  Crap. 2% left.  I called my son.  I knew if I tried to text him, he wouldn't pay attention to it. I asked him to come get me and take me to ER.  I forgot to mention, he had been the one to drive me to ER when the lady doc claimed they could only rule out what wasn't.  At 5:24am, my son picked me up.  He said I was rambling about driving and this lady.....I was so gone.  He drove me up to the entrance of the ER, pulled me out of the car and plopped me into a wheelchair.  A nice man pushed me into the waiting room while my son parked the car.  I think. I was ushered to three people at podium type desks.  I felt like Toad in Mr. Toad's Wild Ride being prosecuted.  Each one asked me a question and I apparently could answer the first two pretty well.  I know I could answer the third person's question, but before I finished I lost myself.  I felt my self drift backwards, my head rolled backwards.  I lost sight.  Next thing I know, I am being heaved onto a gurney in ER somewhere.  I do not know if we were in a room or where.  My son said I just disappeared. Before everything went black, I do remember seeing two young men in scrubs, one in dark blue and one in green, and they were talking to me and working on me, though I don't know what they were saying or doing.  My son later told me that they were hooking up bags of clear liquids to me through two different IVs, one on each arm and asking me questions to try to keep me lucid and to find out the depth of my illness. 

Again, here I am in all my glory.  Charming and elegant and refined.  

I only know what happened because my son gave me the full narration after I came back. You see, at one point, I was fully gone.  Dead. Now, you are wondering what it was like, and was there a light at the end of the tunnel? Did I see relations who had passed before me?   No.  I do, however, remember nothing but darkness.  No light. It was a comfortable place, and I recall I felt safe and even loved.  But no bright lights, no angels, no demons, either, just a peaceful comfort in the dark. It was not to last, though. 

I awoke in a fervid panic.  I felt that I could not breathe and I immediately was cast into fight or flight mode.  My son said they got me breathing again after two or three minutes,and then they'd put a huge CPAP mask on my face at full volume. What should have made me breathe comfortably, and Did while I was out, I assume, caused me to feel the complete opposite once I awoke. My son recalled, wide-eyed and pale, that after about twenty or thirty minutes of being out, I shot straight up like in a horror show, and I clawed at the mask intensely and apparently broke the buckles that secure it.  My son says I fought off strong men who tried to calm me and a lady nurse who tried to assist me.  I feel awful about being violent, but again, for me, it was fight or flight at that moment. When panic sets in, it's in. 

I remember begging my son to take me home.  Just take me home, please?  Please?  Please take me home now.  How interesting and rather stupid of me to say after those young people had worked so damn hard to keep me alive.  I DID apologize and thank them for their heroic work (to me, they and my son are my heroes!).

The next four days out of six days in the hospital, I experienced things I'd never thought I'd ever experience.  I had to learn how to walk again.  It was not easy.  I had to learn how to do personal, menial things behind closed doors, but was not always successful.  So embarrassing to have to pull the string to ask for help.  Ugg.  Never will I ever be the same. But, walk I did.  I even went to forbidden places to look out the window.  My bed, you see, was closest to the door and I never saw the window due to a parade of other patients on the other side of my curtain; they got the window beds.  

I was visited by two of my dear colleagues, brought me white chrysanthemums, my favorite mums!  Seeing them made me cry a little, and I felt loved and I learned that they were right, I was wrong.  I should have done something better to take care of myself much earlier.  It is just that, I had wanted to get through those last three days.  Such a bummer I missed the last day of school, which is a huge to-do.  

The one thing that made coming back to school to work the next school year so happy was the hugs I received nearly Every day from my previous year's kids. They remembered, they cared, and they still do, even in 2020.  

As I stated in the beginning of this first blog post of my new blog, tell your loved ones you love them.  Never assume they know.  Tell them.  Hug them.  Cherish them.  Let them cherish you, too.  It's all about Love, people.  It's all about Love.  

~Martin

The Eternal Mystery That is Me

It was two years since I wrote and last read this account of my story.  I want to share it again now, rather than in May on the five year anniversary of this life-altering event.  The message, however, remains the same.  It's all about Love.  Love, being loved, cherishing and being cherished.  We all deserve it ❤