Tuesday, December 14th, ?, I am moved from my room to have an MRI scan of my brainLet the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds. Psalm 149:5
Tuesday, December 14th, ?, Missy tells me about my morning. And my day.
I know by this time (?) I am in the stroke unit. I have a roommate who has apparantly been here longer than I have. No one is by his side. He lies alone. He doesn't talk right. His private area is constantly exposed. He can't pull his sheet up? Does he know? Does he care?
My nostrils are filled with the stench of multiple odors. Feces. Urine. Medication. Soiled linens. I have gone to the bathroom once - in a plastic seated toilet fixed between a walker. That would turn out to be a minute moment of victory. Soon, I would not get up in time. I had to keep changing my underwear, my shorts, and the nurses would place clean sheets on my bed. Humiliating. Dehumanizing. Embarrrasing. Infantile. "You're a man! Can't you control yourself?"
My ears are adjusting. I hear only unnatural, man-made sounds. Clanking of metal. Squeaking of wheels. Orders being shouted. Someone laughing at a joke I was not priviledged to hear. Moans from other rooms. One man is shouting a woman's name...over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. "Hello, Mr. Housewright! Feeling a little better tonight? I have your heparin shot." The happy nurse - what gives her the right - lifts the gown above my belly. What? She swabs my abdomen. Injection. A bee sting. A wasp sting. An asp bite. "Good job! I'll be back to get your vitals in a moment."
My eyes are adjusting. Missy is with me. She is holding my hand. I cry. I cry more. I cannot stop. My pillow becomes a holder of tears. My wife holds me as tight as she can. My alarm on my venipuncture goes off for the umpteenth time. Let go. Flex arm open. Alarm stops. I wipe my wet hands on the sheets. Missy tells me about my day.
Monday, April 21, 2005. St. Joseph Hospital. I am admitted at 5AM. Missy and I drove over together. It was the day after Easter. I had purposefully postponed my back operation because I wanted to preach the resurrection. Having been injured at a institutional facility for boys where I worked at while ministering in Indiana I had been in traumatic and crippling pain for over a year and a half. The surgery went fantastic. Stayed one night. Walked without pain. Joy. The last few months my pain has returned - often with a vengeance in my hip and lower back. Two bad disks and a bone spur, etc. Nothing that Lortab, Cymbalta, 2400mg of ibuprofen, and lots of stretching can't get me through. Though there is the two canes I have been frequently using more and more...I know now and accept the fact I will never again be able to be the man my family needs me to be. But, I will never stop trying.
Missy begins by telling me that the night before I was complaining of a headache. My back was hurting, too. No new news. The headache, though, unusual for me. I sat up on our futon as I often do on struggling nights and read to my son, Ryan - he is in the first grade - and I went to sleep sitting up and he laying down with his legs across mine.
"Really? I don't remember any of that? I had a headache?"
Missy continues...she wakes up at 8:40AM - Why haven't I woke her up?! She finds me still asleep on the futon. She awakens me and we have to rush. We have five minutes to get ready and drive to work! It takes me a few minutes to get my pants buttoned.
We get in the van. She looks at me and asks, "Why didn't you turn the heat on?! Why didn't you defrost the windows?!"
"I didn't start the van."
She begins to worry...
We get to work and she asks our lead pharmacists and manager to watch out for me. She thinks I may have accidentally taken too many pills. I just didn't seem right. She walks away from the pharmacy and goes next door to the foot store she manages for the pharmacy.
I go back to make coffee for everybody. I spill coffee everywhere. My pants are still unzipped. They walk me over to Missy's. I sit in a chair and sleep more. Missy calls our Doctor. She somehows manages to get me to the van and we head to the emergency room. In triage I am asked questions and my speech is slurred. I can't focus. When asked to sign some form my hand can't rightly hold the pen and I basically make a wavy line. They immediately take me to the back.
The attending physician is in there immediately. He believes I have had some sort of stroke. Something neurological is wrong. No, it wouldn't be his medications he takes. Those would have all wore off by now. He's worried. Missy's worried.
They call the ambulance and I am taken to University of Kentucky Hospital. There I am immediately placed in a small, but very nice room, according to Missy. It is an ER room. Clean. Well lit. Warm colors.
And, now? Here we are. One day missing. And noone is sure what is going on. As I looked at Missy I could see that she was very worried. Scared? Yes. Frustrated? Yes. But, she was there. And was that all that mattered? Yes.
The MRI would come late at night. From my mobile bed we rolled through hallways, past wandering eyes, stares, glances...some turning away not to be caught looking. Others, not even caring or noticing. We go through an elevator and I am transfered to another cart. Then I am moved into the room and transferred to the MRI table itself.
MRI's. Tubes. Loud. Clostraphobic beyond words. Banging. Eery. Space. White. Univiting. Sterile. Technological. Mechanical. Uncomfortable - especially if your back and hip are in constant pain.
I am returned to my room. Missy and I watch some TV. She goes over the story for me again. Why can't I remember? What do you think happened? Do the kids know? Are they okay? Thirty six inches to my left the window allows me to see how brilliantly white the world is with snow, ice and 20 degrees keeping it all in check. The moon shines so magnificently on the world I feel I could sit on top of one of the buildings and read a book. But, it's thirty six inches. It's been twenty-four hours. I am a prisoner of cords, needles, patches, an oxygen tube, guard-rails on my bed, and a nasty habit of uncontrollable diarhea. I start to laugh as I raise my right hand to my head and run through my hair - now beyond control due to the EEG. Missy asks what's funny. I say, I remember a song from that old 70's movie "The Poseidon Adventure." "There's got to be a morning after." We both laugh. There would be a morning after.
That night, I drifted continually in a dream-state. I never truly fell asleep. Truthfully, I never slept more than fours hours on any given day/night for the rest of the week. The morning after brought another heparin shot. The morning after brought the amoeba back. The morning after brought accusations that I must have surely overdosed. I had taken too many pills. "We have many programs to assist you...if you have a problem, of course." No, I kept repeating, I had not abused any drugs. I take what is prescribed - and yes, for some it might be too much - but I work two jobs to provide for my family and it keeps me going.
I am not addicted - go without for days at times - and much to their chagrin and animosity I went the whole week at the hospital without one pill for anything but what they had to give me. But, they kept hinting around. Kept asking questions. Could you have taken one too many? Are you sure? Kept dawdling here and being nosy there. That is, until the MRI test came back. They quickly forgot about their professional assessment then and began speaking in different tones. Not accusatory. A tad bit more empathy. The morning after would come and so would a new assessment from the amoeba. Missy and I - well, we probably wished they had been right in the first place.
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