April – 1989
Recovery was slow and tormenting. It took almost two weeks to wean me off the ventilator that had pushed oxygen into my lungs for 91 days but my lungs were ready to take over now. They finally cut my medications back so I’m beginning to think more clearly and remember a few things before the illness. I have permanent systemic nerve damage and severe hand contractures, I may or may not walk again and I cannot raise my arms above my waist, I still try to make sense of what happened to me and why but I’m ready to push through whatever it takes to get my life back.
Soon as my ex husband entered the room I demanded he tell me where the children were and why I have not seen them. His shoulders slumped and he looked at the floor which immediately raised my anxiety level. He then explained our son was with him but the girls are in Arizona because my youngest daughter, 13 years old, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Non-Lymphoma stage 4 the week I went into a coma. A parent had to sign for treatments so her father came and took her and her sister back to Phoenix.
I stare at him in disbelief but I can tell it’s true. My mind is spinning and a silent primal scream comes from a place so deep in my Soul that I am trembling. Finally I find my voice, “CANCER? CANCER”? I thought my life was in chaos before but this is bedlam.
“I have to talk to her, I plead. “No I have to go to her”, I yell. I’m thinking of three days ago when I sat up for the first time and only lasted a few minutes before passing out. I am beside myself with agony with the realization of the debilitating status of my body.
This can’t be happening! We were all a healthy family just last summer. Its late evening so the nurses said they will help me call her in the morning and that helps to calm me a little.
I can’t sleep from overwhelming fear for my daughter. I shut my eyes when anyone comes in so they won’t give me any strong medication. I can’t wait until morning when I can hear her voice. But, sometime during the night they caught on I was faking and without my knowledge gave me a huge dose of valium through my IV. I was out for two days. Another two days of my life gone. I was beyond furious. The realization they could take complete control of me “for my own good” was a sickening reality and a horrifying
one. The only other facility legally allowed to do that is incarceration.
I demanded they hold the phone for me to call my daughter. I felt better talking to her. She was finishing her chemo and radiation in a few months. I wanted to hold her, to rock her. She was so brave and so strong and without her mother. I promised soon as I got out of this hospital and she was finished with treatments she would come home. I called her every night.
Anger was my motivator and I used it to push myself to overcome each physical barrier that would qualify me for discharge. I was in constant fear they would drug me again “for my own good”. I tried to act the right way, say the right things, and not ask for pain medication. It was more stressful than the permanent disabilities I was left with. I lied about having home supports, going to an accessible house and a scheduled appointment with rehab in Pensacola. I was actually going home to an RV, no supports
except for a 7 year old son and an ex who I continually fought with. There was no way I was going to a 6 month rehab treatment as recommended. I knew by now this satellite hospital had no follow up staff to verify my story.
I wanted to bring my daughters home as soon as possible and I no longer trusted the medical field to compromise with me or to honor my decisions.
By the beginning of May I was finally going home but the real struggle was just beginning.