I feel my skin tingling. My fingers tap the table..antsy. I catch myself pacing, no music, no chores..lost in thought. Ruminating thoughts that have looped through my brain waves more than a hundred times over the past 3 years. The next book.
The 10-day donkey ride through Hell. I know the story beginning to end from many different angles. It’s the dark comedy of those 10 days in 2005 that nearly killed me..and changed my life, forever. The story of those 10 days that began innocently enough then turned very dark and life threatening so fast. Day 1: Friday. I took Tylenol..under another brand name for the ache of a pulled muscle. It clashed with my seizure medications and my liver shut down, the seizures started and I began throwing up. I was taken to the hospital, stabilized, contact made with Dr.D and I went home the next day. Just before I left, the attending doctor wrote me an unrequested prescription for pain of a pulled muscle.(The original reason for the Tylenol) The medication he gave me was a HEAVY (unnecessarily so) pain killer called Dilated. That was day2, Saturday.
I took the pain killer less than prescribed. Sunday was uneventful. I woke Monday morning, knowing my brain was about to shut down. I called a few friends. They all said I wasn’t making any sense. I knew being alone was not safe at that time, so I drove to R0-Z’s book store. He was there and I knew he wasn’t leaving. Ro-Z said later that I was there for five minutes before I started having non-stop seizures. He said I refused to go to the hospital. After 3 hours of me passing out, falling, twitching and babbling, he called the squad. I was taken to the same hospital as before. I remember waking up in a shadowy room with no windows and the door closed. It was very quiet and calm. I thought I had died.
I got out of bed and slipped into a seizure and onto the cold tile floor, hitting my head. This began a series of serious hospital, medical and ethical violations One of the first being that the hospital staff made no attempt to contact either if my doctors even though they had been given the information. That Monday and Tuesday (day 4 and 5 of 10) were the darkest part of donkey ride through hell. I was given no medication and did not sleep a single moment. I had 3- 12 hour bouts of non-stop seizures (status epileptus). My body temperature spiked to boiling and dropped to freezing in fifteen minute cycles.( there was a huge clock on the wall. I watched the second hand tick past every second of my decent into Hell ). The hospital staff ignored me, except to give me 8 blankets, one for each shivering, teeth chattering request. On Tuesday night all my friends had come to see me at once. (they noted the filthy room and unchanged sheets in a hospital with a great reputation..huge place..I was on the neurology ward..which makes it all worse) I had a seizure that knocked me back to my senses. No medication for 2 days..no food..no call from Dr. D. I decided I would check myself out the next day (Wednesday..day 6) I asked Marsia to pick me up at noon.
Suddenly, Dr. D was notified. She called my room just before I left. I told her they were not giving my me any medication and she said: “I call talk to you this evening”. And that is the last memory of my rational mind. As soon as I walk in the door of my house..I was in some other world. I did not remember my dogs. I thought we were at Marsia’s place. Absolute confusion spiraled from there..this is where it becomes a dark comedy. This is also when we discovered that my brain does not create the enzymes that cause sleep. For 5 days and 5 nights..not one minute of sleep.
My friends were on a round-the-clock watch on me (God bless them!) and they all describe my behaviors and streams of conversation as; ” hilariously, out there..bizarre, from some other dimension and entertaining but annoying.” Apparently, every hour I would find a set of 3 completely unrelated questions and ask them over and over..not remembering the answers or that I had already asked the questions. I was deeply psychotic and from my point of view everything was spiritual, cosmic and eternal. (most of my memory of those days has been reconstructed and revived with the help of my friends and doctors) The day I finally snapped was Friday..day 7. I was having some much needed sex with the usual guy. I think it was the only 20 minutes but I actually slept. All those clenched muscles in my hips (from the seizures) were relaxing. I woke up with a big leap over ‘consciousness canyon’. I jumped out of bed and ran to my open window, leaned out, topless and yelled out to my neighbor and her 2 small children “Did you know time is linear?!” Mark pulled me out of the window. It got worse from there..my adrenaline was surging.
I picked up a portrait of my grandfather and asked Mark frantically..”This is my Grandfather! What IS a grandfather?! That tree by the window..what IS a tree? Why is that bird flying?” Marked picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder and took me downstairs. He had called Marsia and she was running in as Mark came down the stair case. Marsia thought I overdosed on something. She ran to my medication box. At some point someone dressed in my sweats. I was sitting quietly on my back porch speaking only in sign language. Then, Mark picked me up like a child and took me inside. The paramedics had come for me. I was going to the hospital. I felt like I was being sent to prison. I became passive and silently agreeable.
When I opened my eyes, I was in the emergency room of that same hospital. I was sunken deeply into a psychotic state…but I remember most everything that passed trough my broken mind at the time. There are about a dozen silly delusions I followed then dropped. Many fleeting beliefs that I spoke of, passionately and compassionately. Many VERY funny moments (looking back)..lots of little stories form that little E.R. room. They eventually put me to sleep..which is what I needed. Day 8, 9 and 10..were surreal. I woke up in a quiet, shadowy hospital room. There were no beeping machines. No needles. No technical equipment on the walls. A very pregnant woman was asleep in the bed next to me. I was certain I had died. Turns out, I was in a psychiatric hospital unit, pretty close to dead, according to my attending doctor. It’s amazing how much a human brain can take. The story will be told from my point of view..however strange it was, no matter what I know about those events, now. That telling will be sharply broken with interviews of my friends who helped me through it, noting the humor and annoyances of my strange perceptions from their point of view. I can only shake my head and roll my eyes.
I lived…again.
