emergency room – Page 2 – Jesus is for the Wounded

Be true to who you are

Published on December 12, 2015December 13, 2015 by Jesus is for the Wounded2 Comments

This song will make the point of this post more clear. Have fun as you listen to this upbeat tune from the Beach Boys!

<img class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-4432″ src=”https://jesusisforthewounded.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/beach-boys.jpg” alt=”Beach Boys” width=”480″ height=”360″

“Just like you would to your girl or guy. Be true to your school. Rah rah, shish boom bah!” And Gentle Readers I submit that this also applies to US TOO!

In a recent trip to the Emergency Room (yeah same story, different day) I was received by the male nurse who did my initial evaluation less than a month ago. I remembered the gooley, inappropriate look on his face as he handed me a hospital gown and asked me to change clothes then waited for me to do so right in front of him. He had the gown opened just below his eye level. His eyes were staring at my chest. The expression on his face was blank. And I didn’t buy it one bit.

I really don’t know how I had the presence of mind in the middle of non-stop convulsive episodes and a struggle to breathe to ask him for some privacy. He paused for a moment then looked up at me. “Of course,” he said or something similar and handed me the gown. He pulled the hospital curtain and continued typing on the portable computer just beyond what is also called the “privacy curtain.” My beloved husband, Steve, assisted me in changing my clothing thank you very much! My dignity in an extreme moment of vulnerability was spared. Thank you Lord.

I know that this nurse is a medical professional. He has probably seen thousands of naked bodies and women a lot better endowed than yours truly. In a time of crisis, the medical professional assists a patient in changing clothes as a part of the procedures. Yeah but they are not to do so while acting in an unprofessional manner. He was not going to help me in that moment unless I was dead! Period! The rest of that visit went more cordially and more appropriately. I changed clothing on my own after the assessments and treatments were completed about four hours later, thank you very much.

Flash forward to this past Tuesday night. Mr. un-Wonderful was working the p.m. shift again in the ER and begins his nursing evaluation. I cringe. This time it was a petite, blonde nurse co-worker who asked me to donn a hospital gown. The dude was within arm’s reach of the gurney upon which I am lying. I felt his eyes upon me. In that moment, shaking violently with convulsive episodes and struggling to breathe, I was glad that I had been trained as an occupational therapist and muttered as much. As such I know more ways to dress and undress than the average person with virtually any disability that you can imagine. I laid the gown over my clothing, covering my personhood, and struggled then succeeded to doff my own clothing and get into the approved garb. Steve might have helped some; I don’t know as my eyes were closed. The nurse wasn’t happy but I was. And in doing my own thingy, I remained true to myself.

The rest of the ER visit went as they usually do. After about 750 cc of fluids, IV Rocephin, and a shot of Morphine (my first ever!) I was feeling better. While the second bag of IV fluids diminished the severity of the episodes, the tremulous part of the episodes didn’t stop until after the Rocephin. And that improvement lasted for about a day with barely a tic attack here and there. Yeah God!

Now I am in the aftermath of trying to decide what to do. The prescription Keflex (same cephalosporin drug class as Rocephin) has begun irritating my stomach. While there were findings of a urinary tract infection in the ER, the urine culture was negative. There are still fewer and less intense episodes overall: the hell that plagues my life and keeps me clinging to the Cross of Christ for hours every day. My Doc says to stop the Keflex. I held the herbal Biocidin (anti-microbial) after the ER visit to avoid an interaction with the new prescription drug. What shall I do now? Hmmmmmmm.

I know what my gut is telling me to do: be true to myself. I will pray for the Lord to guide my very wise husband and me. I will strive to be respectful to those trying to care for me with as much courtesy as I can muster in any given situation while protecting my own privacy and integrity when it is all that I have. In due time we will figure all of this out and be much better for the journey the Lord has allowed for His purposes and our good. Of this I am still sure.

And if anyone tries to tear down my alma matter, Mott High School and the mighty Marauders, well then I will be “true to my school” as well. “Go team,” I will shout on high! Lord willing, we are going to win! JJ

Treatment Update

Published on November 23, 2015November 24, 2015 by Jesus is for the WoundedLeave a comment

outnumbered

The concept of negative numbers to me is as mind-boggling as that of anti-matter. If something can be measured on an integer scale then I suppose the values could go up just as easily as they could go down. But when they go below zero, which is nothing, how can anything be less than nothing?

Perhaps the answer depends upon to what subject the scale is being applied. Ha! I would love for my personal scale of symptoms to be at zero. I would love for the intangibles wreaking havoc in my life to be less than nothing as well. But that is just not how it is. This past Fall was very bad, indeed.

More days this past Fall than any other time since I got sick over 4 years ago, did I write “Sick Day” on my calendar as the activity that characterized the entire day. That means that over 8 daytime hours were spent in bed due to an inability to perform any goal-directed activity: about 3 days each week. That stinks. I had three trips to the emergency room when exasperated with noxious symptoms, more variety in the traumatic nature of seizure attack episodes, an increase in triggers of episodes (which were unclear more of the time), and less ability to perform my activities of daily living. Steve had to physically care for me (from toileting to feeding) about four times each week. This year was the first time that I was unable to complete both my Spring and Fall clean-up chores for our gardens. An occasional meal out with Steve has ceased. There even was a blow-up with my Doc in which he suggested I might work with someone else. He admitted that he doesn’t know what to do. Fine. But who else would that be?

So here is my status:

Results of blood tests and stool tests are now pending to identify microbes that may be keeping me from getting well. Flare of systemic Candida is one possibility.
Chronic Lyme disease is back on my radar as a possibility so for these first two items I have started to take an anti-microbial supplement every day.
Mercury burden is significantly reduced yet its role in ongoing illness is still unclear.
Dehydration is a daily battle regardless of how many fluids I ingest or receive via IV.
Continuous daily seizure attacks total 2 to 5 hours every weekday and often increase to 8 hours at least one day per week.
Social isolation continues to be a problem. I am grateful for a weekly Skype Bible/prayer time with fellow bloggers and may add a telephone support group soon.
An extremely restricted diet (sugar/sweetener-free, dairy/mold/gluten-free, low oxalate/copper/meat) only becomes more restrictive as time goes on than more permissive. There are often episodes after eating and I do not know why.
Physical therapy has generally helped to reduce neck and other pain yet the 30-minute convulsive episode at the end of nearly every visit is burdensome. I bring my own sheets and graciously they avoid fragrances around me. They are saints!
Generally I am only able to leave the house for medical appointments, grocery shopping, etc. twice per week, remaining homebound the other days. Recent exceptions: two wakes!
Physical exercises and activities, including my P.T. home exercise program, are rare due the likelihood of triggering episodes.
Travelling, even with our super clean travel trailer, increases sickness too much to bother for awhile. Setting it up takes me 3 weeks and cleaning it afterwards takes 3 weeks as well! Oy vey.

So now my pity party is over and I have nothing left to say. I am praying constantly for the Lord to keep my heart from bitterness yet I fear that I am losing the battle. Crying comes forcefully during the setbacks and I am concerned that it is more a manifestation of illness progressed to my brain than true grief. My husband Steve carries the burden of all of this in his own way. He is a saint and my hero. Thankfully he has a great support network at church and work, his athletic activities, and lots of social outlets to keep him going. Steve is an amazing man surely one after the Lord’s own heart.

I am hopeful that the anti-microbial treatment will help me; sometimes it even stops the episodes. Yeah God. However I am very stressed about the upcoming holidays. Maybe there will be a “Christmas miracle” at our house too? Lord willing, the numbers in my life will improve in a positive direction. In the meantime I will be hanging tough. It’s the best I can do. JJ

senior numbers

Six Deer and a Skunk

Published on October 26, 2015October 26, 2015 by Jesus is for the Wounded1 Comment

We were heading south along a remote section of a newly created road when six deer, one by one, carefully stepped across the road in front of my truck. My husband was driving and proclaimed that he was glad that he saw them just in time to slow down! My proclamation was the awe of the gentle animals crossing our path on a night when the witness of God’s creation in the dark was the last thing from my mind . . .

Yes, we were on the way to the Emergency Room again. After the third night in a row where convulsive episodes escalated with the setting of the sun coupled with unusual right, lower abdominal pain, we decided that our threshold had been reached. The decision to drive off to the ER is never and easy one. Am I really that bad? If I am not dying should I just wait and see a little longer? Now that our sixth trip in four years has come and gone we both agree that having an evaluation in the middle of the night is no worse than the alternative. This trip was unusually unpleasant, however.

We waited almost 2 hours before being escorted back to exam room 22. During that time we witnessed the collapse of a young woman in a wheelchair whose urine bag tube dangled over the edge of the leg rest and two family members looked on with worry. We prayed for them. Moments later one of the several children in the expansive waiting area spontaneously vomited all over her mother and the floor (about 15 feet away from us). The mother and a nurse-type staff person whipped into action including spraying everything with a sure-to-be-aromatic cleaner. In my heart I prayed and in the moment we moved to another section of the ER as I donned my mask so as to avoid the fumes and vomitus aerosols from further exacerbating the convulsive episodes. In the distant section in which we landed was a double-wide chair that made a makeshift bed for my own weakened frame. We later discovered that by the end of our tenure at the hospital there would be EIGHTEEN car accident victims that would filter through the emergency department that night. Lord have mercy!

My own challenge was significant yet still I was filled with gratitude that it was not as bad as those around me. Much later and somewhere after the halfway mark of the IV infusion of sodium chloride, the convulsive episodes subsided. Yeah God! Then came the abdominal CT scan and pelvic ultrasounds. Each were laden with their own versions of torture just for me. I guess I’m just “sensitive,” right? (If I hear that phrase one more time I’m going to scream!) No matter, the noxious symptoms accompanying these tests mixed with tears and additional pain were bonuses upon which I had not planned that night. For example, I had planned ahead and brought my warmest fleece jacket for covering up in between procedures. It just wasn’t enough to counter the cold life-size tongue depressor gurney of the refrigerated CT scanner! Another episode added to the collection. And for me, pelvic ultrasounds are very painful. I was there for abdominal pain, right? Oh yeah. “Just breathe deeply honey. You’re doing great . . . ”

Sometime later the nurse assigned to me returned. She had already navigated through the comfort and pain medication options that I could tolerate then brought the latter in the wrong form for a person whose stomach was empty. I declined. Pain management Plan B never arrived. Later I was sobbing after the ultrasound (US). The US technician activated my call light requiring me to ask for my own pain medication to which a nursing assistant responded. Someone beyond the closed glass doors and pulled curtain decided that a relaxant for the gut would be a good choice for me. Perhaps that was indicated? But the nurse appeared with an 8-inch long syringe including a 4-inch needle that was bigger than those I had become acquainted in my lifetime! I thought surely she would administer it into the IV line. Nope. She started to pull up the sleeve of my hospital gown. With horror I wondered how so many cc’s of fluid from that big of a needle would ever penetrate my deconditioned arms. “It has to be given intramuscularly,” she instructed. “How about my hip?” I replied. And as I turned to reveal the warmth of my skin buried beneath 2 blankets and a flimsy gown I began to freak out.

“No.” “I don’t think the pain is bad enough to endure the pain of an injection like this,” was all I could blurt out. She said “fine” and some trained nursing replies as she discarded the second drug that I wondered if or not would be added to our massive bill that night. She left the room. And then I began to cry and cry and cry. I just couldn’t take the whole ordeal anymore. I wept some more.

Within the hour we were making our way to the all-night cafeteria in that large Regional Medical Center. My beloved, Steve, and I scarfed down more food than we had in a long time! French fries are a great comfort food at 2:30 in the morning! The salads were reasonable too. At last my brain and personhood began to revive.

Steve drove us home into the dark and near-drizzly night. Perhaps he was a bit cautious as we went, knowing the numerous auto accident victims that were our unseen neighbors in their own suites at the hospital. “How bad were they injured?” I wondered. Oh my Lord, please comfort them too. My mind drifted to the half-dozen deer that welcomed us before the bright red lights of the “EMERGENCY” entrance had illuminated our path 4 1/2 hours earlier. I felt so much peace when I had seen them. It was like the Lord was showing me that things were going to be alright. Then again, their crossing was followed by the stench of a skunk! What on earth could that mean? Who knows?

Maybe the deer were “skunked” before they crossed the road. Hunting season has begun dontcha know? Maybe Steve and I we were somehow skunked too. We made our best decision and ventured out to the hospital instead of what most couples do on a Saturday night. And through it all, my beloved Steve was a champ the entire time. He always is, dontcha know?

Some of you know that in about a month the number of years that I have been sick will exceed the number of years that I have been well during my marriage to Steve. When presented with this observation Steve never flinches and repeats his vow of promise to love me forever on either side of the road of life. Sigh.

headstone, marriage vows, til death do us part, cemetary, his and hers, cemetary plots, funeral, graveside service, Christian marriage — Til death do us part . . .

Oh my Stevers. YOU my love are such a precious dear! JJ

Oh What A Night

Published on September 17, 2014 by Jesus is for the Wounded4 Comments

What a date we had tonight.

Dinner: Parkview Hospital 24-hour grill.

Movie: HGTV on the ER Suite flat screen.

Drinks: Bottled beverages and 1114 cc fluids for me.

And a whole lot of shaking going on: 3 hours of seizure attacks, non-stop.

It’s as I have heard it said that life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.

I am feeling much better now. I love IV fluids! (Weird, I know.)

We are sleepy!

And then you just hope to move sideways

Published on May 9, 2014May 11, 2014 by Jesus is for the Wounded1 Comment

Here’s a brief update on my brother, Michael, and me with a prayer request:

At this moment Mike is moving from an acute, inpatient rehabilitation facility to one of the lowest-rated nursing homes in the city of Detroit. The social workers claim that of the 35 facilities they have contacted, St. Francis is the only one who would accept him. The reason? He is “Medicaid Pending” and does not have any other insurance. We are sad and concerned.

Today Mike’s rehabilitation stops until Medicaid is approved. Today Mike learns how the indigent of our society are left behind in facilities located across the street from an abandoned buildings in scary neighborhoods. Today Mike decides whether or not he is a FIGHTER. I only got to talk to him briefly before the transport vehicle came to wheel him out of his private room and begin the next leg of his recovery journey. He has made tremendous gains in cognition, swallowing, self care, transferring from one seat to another, and even walking. Mike has had close monitoring of his medical condition, medications, and test results. The plan to address a complex cyst on a kidney remains unclear as he moves away from his rehabilitation and medical specialists. None of them go to the new facility. It is unlikely that he will receive any rehabilitation therapies from this point forward until his Medicaid is approved. We are sad and concerned.

We are hoping that this transfer is a move sideways and not the beginning of a downward slide. At this point I do not believe that he knows that he will be receiving fewer services. He is concerned about the facility location and the comfort level of his fiancé visiting him in an unsafe neighborhood. Gratefully our cousin, Lisa, is an optometrist who sees patients there every 6 weeks. She has known the staff there for 10 years. We are hoping that this helps place Mike in a favorable light. Lisa has also offered to accompany Mike’s fiancé, also named Lisa, on her first visit to the new place. I am exceedingly grateful for this. I wish I could be there too. I cannot go at this time.

I had my own questionable “move” this past weekend. Difficulty breathing and bizarre, violent seizure attack episodes landed me in the emergency room. I received “treatment” and returned home; the last three days have been marginal yet better in some ways. I saw my family practice physician yesterday and was able to put together a few plans to tighten up my treatment plan. Unfortunately I had to escape outside for fresh air THREE TIMES due to the mold aerosols in his water-damaged office building! Did I mention that I was already wearing a charcoal mask? Geez. I was re-reading the Clinical Summary this morning from my visit and collapsed at the kitchen table into a pile of seizure-like tics. Perhaps the aerosols followed me home on the porous copy paper? Who knows. My gracious husband has seen me through it all, threw out the papers this morning and opened the bay windows to help me revive. Thank you my beloved Steve!

Sometimes it looks like things are going downhill when actually we have just stepped a little to the side. Many hidden blessings have come from my brother’s stroke: developing a closer relationship with his fiancé, rekindling a friendship with my amazing cousin Lisa, and seeing a few family members step forth to love on my brother are wonderful. And in my own situation I now have a biotoxin illness doctor who is willing to go to bat for me when headed to the ER on a Sunday in addition to an incredible husband who is my kinsman redeemer. Steve is willing to love me, care for me, and defend my special needs when needed on my journey to wellness. He believes me that this crap-ola-ski is NOT all in my head and is helping me overcome it too. In both my brother’s and my own situation, I am seeing new expressions of love that have not been there in our lives before. Cool beans. Thank you Jesus!

Gentle Reader, would you kindly pray this scripture with me? I pray that we will lean on the Lord, trust in the Lord, and have courage to move forward when-and-as the Lord leads these next few weeks. I need to rest in the tender care of my Jesus and not get ahead of the work He is accomplishing in today. After all, I do not want to miss the richness of His tender care, His presence in each breathing moment. Such a joy it is to know that He is here carrying Mike this afternoon in that transport van. Such a joy it is to know that He is here too with me and you carrying our thoughts and prayers to our Heavenly Father for His wise care according to His Divine plan for our lives. Perhaps sideways is a good place to be right now.

Want some bulletproof coffee? Let’s go out on the patio and sit for awhile. The sun is shining this afternoon and the narcissus, tulips, hyacinths, and buttercups are blooming!