Visiting hours?

After the stint in the observation room, I was placed in my own private hospital room. I spent most of the time sleeping with short periods of wakefulness. I happened to be awake and alone I wondered ‘where is everyone?’ I found out a few years later that visiting times were very limited. The schedule was two people for 15minutes every hour.

During one of the short visits my sister in law, tried to give me a pedicure and only had time to take the existing polish off and paint one toe before her visit was over. It was then she noticed and took advantage of the stairwell located beside my room. She had the sense to realize that she could by- pass the nurse’s station and visit when she wanted and for as long as she wanted (within reason) It was then I noticed more frequent visits, for longer periods of time. Or was it I was awake more often?

Days were passing, and ordinarily I would have showered daily, shaved my legs and done my hair. My sister in law realized that something wasn’t quite right, besides the obvious lack of movement. Maybe I was beginning to smell? This concern of hygiene was brought up to the nurse and my mom happened to hear. Her reaction was that more important matters were of concern and not to bother the nurse’s with such nonsense. Thankfully it was soon after I had a sponge bath, and a shaving of the armpits. After all a good week had gone by....it was long overdue.

During a time I had visitors my limp left leg was incredibly itchy. Oh the itch! I couldn’t scratch it as my left arm wasn’t moving and my right arm had limited movement. I was trying to get their attention by moving my right leg up and down. A discussion ensued as to why I was behaving in this way. As I was being consumed with this itch I couldn’t scratch. I was thinking ‘here we have some smart people; surely they can figure this out’. What seemed like an eternity to me but likely was minutes, eventually someone had caught on. My little brother (who is not little anymore except in age) had the intuition that an itch might be the problem,.... however he was scratching the wrong leg. Good try

At this time I wasn’t breathing without assistance with a tracheotomy (a tracheotomy is a tube in the neck to let oxygen in to assist with breathing) and consequently wasn’t feeding myself. Any food I got was via a feeding tube through my nose down into my stomach. As you can imagine it wasn’t very comfortable and at times made sleeping uncomfortable. My solution to this problem was to pull it out.

It was long and warm and wet as I pulled it out, but that did not deter me. I was not a fan of this being reinserted. Since I couldn’t talk my only recourse was to give them the finger. I had pulled the tube out a few times and to prevent further harm my arm was secured by tying it to the bed. How uncivilized. Eventually a tube was inserted directly into my stomach with a nozzle the nurse’s could attach the pouch of disgusting brown liquid to. This was known as a GJ tube. I would have that tube for a few months.