My Long Sleep (part 3), Moving Day

My Long Sleep (part 3) Moving Day

Just the knowledge that I was going to be moving to rehab kept me sane my last days at RiverBend.  I was so restless, bored, frustrated, and ready to move forward, I was about to drive the nurses insane and win the “most hated patient” award.   Nothing sounded good to eat.  Even the applesauce that had tasted so good earlier, they were mashing up my bitter pills in and making it a miserable experience. My tongue was burned and hurt with everything but cold.  Eating was work.  I had no appetite.  They kept asking me what sounded good and all I could answer was “enchilada” (or something Mexican, anyway).  So one day, the kind, Julie-like nurse, took me for a ride outside.  I don’t know that I had been out of my room much, other than for about 2 trips in contraptions that let me walk.  But I hadn’t been seeing very well—or maybe I just wasn’t remembering all I saw—so nothing really looked familiar. Today, they took me out into the hall in a wheelchair and suddenly I knew where I was. They took me through the gym outside onto a patio—FRESH AIR!!  But I remembered the gym from my days in ortho, in 2009—this may have been when Parma came in to visit me, as I was on his floor now.  I hadn’t known where I was—no room number, no hone, I couldn’t see the walls or anything beside me, only bright light that occasionally came in from the window and swallows darting in and out of the clock tower outside my window. 

The kind nurse took me outside and told me my family had called and asked if they could bring an enchilada for me (since apparently I had been refusing to eat).  She gave me a few minutes outside, then took me to a different room where I could lie down and sleep/rest until my family got there.  She wrote on the board, “Please wake me when my family comes.”  That was the first time I was aware of any white board in my room. 

After a little while the enchilada came—or maybe it was a burrito.  It tasted so good, and I knew I would be leaving soon, perhaps even tomorrow, and things were looking up.

It seems like I stayed in that room that night.  I accidentally got the tv turned on somehow and listened to that annoying peaceful music all night long—and would AVOID it the rest of my stay, as it played on the tvs in rehab too…I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off or find anything else…and it was the first time I really was aware of anything like a tv in my room.  I still could not move on my own, and so whatever position they left me in, I had to stay in.  Go figure. I could stand, but I could not roll over—that was even an issue in rehab actually, because my chest hurt so very much.  In the morning someone tried to get some breakfast down me, perhaps some yogurt and a bit of toast, but not much.  I don’t remember getting dressed—but I do remember that Gary was supposed to bring me some clothes and meet me at the rehab center.  I don’t remember which door I left RiverBend through, probably the front ones, but I was loaded with all the things people had brought, flowers and a puzzle book, almost more than I could hold.  I do remember a vase of lilacs that made the whole van smell heavenly.  Even the driver commented on it.  The van had a ramp out the back and the driver just wheeled me up into the back of the van and locked my wheelchair in place.  I tried to watch as we left, I knew the roads, but the light was so bright and I really didn’t know where we were going, other than someplace else. 

He wheeled me to my room on the 4^th floor.  It’s hard to imagine that it was the same room I had the whole time, because it looked so very different the first time I was in it and than when I left.  My brain was still not “seeing” things properly.  My first impression was that it was a long T-shaped room, with a bathroom at one end, a bed along the far wall (which was actually a window with blinds) and two “windows” on the wall that had dividers in them.  It reminded me of a school room at first.  They helped me up onto the bed and explained that they had to do Dopplers of my legs—that they had to do that for everyone.  I remember they had a “Sara Stedy” (http://www.arjohuntleigh.com/products/patient-transfer-solutions/standing-raising-aids/sara-stedy/ ) like they had had at RiverBend, and I had to put my hands on the bar and pull myself to standing, and it hurt like heck (my chest), but once I got past that, standing up felt SO good. Then they would affix a sling behind me and I would sit back and they could wheel me around, like to the toilet, and set me down….Ah!!  Someone took me to the bathroom when I first arrived.  Looking back, I think it was Marc (my chocolate pudding nurse) who had been with me from the very beginning at rehab.  After a little while, Gary and Laura showed up and we all went over to the dining room (which was across the hall from my room) and they explained some things to them and they ordered me a salad for lunch and Speech Therapy came and watched me eat….I started with mashed vegetables…yuck.  But the salad had Italian dressing and I ate it, though my hand shook ferociously, with gusto.  

I really don’t remember much of the rest of that day.  I do remember Marc or Lou or one of the male nurses saying they needed to do an ultrasound of my bladder to check for residual.  But their equipment was in use somewhere else or otherwise AWOL and I told him, “Trust me, there’s nothing left!!”  I think they had removed the catheter before I left RiverBend and it felt so good to go….At some point, someone came in to remove my PICC line.  I didn’t even know I had one.   I remember the physical therapist (was it Shannon?) using a slide board to get me from wheelchair to bed and back.  Oh, how hard it was to scoot myself.  My left leg didn’t work and my chest hurt so my arms were of little use, and it was scary and painful and hard.  But for the first day at least, perhaps two, that was how I got from wheelchair to bed and back.  Exhausting.  And I had to do it for every meal and for every bathroom trip. 

The view out my enormous window was (from the 4^th floor) the tops of some dead oak trees, and some weird-looking equipment on the roof of the building across 13^th Street.  Internet reception or satellite or ??  The divided windows turned out to be two white boards, and lo and behold, there was a tv, but it would be days before I would notice it.  My lilacs sat on a table beside my bed where I could smell them. 

The clothes that Gary brought, some jeans and some shorts, did not fit.  The shorts, which I had had for years, were absolutely too small….I had gained weight in the last 2 weeks, not eating, only on IVs…that happened in 2009 when I had my foot surgery too…There must be a LOT of salt in the IVs they give you…Very frustrating.

Physical therapy came again, either that night or the next day and she asked if I could stand to transfer, rather than using the slide board.  Or maybe I asked.  I was already getting stronger.  Attitude and hope are everything.