The Test

December 21, 2007 I came home for Christmas. I wasn't supposed to. Even though everyone outwardly hoped that I would, they inwardly thought I wouldn't. But I did.
I was admitted to the hospital in July of that year. Just because simple pre-admission tests for a biopsy went awry. Long story short, blood clots were caused by an improper blood draw. I was admitted twice in July due to a reaction to Coumadin. The second time I stayed for six months. The second time I was diagnosed with Stage IV non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. After the biopsy, I deteriorated rapidly. Test after test, procedure after procedure. Blood draws, IVs, blood gases, respirator - all a normal daily routine for me. Soon, chemo would be added to the list along with radiation. It was an ordeal to take me to any test or procedure. I needed no less than 3 escorts, a portable ventilator & the good fortune to have two empty elevators at the same time. We simply couldn't all fit into one with all I required. Eventually, the tube down my throat was replaced with a trach because I could not wean myself off of it. I was able to wean off the trach. Mostly because of my determination, John's insistance that I be home for Christmas & the wonderful respiratory therapists at Select. My leg muscles atrophied from being in bed 24/7 & I had to learn to walk again. It was such a long, tiring process. I often wondered how babies do it. Why they don't get frustrated & just give up. Because I was on so many drugs when I was in ICU & Select, there are many days & things I don't remember. Some of the drugs in ICU caused odd hallucinations. At the time I thought they were dreams, but looking back I realize that they were freaky interpretations of what was really going on around me. Every day in ICU brought a small army of doctors, residents & interns - not to mention the students. All with differing opinions, each one contradicting the one before, confusing & aggravating me to tears. I had no way to communicate with them - to tell them they didn't have a clue- except for writing it down. Because of the drugs & my weakened state my handwriting looked like a 2 year old right-hander writing with their left. Thank goodness my mom was able to decipher & translate for them. It was one-step-forward-two-steps-back nearly every day. I would improve, satisfying the doctors enough to move me to a regular room & then when I got there, I would have a cardiac or respiratory issue & head on back to ICU. Maybe I felt safer there right in front of the nurses' station or maybe I had a sense that my body wasn't really ready for the next step in healing. Whichever it was, it caused a lot of people a lot of worry & stress.
While I was in the hospital I missed a lot. My baby's 7th birthday, her first day in first grade, taking her to get her first pair of glasses, Halloween & trick-or-treating. The only holiday I didn't miss was Thanksgiving. John & Josie brought it to me. While I was gone my husband had heart attack # 7, which I didn't find out about until 3 months later. Turns out he was on the floor above me in CICU. And on September 11th, my mom passed away. She had been at my side every day since I was admitted. Proving, until the night she died, that a mother's love knows no limit. My daughter says that Mom asked God to take her instead of me because she needed me too much. I remember that there was so much Atavin in my system that I had no emotional reaction when they told me. Just another event that happened. I pleaded with my doctors to let me attend the funeral. I didn't really care about all the machines I was hooked up to. I just knew that I needed to be there. But it wasn't to be. There was no charming or bargaining my way out of that hospital.
I suppose that was the thing that kicked me in the butt & made me realize I had to start working twice as hard to improve & go home. Soon after, I had a trach put in & I stabilized enough to move to a regular room. Soon after that, I was admitted to Select for rehabilitation & to wean off the trach. That was the hardest & scariest time in my life. The therapists assured me that I would breathe on my own again & respiratory therapy wouldn't do me in. I did not agree! Once again Ativan became my best friend & helped me to overcome my fear so that I could do the work I needed to. Once the trach came out, I moved on to another rehab area & worked on building up my muscles & learning to walk again. I had a lot of work to do, John had told the doctors that I would be home for Christmas - no matter what. Talk about pressure - I had less than a month to undo what had been done over a 5 month period!
But I did it. I kicked butt & took names & pleasantly surprised the hell out of a lot of people. It would take another 5 months to get back to "normal", but I was home & that made all the difference. And I'm still improving, beating the odds that I wasn't supposed to. I'm in the home stretch to my second year in remission, which in itself is a miracle. Now I am dealing with the fallout from the chemo & radiation. Finding out the things they didn't tell me would happen - or I was too drugged up to understand. But the end result is worth it as long as my daughter has a mom to bug her everyday & my husband has a wife to make him smile.
Looking back, I think my experience was a test from God. To remind me of what was important that I forgot. To make me stop & appreciate my surroundings. To prove to myself that I am stronger & braver than I thought I could be. I think I passed.