From TJ
Thank you for your prayers. God was so good in again sparing my life. After ten days in the ICU, they removed my breathing tube, feeding tube and two arterial lines yesterday. Today I go to a step down unit for a few days while we make arrangements for the trip home when advisable.
Being awake the whole time this time provided some good spiritual lessons. I gave up asking God to take the pain away, why should I be exempt? Or, to be with me, (he was). I just ended repeatedly asking for his closeness and thought a lot about his suffering. The hardest thing was getting my breathing tube cleaned multiple times a day which triggered involuntary spasms and huge pain. Just breathing was something that took a huge effort (an hour on a vent when not in a coma is like twenty four hours). Often I felt like I was trying to breathe through mud or fluid.
My companion has been CNN news and I have done a lot of reflecting on the vast majority of our world, in Gaza and elsewhere who are caught in the political crossfire or just the ravages of disease and poverty and who have none of the health care advantages that I have had. I cannot imagine being in those circumstances having lived through the over 60 days I have been in the hospital since December 4, 2007. Most of them in the ICU.
The first day was the most difficult day that I can "remember." I know I was in more serious situations a year ago and closer to death but I had the advantage of sleeping through the worst of it. This time as I listened to them talk about severe pneumonia, septic shock, Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome and a lot of the past year came flooding back, including the question as to whether I would live through this again.
Fortunately, Steven was able to provide a lot of medical history so from the first hours they treated me with everything they could throw at the pneumonia in case MRSA had reappeared. It was interesting to have my son giving them permission to do all kinds of things, but he was in touch with Mary Ann and had been through this before. I was quickly developing sepsis so was lucid but like through a fog.
By the way, the neurologist has ruled out a seizure on the plane, although that is what it looked like to the flight attendant. I did lose consciousness and vomited and was disoriented after the cabin was pressurized and was heading for the runway. My blood pressure was dangerously low for some reason and speculation is that an infection was already brewing.
Also, unlike many of the events last year, I was awake for everything this year including the difficult and potentially dangerous procedure of putting a central line right into my neck since they were not successful in doing to in my chest. I told Mary Ann that there was merit to either a coma or heaven and she made it clear that the coma was an option but not heaven. I was also amazed once again at how quickly I was in such trouble.
I thought initially that the admittance to the hospital was a formality but I was already in septic shock and going downhill very rapidly – and I was fully aware of the danger I was in and wondered if I would survive this time. Mary Ann was not here till I had been in the hospital for three days although a number of awesome RG staff dropped everything to be here and to help.
I am sure I will be learning through this experience as I did from my prior hospital stay. I figured today that I have spent 60 days in the hospital, almost all in ICU since December 4, 2007. Thank you for your prayers and love. I am overwhelmed that others would care, but we are deeply grateful.
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