hospital

My Words Were Heard

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

For a long time, I’ve been wanting to address something with the hospital I was admitted to several times in the year before I ran away.

I was admitted to the voluntary psychiatric unit three times, and each time, the hospital provided my mother with information and direct access to me. I felt extremely frustrated about it, but didn’t have the strength or the energy to fight back at that time.

I know it’s too late for me, but I’ve continually thought about how this needs to change, how victims of abuse and domestic violence need extra protection, how they need to feel safe in a place where they should be able to feel safe.

I finally sat down last night and wrote what was on my mind for awhile now. I sent it in an email to the hospital.

I didn’t expect an answer back. I was sitting on the couch an hour ago, and heard my phone ring. It was a number from my old town. My immediate reaction was one of fear; I wanted to deny the call, fearing it was someone from my family. I wasn’t even thinking about the letter I had just sent.

Hesitantly, I answered the phone. It was the director of patient services. He wanted to let me know that he received my letter and was taking it seriously. He is launching an investigation into my particular experience and forwarding the matter to the board. He will be contacting me again, and wanted me to know that I was heard.

I couldn’t believe it. I can only hope something comes from this. Even if nothing happens, I know that I was able to speak, and for a brief moment, I was heard.

To Whom It May Concern,

My name is Crystalie. I was a patient at * many times throughout my life. I am writing today to share my experience with several of my last hospitalizations there, in hopes that changes will be made to protect future patients.

In November 2014, December 2014, and February 2015, I was a patient in your voluntary psychiatric unit at *. The first stay, I was sent by my doctor after I revealed abuse that was going on that contributed to my suicidal thoughts. My doctor thought it best to send me to the hospital to keep me safe — not only from myself, but from my abuser. Despite multiple attempts by my abuser, the doctor refused to give out any of my information about where I was. Somehow, my abuser contacted * and had it confirmed not only that I was admitted to the hospital, but what unit and floor I was on. This allowed my abuser to contact me countless times via phone throughout my stay. My abuser also requested information via the MHAs and was provided updates about my care. I never gave approval for this person to receive any information about me. This person was not listed as an emergency contact. This person had no right to any of my information, yet she was given all of the information she needed to keep me under her watch.

I was discharged a few weeks later, back to the home of my abuser, who believed that I informed people of what she had done. I had indeed informed the treatment team, including my social worker, about the abuse that happened, but because I was an adult, not much could be done. I found myself in an unsafe situation at home, so I checked myself into the hospital just a couple weeks later to keep myself safe from her. I wasn’t suicidal as much as I needed somewhere to hide and be safe. As I waited in the emergency room for a bed to be open, I saw my abuser walking down the ER hall, right towards me. The front desk had confirmed I was there, and told her what room I could be found in. Once again, I had not revealed any of this information to her. She found me, most likely by chance, because * was the hospital most local to me at that time. She was not listed as my emergency contact. I did not okay anyone to visit me or to contact me. At this point, the hospital had it on record from my prior stay that this person was abusive. Yet she was allowed to have access to me once again. I was too afraid to tell the aide to ask my abuser to leave, for fear of what my abuser would then do to me. There was no safe way to go about it. I suffered once again, and received retributive punishment after I was discharged back into my abuser’s home.

There are multiple points where the system failed me. The system allowed a known abuser to contact me, to physically find me in a place that should have protected me, should have been a safe spot for me. My health information is supposed to be private; that information should include my general status as a patient, and should not be disclosed to anyone without my approval. It’s a violation of HIPAA. I realize it’s difficult to monitor who comes in to visit. But there needs to be some procedures in place to keep victims safe. I am not the only one. And while it’s too late to change what happened to me, it’s not too late for other victims of abuse and domestic violence. Victims of abuse rarely confront their abusers in public because of the fear. I know that was why I was unable to tell hospital staff once my abuser was there. What if there was a safe way to go about this?

My abuser was my mother. I think that’s what made it so easy for the hospital to share my information. Most people don’t expect family members to be abusive. But the truth is, they are. Mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, husbands, wives, partners — no one is immune. I know for me, it was difficult to tell people that I was in hiding from my mother; I had faced a lot of disbelief when I did. I know, in speaking to other victims of similar abuse, that there was a similar hesitance. But that fear and difficulty doesn’t mean we don’t deserve privacy and protection. I need to know that the hospital has changed how it shares information. I need to know that there’s a way victims of violence can protect themselves from their abusers while in medical settings. I couldn’t fight the wrongs that were done to me back then; I wasn’t safe enough to do so. I realize it’s late for me now, but I need to take a stand for others. What can we do to keep this from happening again?

Please contact me. I have provided my phone number and e-mail address.

Thank you for your time.

Rock Bottom, Part 2

~ KJ ~ 9 Comments

Being hospitalized brings up such mixed emotions. In a way, it’s a relief; you get a break from life for a while. But then you realize that when you get out, life is going to be the same, if not worse. Missed school, missed exams, late bill payments. Whatever anxiety was reduced quickly comes back tenfold.

As I rode in the back of the ambulance for an hour and a half, my mind kept coming back to two things. The first, why the fuck do these people care about me? I didn’t get it. Why did my friend care enough to take time out of her day to bring me what I needed? Why did she care enough to comfort me when was scared to go? Why did the therapist care enough to wipe my tears away? Why did my therapist care enough to not give up on me? Why did my psychiatrist care enough to save me? Why won’t they just let me be? Why is it so wrong to die? What good am I to these people, to the world?

The second thing stemmed from a conversation I had with the nurse while I was waiting for transport a couple of hours prior. In our conversation, I told her about my writing work with HealthyPlace, my articles on DID. I’m normally very hesitant to share my professional work with anyone on the outside ever since it was used against me. But I trusted her, so I told her about my diagnosis and my writing.

She read through a few of my articles.  Then she stopped and asked if she could ask me a question. I told her it was okay. Then she asked me “why don’t you take your own advice?”

It took me a minute to process. I understood her point. I’ve spent the last two plus years writing about DID, sharing ways to improve communication, work with your system, ask for help. I gave people with DID hope that life could be doable. Yet I had done very little of what I had written. I was giving others hope when I myself was hopeless, telling others to do things I gave up on doing. Why? Because I was different. Because I didn’t think I was worth it. I wasn’t being realistic with myself or with anyone else, and that bothered me.

I held on to both of those thoughts throughout my entire hospital stay. People care. I matter. It probably helped me get through the hospital stay more than anything else did.

I realized early on that the hospital wasn’t the place for me. The first night when the psychiatrist did my intake, she not only made me feel guilty for leaving my brother, but she also didn’t know what DID was. Instead of explaining it, I told her to forget about it. I didn’t have to energy to fight her on anything, or to educate her on things she should have already known. I told her about my heart condition, and my need for sodium-laden fluids. She told me they didn’t do special diets there, and I’d have to deal. At that point, I was done.

The only positive of hospitalization, aside from the friends I made, was being weaned off of my heart medication. The psychiatrist I spoke to the following day agreed that the  medication can have severe side effects in rare instances, and can cause increased suicideality and worsening depression. While I had that before the medication, I certainly didn’t need anything making it more apparent. I appreciated that this psychiatrist listened to me instead of brushing me off as knowing nothing.

I did feel a little bit better once I weaned off of the medication. I was still suicidal, and still very much depressed, but I knew that staying inpatient wasn’t going to help that in any way. I had already been there a week, and it was hell. I wasn’t allowed to leave the floor because I was considered a fall risk. I couldn’t go to outside groups or go to the cafeteria for meals. It was isolating. I called my friend every night. That helped me get through. I knew she couldn’t visit because I was sent somewhere considerably far away; it hurt, but I understood it. I cried the first two nights I was there, but after that, it got easier. I learned of her son’s plan to come in an armored truck and help me break out; I halfway wished that plan was possible.

I was placed as a dual diagnosis patient — which I had to explain several times that I was there for PTSD, not for substance abuse (which, unfortunately, I just discovered they have added DD to my medical record). Most patients there were dual diagnosis — a telling sign of the opioid crisis and its aftereffects. Psychiatric facilities here now have more patients with drug or alcohol abuse than they do general psych. It definitely changes the experience, and the needs of DD patients become priority, at the expense of other patients.

They wanted me to stay longer. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it. I was starting to get stir crazy. One of the patients had become indirectly threatening towards me. It started to feel more unsafe as the days went on. I did everything I was supposed to, so they discharged me, with an appointment the next day for intake at the program I was in before I was hospitalized.

It wasn’t as easy to come back to life as I thought it would be. I felt like a failure. I had to restart program. A program I had been in since August. I saw so many people come and go, and I was still there. And now to be there again, starting all over. Why can’t I just get over everything already? Why can’t I just be cured?

I wish I could say I climbed out of rock bottom, but I’m not sure I have.

I’m a Liability

~ KJ ~ 6 Comments

Do you understand the consequences of your condition? You cannot be out by yourself. Do you understand? You can be walking down the street, pass out, get hit by a bus, and die. You can pass out and stop breathing, and the lack of oxygen will cause you to be brain-dead. This is serious. I need you to verify that you understand the risk you’re taking.

I laid in my hospital bed, listening as the doctor in charge continued on her lecture. I laughed to myself. There were so many things I wanted to say, half in sarcasm, half in truth, but I knew saying them out loud would likely end up with me being put on a psych hold. I repeated her words back to her. My voice lacked the care and concern that hers did. This wasn’t anything new for me. This was my normal.

I didn’t wake up that Tuesday morning expecting to end up in a hospital bed later that night. It was a regular day. I woke up, took a shower, unloaded the dishwasher, and put a load of laundry on before heading to work. It was a slow day to start. I walked home on my lunch break to let the dogs out and take some cough medicine, as I hadn’t been feeling well since the night before. I walked back to work and planned to finish out the next couple of hours with no problems.

But it didn’t quite happen that way. I knew something wasn’t right. I was walking down the aisle and I could feel my heart racing and stopping, racing and stopping. I kept telling myself in my head please, not here. I was barely two weeks into the job. I didn’t want to pass out there. I hadn’t even informed anyone of my heart condition until a week after I started the job, and it was only because my therapist thought it was necessary. None of my coworkers knew; only the manager. I didn’t want anyone to know because I didn’t want people to overreact. I didn’t want anyone to treat me differently. I just wanted to be normal.

Time had passed and I could still sense something was wrong. I couldn’t breathe. At one point, I could barely speak. I motioned to the assistant to take care of a customer for me, and I must have looked off because she ran to get me a chair. I just wanted to be okay. This is going to pass. This needs to pass. I sat down, hoping that would help. I tried to breathe, which was harder than normal because I had also been sick.

I don’t know how long I was sitting for, but I ended up falling over onto the floor. I looked up to find my coworker kneeling at my side, another was on the phone with 911. I’m okay, I just need a minute. Why did they have to call 911? I don’t need help. I’m fine.

But people still don’t believe me when I say I’m fine. The paramedics ended up taking me to the nearest hospital. I gave them my history, told them I had the internal heart monitor. They couldn’t get any information from the monitor because I didn’t have my ID card on me, and it wasn’t the same hospital where my surgery was done. So all they could do was run tests.

EKG was normal, x-ray showed an enlarged heart with inflammation in the lungs. They started me on IV steroids and breathing treatments. I thought the focus had shifted from passing out to not being able to breathe. After a couple of hours, the heart monitor was off and the breathing treatments stopped. A doctor came in to tell me I had been admitted, and I immediately starting panicking. Why? All I’m doing is sitting up in bed, unattached to anything but a Pulsox on my finger.

You passed out. Well yea, I pass out a lot. I still wore the bruise on my forehead from two days earlier, when I passed out and hit my head on the tiles of my bathroom floor. This was just my life now. Pass out, get up, move on. I’ve been doing it for years now, though not nearly as frequently as the last few months. It became just another part of my life to cope with.

I didn’t want to be admitted so they could watch me all night. I could do that myself, at home, free from the PTSD reactions that hospital admissions continue to cause me. I called J in tears, begging her to come pick me up. She knows I don’t like hospitals, but also knows that sometimes I have to be there. And I know that, too. But this wasn’t necessary. I didn’t need to stop my life just so they could make sure I didn’t pass out again.

So that’s why I got that lecture. I told them I did not want to be there. I told them it was difficult for me emotionally. I wanted J to be there to help me make sure I was making the right decision, because I admit I’m not so good at that most times. But she agreed, too. They weren’t doing anything to help me. She told them the same thing I had told them — this is what we’ve been dealing with for months now, and we just deal with it until we know more.

I signed the paper and I left. The risks weren’t new to me. They were the risks I had been taking every day. And I would continue to take them.

Except that not everyone wants to take those risks with you. The next morning, my manager sent me a text. She had already taken me off the schedule for the rest of the week and next. She asked me to turn in my keys. I needed a note before I could return back to work. A note I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get. I was now a liability.

I get it. They can’t have employees passing out. It was a fear I had myself, knowing that there were times I was going to be alone in the store. I get the liability.

But now I am stuck. No one wants to employ anyone who’s going to pass out at random. My disability was denied. I’m not making any money. I’ve spent the last week in and out of hospitals not just because I passed out that one time, but because my COPD is so out of control, in combination with my messed up heart, that no doctor wants to treat me.

I went to urgent care on Thursday hoping to get a prescription for steroids before my breathing went to absolute shit, and I ended up being sent to the hospital again. He told me he didn’t feel comfortable treating me. It wasn’t just the breathing. It was my heart. My heart rate was low — way too low for normal, and especially low considering it should have been higher to compensate for the extra work it needed to do to help me breathe. Something wasn’t right, and as soon as he heard I had a heart condition, I became a liability.

I feel stuck in a situation with no happy ending. No matter what I do, I am a liability.

After all, I can walk down the street, get hit by a bus, and die, right?

But so can anybody. So why do I have to be treated so differently?

 

 

Changes, Part 2

~ KJ ~ 9 Comments

I wish I could say I knew what was going on with my health. Since I last wrote, things have only gotten worse, and answers are very few and far between.

My tests revealed a stenosis in my left shoulder. It was enough to explain some of my symptoms, but not all of them. It didn’t explain the passing out or the dizziness. It may have explained the difference in blood pressure, but aside from that, something else was going on, but no one knew what.

As I sat in his office, I started to feel it again. The feeling I have trouble explaining. It starts as a tightness in my chest. My head gets heavy and I start to get dizzy. It feels like a grand effort just to keep upright. I remember him telling me I didn’t look right. He asked me if I was on anything (insinuating drugs, which I don’t blame him for, because he does know my history). I couldn’t tell him what was going on. I just told him I was tired. I told him I’d be okay. If I had just been able to tell him in that very moment what was going on, maybe he could have helped me better, because what has followed since then has been a series of concerning and frightening events.

I couldn’t tell you the exact date, though I could look through the growing pile of hospital papers I have acquired in the last several weeks alone because of this. I was sitting in group at PHP. I felt the pain in my chest. I tried to focus on breathing, but the pain wouldn’t go away. My heart was fluttering. My head felt weird. Dizzy, empty, full, I can’t describe it. I remember sitting in the chair after group unable to move. A few people walked by and asked if I was okay, but I couldn’t answer. My body was so weak, I could barely speak. I remember the therapist sitting in front of me asking if I was okay. The next thing I remember, I was flat on my back on the floor confused as fuck.

Apparently I had passed out cold right out of the chair and onto the floor. All I could do was apologize. The therapist was there, the nurse, and the psychiatrist. They checked my blood pressure and pulse, and both were way too high. Not my normal at all. It felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest. I tried to calm down but all I could was panic. I kept telling them I was fine, but they had called 911 and I ended up being rushed to the emergency room.

I remember the paramedic checking my blood pressure in the ambulance and it came up extremely low; 60/40. He asked if I felt okay. I told him I’m fine, I’m just tired. My usual response, you know. He figured it was just a bad read. He didn’t know any better. He didn’t know all the times my blood pressure readings were so extreme the nurses and the paramedics just assumed they were “bad reads”.

The hospital did blood tests, a CT scan, x-ray. It wasn’t a heart attack. But they couldn’t give me any answers. They listed it as dehydration, and told me to drink more and make sure I was eating enough. I could give them that. I probably wasn’t eating enough.

So I made an effort to eat more. I ate a granola bar for breakfast. I bought a snack for between group sessions at PHP. I hoped this all would stop if I just ate more.

But it didn’t stop. I got that feeling again. The chest pain, the weird feeling in my head.  I sat in the nurse’s office in fear that I was going to pass out. She checked for a pulse and could barely feel it. She checked the other side and noticed an irregularity. Not only was my pulse slow, but my heart was skipping a beat. She felt it again and it was still the same. The total opposite of what it was when I passed out before. Instead of my heart racing, now it was barely beating at all. They called 911, and I ended up in the hospital once again.

This time was no different. My blood tests were fine. No heart attack. I stayed bradycardic, but otherwise they weren’t concerned enough to keep me there over night. I was discharged once again with no real answers.

I think the nurse and psychiatrist at PHP were as frustrated as I was. The nurse asked if I could have the hospitals send copies of my EKGs sent to them, so I called up both hospitals I was in and they quickly faxed them over. The psychiatrist noticed something in both EKGs that no doctor or hospital every told me. There was an irregularity in both EKGs, which no one ever addressed and everyone seemed to ignore.

And as if twice weren’t enough, it happened a third time. I was within group and got the pain in my chest. I tried to stay calm and sit through group, but it became increasingly difficult to focus. The woman sitting next to me asked if I was okay, because she said I did not look good. I said I was fine. I didn’t want to go through this again. I just wanted it to go away. But it didn’t. I hesitantly got up to go and ride it out in the bathroom, hoping the pain and dizziness would pass. The nurse saw me on my way there and she knew just by looking at me that it was happening again. I told her I was fine, but I don’t think she believed me, because when I made it out of the bathroom (still no better than before), she and the psychiatrist made me sit down and she took my pulse and blood pressure.

And there it was again. I had a weak pulse, and my heart would skip beats, just like before. I told her I was fine. She kept asking if I was having chest pain and I didn’t want to answer, because I knew if I said yes, she would call 911. The psychiatrist called my cardiologist (who happened to be on call at the hospital) and talked to him directly. He told me to come straight in. Another hospital visit, just days after the one before.

This time wasn’t quite the same story. The doctor came in and told me I had an arrhythmia. He explained that something was off in the part of my heart that controls how it beats, but they just weren’t sure exactly what the problem was yet. They were checking for AFib and put me on a 24-hour monitor right away. Finally, here was an answer. Not a full answer, but certainly better than dehydration.

But it wasn’t a cure. I was still passing out. One morning on my way to work, I passed out as I was closing the front door to the house and fell down stairs of the front porch, sliding down until I hit my head on the concrete. I woke up after 10 or so minutes, I don’t even know. My only worry was getting to work on time. With a scraped up head and bruised up legs, I managed to make it to work on time. I told myself I was okay. I said everything was fine. But it wasn’t fine. My head was pounding, my eye was swollen, and I apparently couldn’t say a coherent sentence without slurring my words. My supervisor was worried I had a concussion so he sent me home. All I could say was I was sorry.

That wasn’t the last time I passed out. Last weekend, I collapsed on the front porch during a retreat for my support group. They called 911, but I refused to go to the hospital. I’m sure the paramedics weren’t happy with me. I told them my list of problems: a stenosis in my left shoulder, heart arrhythymia, tachy/brady, irregular blood pressure, COPD. I told them I’ve been through it enough to know I’d be okay. The hospital wouldn’t do anything for me anyway but have me rest.

I’ve passed out at home (that time, at least, on a carpeted floor). I’ve come close to passing out in work, at stores, even walking across the street. It’s gotten to a point that I’m afraid to go anywhere because I don’t know when I’m going to pass out, and I don’t want to be alone if and when it does happen. Almost every day now, I get the pain. It’s unpredictable. I sit, I lay down, I try to relax. Sometimes it passes quickly. Sometimes it passes after an hour. And sometimes I pass out. It’s a lottery, and I never really know what result I’m going to get.

It’s frustrating not knowing any answers. I fear that in some way, I will end up like my father (who had heart disease which eventually killed him). I don’t have diabetes, I don’t have high cholesterol, I don’t have high blood pressure. Yet somehow, I ended up like this.

I spend my life sitting in waiting for that feeling to happen again. It feels like your body is fighting against you, like your heart wants to quit (literally), yet something kicks in and makes it start going again.

How symbolic.

31 Going on 70

~ KJ ~ 8 Comments

I celebrated my birthday last week. My 31st.

In many ways, it was nice for me.

My friend at work brought in an ice cream cake for me the day before my birthday, and we all ate ice cream at 10 o’clock in the morning (because the morning is our afternoon). It really brightened my day, even though it was such a short amount of time, it meant a lot to be around people I care for, and that care for me.

When I went to my PHP program on Monday, one of the women gave me a bag of fancy dark chocolate caramels. Most of the people in program know me for two things: my love of dinosaur chicken nuggets and my affinity for chocolate. Since I stopped smoking a few weeks ago, I replaced my cigarettes with Hershey’s chocolates, willingly provided by the director of the program. It was so nice (and a little embarrassing) to be recognized for my chocolate addiction, and I was so surprised that someone would think to do that for me. My face must have lit up, because people commented that they had never seen me that happy before.

It’s the small things that really get me. It’s weird, because in some ways, I don’t want to be recognized, acknowledged, or even noticed on my birthday. But in other ways, I just wish I could enjoy a day that so many other people get to enjoy. I realize a lot of my issues are tied up in trauma. There’s also the fact that my friend died on my birthday 11 years ago, and it feels wrong to celebrate anything happy on the anniversary of his death.

But I made it through. I took it all in. I didn’t break down. I kept myself busy between program and work, and that was probably for the better. Silence and being unoccupied are usually what lead me down the black hole.

Then life happened. The birthday fun was over and I found myself sitting in the ER two days later in excruciating pain. My knee gave out and I fell. Hard. I just wanted to make sure nothing was broken, as I am the girl who broke her foot walking across the street. I thought I was making a wise decision going to the hospital that night. The doctor came to see me, asked me about my history, and sent me for x-rays. Nothing unexpected.

And then the doctor came in with an odd look on her face. I couldn’t tell if she was perplexed or concerned (or maybe both). She asked if I was sure I hadn’t been in pain before this. I told her no, but that answer wasn’t exactly the truth. How can I explain that I learned to block out pain? How can I explain that I learned to deal with pain in order to survive? How can I explain that I learned to believe that pain was my normal? I couldn’t. So I told her no, because the truth seemed too impossible to explain.

I’ve never seen this degree of damage in someone your age. You have severe arthritic damage to your knee. I’m referring you to a orthopedic specialist for more testing and treatment.

I…just went there because I fell. I didn’t break anything, so I guess that was good. It’s most likely a sprain, possibly a ligament issue, but the doctor wasn’t even concerned about that. She was concerned about the old damage. I’ve never seen this degree of damage in someone your age. Those words stuck with me, because they’re words I’ve heard before. I didn’t need to hear those words again. I didn’t want to hear those words ever again.

In all the ways I am trying to improve my mental health, my physical health is deteriorating. I was just starting to cope with the emphysema, another thing they don’t see “in someone your age.” It took an entire year to get to a point of really acknowledging it. I ended up in the hospital several times and it all became real. I was told in my last hospitalization that I had bronchiectasis (non-CF type), another form of COPD. As if emphysema wasn’t enough, they want to throw ANOTHER diagnosis at me. Blow after blow. 

I don’t want to go to any more doctors. I don’t want emphysema or bronchiectasis or a fucked up knee. I’ve had enough shit in my life already. It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. I was supposed to get out and get better, not become free and lose my health. I can’t handle any more diagnoses, any more problems, any more hospitalizations.

I’m not really sure what state I’m in. It isn’t shock, because really these are things I should already know. Is it grief? I don’t think so. I’m not sure I have the right to grieve. These things are my fault. If I didn’t smoke, if I went to the doctor more, if I didn’t block out the pain, maybe I wouldn’t be 31 years old with problems I should be having when I’m 70.

How am I supposed to feel? What am I supposed to do?

I need to go

~ KJ ~ 15 Comments

It was just supposed to be a regular doctor’s appointment.

I wanted to see if my doctor would change some of my inhalers, since my recent hospital visits indicate that something isn’t working right.

I was still sick on Monday, but I didn’t think anything of it. I took the train ride down and walked a mile to my doctor’s office. No problem. I made it just fine. I was still standing.

After a few minutes of waiting in the waiting room, the nurse called me back to the room. She took my vitals, and asked if I was okay. Of course I’m okay. I’m just here to change my meds.

The nurse practitioner came in, listened to my lungs, then left the room. Well, then.

A minute later, the nurse came back with an oxygen tank. Then the nurse practitioner came in. “You need to go to the hospital.“

I sat there, completely shocked. I just came for a followup. This was not in my planning. I had work in a few hours. I needed to get out of here so I could catch the train back home. I don’t have time for the hospital. I don’t have time for this.

But I didn’t have a choice. There was no air exchange in my lower lungs. I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. I ended up being taken by ambulance to the emergency room, in a hospital I had never been to, 40 minutes away from my home.

I couldn’t focus on anything but the time. If I could just get this over with, I can still make it to work. I didn’t understand what the big deal was. I haven’t passed out. These people are just overreacting. I am fine. I can walk. I can talk. I am fine.

But I wasn’t fine. The breathing treatments hadn’t helped. The IV steroids weren’t helping enough. My oxygen was still too low, and they had to admit me. It was then that the panic started to set in. Once they wheeled me to my room upstairs, I started to lose it. The emergency room I could handle, but not this. I started crying.

I could feel myself starting to slip away. I tried to tell the nurse what was going on. I told her I had PTSD, that something bad happened to me in a hospital and that this was extremely difficult for me and that I would rather leave. I kept saying I need to go.

What did my honesty get me? A psych hold. As if I didn’t have enough going on, their response was to put me on a safety 1 on 1. I wasn’t suicidal. I was in a panic state.

I was humiliated. They forced me to take off all of my clothes, including my underwear. I explained to them that I was a survivor of sexual abuse and that I needed my clothing to help me feel protected. They gave exactly zero fucks. I asked if I could speak to someone about this to explain the situation, and they told me no. I asked again to speak to someone higher up, and was told there was no one to speak to. Once they put you on a psych hold, you have no rights. I asked for water for over an hour and couldn’t even get that.

I should have been at work that night. I shouldn’t have been laying in a hospital bed without my clothes and possessions being treated like I had committed a crime. I couldn’t even pee by myself. The aide had to stand there and watch me pee and wipe, just like my mother used to watch me before she decided she needed to “help”.

I cried off and on that night. I wasn’t even concerned about my lungs anymore. I wanted my protection back. I wanted my dignity. It was stolen away from me. Again. My therapist was trying to help calm me down, but I was so out of it I couldn’t process everything she was saying. I eventually got so tired of crying that I fell asleep.

I called my program therapist early the next morning to tell her what was going on and ask for support. I was concerned about the psych hold more than anything. I didn’t want to end up inpatient, and I wanted her to be able to advocate for me if needed. My experience with the nurses had been so horrible, that I had low expectations for the psychiatrist. I expected to have to fight. But I didn’t have to. I saw the psychiatrist later that morning and after two minutes, he had taken off the psych hold. I told him I  had explained to the nurses that I had previous trauma in a hospital and I had PTSD, and he said my reaction was completely understandable given the circumstances.

It was great that the psychiatrist realized that, but I had been put through 17 hours of unnecessary bullshit, re-traumatization, and cruelty. For nothing. I was punished for being a victim.

By then, I didn’t even care how my lungs were at all. I could have been dying, I didn’t care. I was not staying in that hospital any longer. The pulmonary doctor came to see me. She saw something on the x-rays and told me I needed a CT scan. Nope, sorry. I have things to do. My patience was already too far gone. Am I dying right this second? No? Then I need to go.

I told the pulmonary doctor I would come back for the tests. But I don’t need to go back.

I don’t need any more diagnoses. I don’t need any more problems. I don’t need any more humiliation. I can’t take any more.

Rage

~ KJ ~ 8 Comments

In more ways than one, I am approaching rock bottom. Physically, psychologically, emotionally, financially. I am a disaster.

I left the hospital, but the truth is that I should still be there. And they all told me that. Every doctor I had to see. I don’t even know how many, because they all looked the same to me. Covered by masks and gowns, all I could decipher were voices, all saying the same thing. You are very sick.

I was not prepared. I thought I was just having trouble breathing. I shrugged it off until the coughing got worse, enough that I started coughing up blood on my way home from work. I took a detour to the ER, expecting a breathing treatment and a discharge. Instead I ended up with an admission to isolation with the avian flu, suspected pneumonia, and a COPD exacerbation.

I fought to get out. I left them with little choice; if they didn’t discharge me, I was leaving AMA, and they knew if I left without medication, I could get sicker and die. I still endured their lectures, their voices of concern. You’re very sick, they said. And all I could say to them was I’ve been through a lot worse.

I don’t know how much more my body can take. It’s been through hell, and I just keep making it worse. You would think I’d be doing my best to stay healthy, but I’m just pushing myself closer and closer to pain and death. I walked around aimlessly yesterday, in the cold, smoking cigarette after cigarette, cycling through fits of crying and fits of rage.

I had such an intense urge to die. I ran through the street as cars were turning in, but none of them hit me. Why can’t I just get that one distracted driver to do me in? I tried to cut my wrists, but I couldn’t get my hands to stop shaking. Why can’t I just be strong enough to do it myself?

I think about getting high almost every day. I miss it. I miss not having to think about shit for awhile. I miss the feeling, the feeling that nothing else matters because you can stop giving a fuck about everything for awhile. Poverty is probably the only thing that has been saving me from that right now. I can’t even afford to live, let alone afford coke. But that’s my fault, too. I let people walk all over me, I let them take advantage of me because I’m just so afraid to say no, so worried about hurting people’s feelings at the expense of hurting myself and my own. I paid their bills when I should have just been paying my own. So now they are sitting with their new phones and tablets, and I’m selling mine just so I can afford one more week of therapy and another bag of rice. But it’s my fault. I can’t be mad at anyone else, so I hold it inside, just like I’ve held everything else for so long.

I’ve been thinking about calling my mother. To say what, I don’t know. Maybe to say I’m sorry for being such a horrible daughter. Maybe to hear her voice, to sense her familiar anger. Maybe to ask her why, why she had to do the things she did, the things that have led me where I am today.

Or maybe to let out my rage on her because the rage I’ve been unleashing on myself hasn’t been working. It just keeps building and building and I don’t know what else to do. But I know if I go on like this much longer, the rage will destroy me before anything else does.

Revive

~ KJ ~ 5 Comments

She asked if I would allow them to perform life-saving actions. If my heart stops, do I want to be revived, if my lungs fail, do I want to be intubated.

I said, without hesitation, no thank you.

I think I took her by surprise. She told me again what it all meant, and I shrugged my shoulders. She doesn’t know how many times I’ve tried to die. She doesn’t know that it would just be an easier way out for me.

I’ve spent the last 16 years in and out of the hospital. I really hate the likelihood that the end years of my life will likely be spent in a hospital.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if my hospital experiences weren’t so laden with horror. Hospitals are supposed to be safe, healing spaces. But how could they be when that evil woman sat there next to me?

She was never there out of care and concern. She was there to control me. I lay there in my weakest moment and she took it all from me. And I couldn’t fight back. I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t tell her to leave.

Because no one would have understood. They thought she was a loving mother. They didn’t know she was a monster waiting to wreak her havoc. Because the monsters were never under my bed, they were always beside it.

I am trying to be strong. I crack a joke with the doctor. I take a selfie from my hospital bed. But I’m also crying. Because even though the chair next to me is empty, I can still see my mother there, waiting to hurt me.

Don’t revive me. Don’t intubate me. Don’t save my life. I’d rather die than keep remembering.