Damn that was hard

As I have said, I am now recounting what happened from approximately mid September, 2008. You may have noticed that in the last entry, I inked to a number of musical clips and Youtube video. This is me, trying to enhance the story with songs, that I like, have significance to me, or somehow fit the situation. So expect more of it.

Mid September was, probably, the most difficult time for me, emotionally and physically, at least when I was awake. I was awake, constantly exhausted, and in pain, yet somehow, I couldn't sleep. My nightmares continued to haunt me - I had night terrors, where just any time I did manage to sleep, I would awaken terrified, or confused, or both. Although, I couldn't walk or stand, and if I sat up, I would be lighted in mere moments. The tube down my throat eventually came out and I couldn't talk, and though I was more thirsty than I'd ever been in my life, I wasn't allowed to drink, because the tube had been in place for over 6 weeks. I dreamed, hallucinated, about classes of ice water and Shasta . Why Shasta pop, you may ask. I, for some reason, remembered an old Shasta commercial, with people playing around a mountain lake, on a beautiful summer days, in their cut-off jeans, with like 800 flavors of Shasta pop. In retrospect, my memory may have been of a Mountain Dew or Juicy Fruit commercial. Nobody, my parents, or Wendy, really knew where I was coming from. I know why though. It's because, the memory of that commercial was a memory of a completely different place than where I was. I've obsessed about this since then, and still hope to make a stop in Shasta, on a road trip to visit my uncle David, in Bend, Oregon.

So in this I had/developed what is called ICU Psychosis. I was literally losing my mind. And why not, you try being in a room, with essentially no window (it was facing a wall, with no direct light). I couldn't tell the difference between day and night. My emotions were all over the map... the bad map.

Yet during this time, I was getting "better". Getting stronger. I was still fighting infection, but my white blood cell count was slowly getting better. Which brings be to one of the first "comical" memories I have of being in the hospital. Nearly every day for the first few weeks I was awake, I was visited by two infectious disease doctors. I wish I could remember their names. One was pleasant lady who always had smile and showed concerned for me. The only was an older man with a German accent. One day while going over my lab results (blood was drawn from me every morning at around 6am - I dubbed these people, vampires), the older doctor, while referring to my white blood count, exclaimed "Looks good!" - what I found funny about this was, that between his accent and the histrionic manner in which he exclaimed it, reminded me of this - SCIENCE! Eventually I met James. James was my swallow and speech therapist. A young guy, likely younger than me. James was the first person in the hospital to treat me like a friend, and not just a sick person. The first person person, other Wendy, to talk about the future. Even though, at this point, I didn't believe in the future. I still didn't really understand what was happening. He gave me hope, he gave me the ability to swallow, and gave me the first drink of ice water I'd had in 2 1/2 months. I cried, I really really cried - it was some of the best tasting water, I'd ever had. The only water to rival it, I found in Sequoia National Park, in a spring on the trail to Alta Peak. Regardless, I was getting better, I was not doing it alone. I remember, one evening, as my Mother left for the day, after spending it at my bedside. I said to her, "This is the hardest thing I have ever done". She replied, simply, "I know.". And it was...it is.