I do think that at some point I should stop looking back, however, this morning, I started thinking about all the little things. What little things am I referring to? When someone has a long hospital stay and devastating health crisis like I had, the focus is on the major health issues and not on all the little annoyances that go along with a long hospital stay and being on high doses of dozens of medicines, things that I may not have mentioned previously.
Being in a coma, obviously, much of your normal hygiene routine falls by the wayside, and for various reasons, does not get taken care of. When I was very sick, my heart had trouble keeping my blood pressure high enough, to help it, I was on blood thinners. Because of that, it was important that I did not get bleeds. This meant they couldn't brush my teeth properly. Instead of a normal tooth brush, it was an essentially a piece of foam on a plastic stick. I remember this because they were still using these "brushes" after I woke up. The problem with these things is that they don't really clean your teeth of plaque and tartar, so when I woke up my teeth were encased in plaque and tartar. Maybe not that big of a deal, but all the gaps between my teeth had filled in - so much so that my teeth actually kind of hurt - it was uncomfortable. So uncomfortable in fact that I used to fantasized, in my delirium, about them having a dentist come in and clean my teeth.
After my transplant, I finally convinced my mother to bring in the sonic toothbrush and after a couple of days of using that I was able to free my teeth from their tartar imprisonment.
In addition, to not being able to properly brush my teeth, they also refused to properly cut my toe nails, for fear of cutting the cuticle. This wouldn't be such a big deal, except for the fact that I have a couple of minor hangnails that need attention. The nurses at the hospital had no idea how to deal with them, and thus refused to cut my nails, nor would the let me (not that I could, but I'll get to that later). I wasn't able to cut my nails until I left the hospital, and by that time my nail, while not that long, again my mother had actually managed to trim them for me a bit, had reached a thickness that I didn't think was possible for nails- I would say 1mm, but it sounds like an exaggeration. I'm not sure, but I do know that I had to cut my nails with big scissors because nail clippers wouldn't cut it, literally. Anyway, after a month or so trimming my toe nails were back to "normal". I suspect that the medications change the biology of my body in some way and caused my nails to grow in this weird way.
This brings me to my hair. When I left the hospital, I noticed that my hair had taken on a straw like quality that no amount of washing would relieve. Only the strongest of conditioners would seem to soften it up for a bit. Again, I suspect it's from the medications. Eventually my hair went back to normal (albeit with a few more gray hairs), but really don't think it really recovered until it had all grown out.
Speaking of hair, one thing that I did not like about being in the hospital, aside from having to go to the bathroom in a bed pan and be helped by someone, was the sponge baths. In addition, to it being humiliating to have some one else, including men, clean you with a sponge, it was cold. Sure they would use warm water, but you are still open to the air, the only good things about it was 1)being clean afterward, 2)the pre-warmed blankets they would put on you afterward. One good thing about being in the hospital though was how they cleaned my hair (on occasion, since they only did this a couple times). One way to clean your hair was to put this shower cap sort of thing on your head, which fit pretty tight. They (the nurse) would break something in the cap and it would be filled with shampoo and warm water. It felt so good. I loved it, though some crazy nurse told me that it would make me lose my hair - not a very nice thing to say to a psychotic hospital patient.
Other things I think people don't think about for those in a coma. You lose your voice from having a tube down it for weeks. You lose you appetite because they kept your stomach full through a feeding tube. Your hearing becomes very sensitive...because I don't why, but to this day I have ringing in my rings whenever I hear a cracking noise, like for example, every time I hear a carabineer shut closed.
You get amazing knots in your back from lying in med some much- when I got out the hospital I had walnut-sized knots in my back -it was impressive.
Still, all of these were minor annoyances, yet somehow, I remember them almost as vividly as the actual horrible things that happened to me.
