On the Saturday morning, my sister went home to her family. She told me that our father was coming to Melbourne for the weekend, asking me to remember to get him to write down anything that doctors told us.
It was that time when things were being highly monitored. I had reached that seven days timeframe where if I were going to experience a stroke or spasm, it was going to happen within this weekend. Afterwards, there was a very low percentage of it that might happen, but it wasn’t high enough for close supervision. My sister was a little worried leaving me at this stage but I assured her that it was fine as our father was on his way and would be able to communicate if anything were to happen in the interim.
By lunch time I was a bit tired, but was still mobile, when a visitor came. It was one of my mangers, who had come to see me while I was in hospital to check in, but hadn’t arrived for visiting hours and she wasn’t allowed to stay for too long. I was happy to see her and felt a little better. When she left, mt father hadn’t arrived yet, so I decided I needed to go to sleep, so I crashed out.
When I woke up, my dad was sitting beside my bed. I asked him how long he had been sitting there and we talked for a bit.
Later on in the afternoon, two of my friends from roller derby came to visit. They were there for about twenty minutes before the nurses realised that I had more than two visitors (one above the limit). They left me with a basket of goodies and well wishes.
The next day, I was back on my feet and I had heard the doctors mention that I was being stepped-down. What that meant was that I was no longer being checked in every two hours and that they were in the process of discharging me back to Ballarat. I was relieved, also hey, able to sleep for maybe four hours in a night without being woken up by someone checking in on me. Things were looking up.
Death Comes to Visit the HDU
I don’t mean that there was some being in a cloak, who carried a scythe in his skeletal hand as he floated around the ward, debating which of the patients were going to die. Just that someone did die on the ward.
I mean there might have been that being, but if I believe what Supernatural tells me, you only see that particular being when it’s you that is going to draw your last breath. On the Saturday night, a new patient was admitted to my side of the HDU. She was lucid at the time, but apart from that I wasn’t aware of her diagnosis. Probably because I didn’t need to know either. She came in, they logged her vitals while her husband was with her, then he left.
Later on, they checked her vitals, but she slept through them checking her obs, and they must have thought she was ‘just asleep’ and didn’t push for her to wake up, because she might have had a big procedure prior to being admitted to the ward. Hey, I don’t have a lot of details on the other patients’ diagnoses, because I was in a pretty selfish mind space. I was also on of the younger people in the ward, aside from the nursing team, so I tended to keep to myself, and only speak to the nursing and medical teams when my family and friends weren’t there.
Anyway, I heard them call the MET (Medical Emergency Team), and then code Blue (which is hospital speak for cardiac arrest) and they drew the curtain around her bed so that they would be able to work without the peering eyes of other patients. That was ok with me, even in my half asleep state, I didn’t want to watch them do the things that they needed to do.
I must have drifted in and out of sleep, despite the noise that was growing around me. I became aware that the woman’s family had arrived at some stage and that they were all crying. I understood that the body was still there, but she had passed away at some stage while I was asleep. I also became aware of my bladder, telling me that I needed to go to the bathroom. I was caught, wondering what I should do. It wasn’t urgent urgent, but it would become a pressing need, but I really didn’t want to have to walk past all that grief. I’d always been sensitive to other’s emotions, so I knew I’d become overwhelmed by them as soon as I did. Anyway, I got to the point where I realised that I would have to go, so I called for a nurse. Walking past those people, complete strangers to me, their pain and grief were overwhelming. They couldn’t understand why it had happened and wanted answers which no one, at the time, was able to give.
I don’t remember much after that. I fell asleep and the next time that I was woken up for observations, there was an empty space next to me.
I never talked to my family about what happened. Perhaps I should have. Looking back, repressing it and not talking to anyone, well it may have triggered what happened next.
Don’t Become Someone’s Reason to Call a Code Grey
Monday.
It was official. I was going back to Ballarat. In the morning during their rounds, they told me that they were in contact with BHS, attempting to get me a bed there. I was ecstatic. This was about seven in the morning that they told me, and it made up for a long morning of failed five attempts to get blood from me because my veins kept on collapsing (I really suck at the whole hydration thing, especially overnight).
Here’s the thing about me. I’m a massive control freak. I need to know when things are happening and I put things mentally in place to prepare myself for them, and because I have that plan in place, it means that when things go against my plan, I immediately melt down and come to pieces. It’s been that way all my life so I’m kind of used to it. It doesn’t mean I like it though and I don’t usually let people see it when it does happen because it can be quite upsetting to see as well.
Okay, I can deal, but then the waiting began and they told me that I wasn’t going back, that I’d have to stay another night because there wasn’t a bed there for me. That was about 10am. Straight after that they told me that they’d have to try to get blood again.
I felt the world around me get more closed in. My breathing became more rapid and when they reached for my arm to try and take blood from me, I balked. I pulled my arm out of their reach and pulled myself in tight to my body. I couldn’t take it anymore. I just wanted out. Every time someone tried to talk to me, I couldn’t listen to them. I was caught in a loop of ‘they told me that I could go back to Ballarat and now I’m not allowed to’. It wasn’t logical, but then nothing about anxiety attacks are actually logical.
My father didn’t know how to support me. He was at a loss. He was becoming more and more stressed about it. I knew he had to work the next day, would have to travel back to Mount Gambier (a five hour drive at the very least). He felt like he couldn’t leave me while I was falling apart.
A few of the nurses offered to take me for a walk outside. I looked at them and told them, with every sincerity, that if they took me out of the hospital I wouldn’t be coming back. Eventually they left me alone aside from when they were conducting observations every four hours.
They tried to get me to eat something, but I pushed away the food. When my anxiety spirals, the first thing to go is my appetite. I can’t eat until the issue is resolved. I have to actively remind myself to actually drink, but eating is just something that I can’t bring myself to do.
That afternoon, a patient who had been located in one of the breakout spaces elevated, began yelling and screaming. He was becoming dangerous enough that the nurses in the room called a Code Grey (which is the call for security to assist). Later on, when I was told I could be relocated to that break out space or on the floor in another room, I asked to be as far from his as possible.
When I had confirmation from my mother that she had arrived in Melbourne (at the airport), my father left. I assured him that I would be okay. He left and about half an hour later my mother arrived.
At that stage my anxiety had pretty much subsided so that it was only an echo. I think I might have made an attempt to eat or drink something, but otherwise I didn’t get out of my head that much at all.
I sent out a message on Facebook, telling all my online friends that I was not okay, that I was ready to go home, but I was to stay until there was a bed in Ballarat. I was later to discover that, in order for me to get a bed, Ballarat either had to discharge someone or do a patient trade, sending one to Melbourne in exchange for me.
Later, after my mother left, another friend popped in to see me. It was great to see someone, not related to me, and after they left, I began to settle a bit more.
Around 10pm that night, I had been sleeping lightly, I woke up for the bathroom. On my return to the bed, the nurse on duty announced that I was to be moved at around 2pm, maybe a little before, as they had a trauma coming in and would need the space I was in. I agreed to the move, but requested to get placed on the ward, away from the patient who had escalated earlier. The nurse agreed, and while she continued on her rounds, I began gathering my belongings together. When she returned about fifteen minutes later, I was all ready to go. The way that I had it figured, the sooner I was out of the space, they could clean and set up for the next patient sooner and not feel pressured.
Of course, moving rooms meant that I was pushed on the bed to the next room. It was a little disorienting, seeing the roof segments go past my eyes, but once I was there, I was able to try and sleep. By try, I mean, put the sounds of excessive snoring from my two older, male room mates that was the new soundtrack to my space.
Needless to say, my mother was a little disorientated when she came into the HDU the next morning and saw a stranger sleeping where I had been. She was quickly redirected to where I had been sent off to.