Now I can only speak for Critical Care Neuropathy, but the random shooting pains are really no fun. Neurotonin is a great medication, it is keeping the pains bearable, unfortunately it does not appear to reverse the damage. It does reduce the feeling that someone is forcing a stake through my foot from happening every 4-8 minutes to happening 6-10 times a day. I was able to start driving again a couple of weeks before they mentioned I should try it, They were amazed when they found out I had climbed the ladder to replace a blown fuse in the AC, when I had asked them about climbing a ladder a few days earlier they told me to try, but that they thought I would only be able to go up 3-4 rungs at most.
I had wanted to keep this chronological, but it hurts too much not to vent somewhere, why does it seem that everyone around me is finding the relationships they are looking for, but not even any prospects out there for me? Since actively starting to look last October, I am 0 for I don't know how many hundreds of women I have tried to contact. Listening to my wife talk to her boyfriend in the Great Lakes area on the phone hurts so very bad, not because I am jealous of him, but because I am jealous of what they have. When will I find anything that lasts beyond the first kind of date? And is there some sort of rule for online dating where if I have not propositioned them by the 4th message the stop having conversations with me? I gave up on any real hopes of finding a new partner about a month ago, all I am really expecting to find at this point is a few new gods damned friends, and even that is not fucking happening. I am that most pathetic of creatures aren't I, the polyamorous person who is only ever going to have a single physical relationship at a time. I am getting sick of hearing "Don't give up, it's just a numbers game", "You can't give up, you'll find someone eventually", "Don't be discouraged, there's someone out there for you". Yes there is someone out there for me, problem from the poly perspective is it looks like it is someONE, and I have already found her.
Well it is way too damn late, the teething toddler looks to finally be out for the night, and it is hard to see what I am typing. Well maybe I will be up to typing more in the afternoon, after I have forced all this heartache back in the box it belongs in, I hate being so weak that I can't keep my emotions under control.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Introduction
I am writing this just to process what is going on in my life, it does not matter to me if anyone else ever reads it. But I am going to try and be as brutally honest with myself as possible, welcome to the ride. Lets see if it is going to be more like "Space Mountain" or "Storybook Land" boat ride.
February 17th, 2010 my life basically started over again, hence "My Second Life".
That evening I was taken into the Emergency Room by my wife and proceeded to amaze my medical team. When a doctor is purported to comment "Well the pulmonary embolism did not kill him so we won't worry about it.", and another doctor was supposed to have indicated that a couple of hours later and I would not have made it, you know you were in bad shape. Septic shock has a survival rate of about 25%, combined with the pulmonary embolism, the blood clots forming in my legs, the renal failure, multiple respiratory infections and everything else I had going on, they were doubtful if I would survive or ever come out of the come they had medically induced. They stopped the medicines used to induce the coma after 4 days, but I did not wake up for another 6 days. The scans they ran on me showed extensive signs of brain damage, and basically everything but my heart had shut down at one point or another during that 10 days. I was very fortunate to have an excellent medical team while I was in the ER and ICU at Banner Desert, including the Hematologist they brought in who was actually also the Oncologist that had been on my mother's medical team for her breast cancer. I was in ICU until about March 10th, after the operation to put in a permanent dialysis port in my chest I was moved to the post-op recovery ward for about another week. A few days before they put in the "power port", they were talking about me getting out of that hospital and into a rehab hospital in September 2010, and were not even talking about my getting back to work, or even getting most of my functionality back.
*****At this point let me tell you a little about my "First Life":
On October 8th 1995 (the night before I was hired by the place I am still working at) I met the woman who would become my wife. On August 10th 1996 we were married. Sometime around then we both came to the conclusion that we were polyamorous, we had tried exploring that a few times in the first 5 or 6 years of our marriage, but nothing ever worked out for a long term physical relationship. We did stumble across a very dear friend, and we all fell in love with each other, but she is not comfortable with polyamorous relationships, so ... well it just gets confusing, and I am still processing it to this day, but over all, quite contented with my life.
In May 2003 our 1st son was born, in March 2006 our 2nd son followed. In May 2009 we bought our 1st (and at this point only) house, thanks to the real estate market collapse. In August 2009 we found out that my wife was pregnant again. So that is where we were at when all this started, 2 young sons and my wife 7 months pregnant (remember we found out in August, she got pregnant in July) and we had a 50 year old house that we are still fixing up. We had started on the path to produce as much of our own food as possible by planting 3 peach trees and a fig tree, plus having a coop and run for chickens, and attempting to start a good sized garden.
*****
Back to my 2nd life:
After the port was installed they upgraded me to the post-op recovery ward, and my recovery took off. A bizarre thing about how my mind was working during this time is the fact that the formula H2SO4 kept popping up in my thoughts, starting with a dream just before I came out of the coma. Why Sulfuric acid would keep coming up, I don't know, but there it is. So back to my recovery, at one point they had a neurologist talk to me and I could not even remember how to read an analog clock, I could roll up on my side to allow the nurses to change the bedding or give me a sponge bath, and I could only sit up with a lot of help. I believe my prognosis was low enough that they only bothered to have the physical therapists come in and try to work with me a few times, that's the only reason I can think of for the poor level of therapy I can think of. The high point of that whole month is when the nurses agreed to sneak my sons in when they found out it was the youngest's 4th birthday, I still remember that fondly. Well, I was not kidding about my recovery taking off, within a couple of days I could again read a clock and they were trying to get me discharged straight to a rehap hospital. March 17th I was moved to the John J. Rhodes Rehab Center, I was the youngest patient there for most the time I was there, and the only one who was not recovering from a stroke. After about a week they decided to go in to clear out some of the clots in my legs, so I was moved to the ICU and they proceeded to "roto-rooter" the arteries in my legs. Once that was done the swelling finally started to go down, and it was easier to move my legs. It is amazing how good it can feel to be strapped into a standing brace frame and being vertical for the first time in 6 weeks.
It was really satisfying to make all the therapy departments re-write their weekly goals in the middle of each week because I had already exceeded them by Wednesday, and also how quickly my prognosis went from discharge in 5-6 months to 5-6 weeks. Each week they were cutting significant blocks of time off my discharge date, finally after 4 weeks they were about ready to cut me loose (well everybody except the hospitalist who was on duty that week said I was ready to go by the 12th of April), on the 15th my wife thought she was going into labor, so the nurses applied some pressure to get the doctor in charge of the center to override that one doctor who was blocking my discharge because he wanted me to get some more nerve conduction tests on my legs (tests that were still inconclusive in August of 2011, 16 months after my discharge, not a fun experience). So thanks to false labor I was home 4 days before my 3rd son was born, at that point I was having to use a wheelchair for longer distances, a walker to get around in the house, and braces to prevent toe drop when I was walking. Nearly 6 months of physical and occupational therapy followed, but I was back at my job full time by the 1st of August, 5 1/2 months after this all started, not quite fully functional but definitely able to do a fair chunk of my old responsibilities, and improving every day.
February 17th, 2010 my life basically started over again, hence "My Second Life".
That evening I was taken into the Emergency Room by my wife and proceeded to amaze my medical team. When a doctor is purported to comment "Well the pulmonary embolism did not kill him so we won't worry about it.", and another doctor was supposed to have indicated that a couple of hours later and I would not have made it, you know you were in bad shape. Septic shock has a survival rate of about 25%, combined with the pulmonary embolism, the blood clots forming in my legs, the renal failure, multiple respiratory infections and everything else I had going on, they were doubtful if I would survive or ever come out of the come they had medically induced. They stopped the medicines used to induce the coma after 4 days, but I did not wake up for another 6 days. The scans they ran on me showed extensive signs of brain damage, and basically everything but my heart had shut down at one point or another during that 10 days. I was very fortunate to have an excellent medical team while I was in the ER and ICU at Banner Desert, including the Hematologist they brought in who was actually also the Oncologist that had been on my mother's medical team for her breast cancer. I was in ICU until about March 10th, after the operation to put in a permanent dialysis port in my chest I was moved to the post-op recovery ward for about another week. A few days before they put in the "power port", they were talking about me getting out of that hospital and into a rehab hospital in September 2010, and were not even talking about my getting back to work, or even getting most of my functionality back.
*****At this point let me tell you a little about my "First Life":
On October 8th 1995 (the night before I was hired by the place I am still working at) I met the woman who would become my wife. On August 10th 1996 we were married. Sometime around then we both came to the conclusion that we were polyamorous, we had tried exploring that a few times in the first 5 or 6 years of our marriage, but nothing ever worked out for a long term physical relationship. We did stumble across a very dear friend, and we all fell in love with each other, but she is not comfortable with polyamorous relationships, so ... well it just gets confusing, and I am still processing it to this day, but over all, quite contented with my life.
In May 2003 our 1st son was born, in March 2006 our 2nd son followed. In May 2009 we bought our 1st (and at this point only) house, thanks to the real estate market collapse. In August 2009 we found out that my wife was pregnant again. So that is where we were at when all this started, 2 young sons and my wife 7 months pregnant (remember we found out in August, she got pregnant in July) and we had a 50 year old house that we are still fixing up. We had started on the path to produce as much of our own food as possible by planting 3 peach trees and a fig tree, plus having a coop and run for chickens, and attempting to start a good sized garden.
*****
Back to my 2nd life:
After the port was installed they upgraded me to the post-op recovery ward, and my recovery took off. A bizarre thing about how my mind was working during this time is the fact that the formula H2SO4 kept popping up in my thoughts, starting with a dream just before I came out of the coma. Why Sulfuric acid would keep coming up, I don't know, but there it is. So back to my recovery, at one point they had a neurologist talk to me and I could not even remember how to read an analog clock, I could roll up on my side to allow the nurses to change the bedding or give me a sponge bath, and I could only sit up with a lot of help. I believe my prognosis was low enough that they only bothered to have the physical therapists come in and try to work with me a few times, that's the only reason I can think of for the poor level of therapy I can think of. The high point of that whole month is when the nurses agreed to sneak my sons in when they found out it was the youngest's 4th birthday, I still remember that fondly. Well, I was not kidding about my recovery taking off, within a couple of days I could again read a clock and they were trying to get me discharged straight to a rehap hospital. March 17th I was moved to the John J. Rhodes Rehab Center, I was the youngest patient there for most the time I was there, and the only one who was not recovering from a stroke. After about a week they decided to go in to clear out some of the clots in my legs, so I was moved to the ICU and they proceeded to "roto-rooter" the arteries in my legs. Once that was done the swelling finally started to go down, and it was easier to move my legs. It is amazing how good it can feel to be strapped into a standing brace frame and being vertical for the first time in 6 weeks.
It was really satisfying to make all the therapy departments re-write their weekly goals in the middle of each week because I had already exceeded them by Wednesday, and also how quickly my prognosis went from discharge in 5-6 months to 5-6 weeks. Each week they were cutting significant blocks of time off my discharge date, finally after 4 weeks they were about ready to cut me loose (well everybody except the hospitalist who was on duty that week said I was ready to go by the 12th of April), on the 15th my wife thought she was going into labor, so the nurses applied some pressure to get the doctor in charge of the center to override that one doctor who was blocking my discharge because he wanted me to get some more nerve conduction tests on my legs (tests that were still inconclusive in August of 2011, 16 months after my discharge, not a fun experience). So thanks to false labor I was home 4 days before my 3rd son was born, at that point I was having to use a wheelchair for longer distances, a walker to get around in the house, and braces to prevent toe drop when I was walking. Nearly 6 months of physical and occupational therapy followed, but I was back at my job full time by the 1st of August, 5 1/2 months after this all started, not quite fully functional but definitely able to do a fair chunk of my old responsibilities, and improving every day.
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