At the end of February
2013, I crashed. My body was being killed by an infection that had spread
throughout it, my kidneys were failing and I’d fallen on to my bedroom floor a
day and a half earlier and wasn’t strong enough to even get up on to all fours
and reach a phone to call for help. Over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to
post a few articles about what I call “the crash,” (largely because I have no
idea what else to call it, and when I hit the floor, it surely was a crash). In
the end, it worked out ok . . . I was saved by two friends, my younger daughter
and good doctors. I lost part of my leg in a most unheroic way . . . I failed to
take care of myself.
There’s a time in your life when you realize you’re in
trouble. By the time I realized it, it was too late to save my leg and I nearly
lost my life.
It sounds dramatic, but at first it wasn’t at all. I’d
fallen a couple of times before this. Both times I’d managed to right myself, but
didn’t call an ambulance and get to a hospital.
I fell for a third time and ended up spending a day and a
half on the wooden floor of my bedroom, struggling to get up, then relaxing,
hoping my strength would come back and I could get up on to the bed. I never
did. All my strength was gone, sapped by the infection that had now taken over
my body, fueled by high blood sugar. I was told another day and that would have
been it . . . a friend called another friend (sounds like an ad . . . ) and
they decided, having not had their calls returned, to call the police . . . A
while later . . . in the dark of my room, headlights lit up the space, then
flashlights walking around the house . . . entry . . . and police and EMTs were
there.
Two friends saved my life, and a week later, my youngest
daughter would be tasked with making decisions she never might have thought
she’d have to make, but as my health care legal guardian, if you will, she was
placed firmly in the middle of my crisis.
They got me up . . . but I (stupidly) refused to go to the
hospital.
It wasn’t until later that night . . . I got up about 7 and
a couple of hours later my daughter, her boyfriend and my friend Becky arrived
and I refused to go to the hospital, thinking I’d be better in the morning
after a good night’s sleep. I wasn’t, and despite my protests, they called an
ambulance . . .
I think when I look back on it there were signs I ignored .
. . or overlooked if one is being more generous. For a couple of weeks before I
crashed, I felt a bit more tired than usual. Not the most active person in the
world, but halfway through the day I was pretty draggie. Things that I would
normally do, like dishes, I just left to do later. Then never got to them.
The week before I crashed, I fell twice, once in the
kitchen, and once in the bathroom and was able to get up both times. One
morning, I think three days before I crashed, I noticed a large blood blister
on the inside heel of my right foot . . . I popped it with my pocket knife,
blood flying everywhere . . . The next day, the skin had pulled away from the
heel and the underneath looked a bit discolored.
I’m not going to pretend I’m clear on the last day or two
before I hit the floor. As I’ve tried to put it all together, there are some
blank spots, filled in by family and friends. I should have called an ambulance
or made my way to the hospital . . . but didn’t. That “woulda, coulda, shoulda”
was dumb and nearly cost me my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment