Am not, I'm a slug. A slow, slimy, leave a sticky trail sort of guy.
When I think back to that event, I do hope everyone knows just how life saving those printed messages were for me.
It's a time I don't particularly care to remember because of what all transpired. I still think about the Psychiatrist telling me that I was literally a vegetable for a good period of time. No one thought I was going to make it.
I remember the Pulmonary Therapist coming in and telling me that I would just stare at something, sometimes stare straight into his face and watch him. He said he knew I saw something, but no one else knew what it was. He said he sat in his spare time, holding my hand and talking to me even though I was unresponsive. He said he was a firm believer that people are still in there whether they act like it or not and deserved not to be alone. They needed to be talked too as if they were communicating anyway. That guy brought tears to my eyes more then once when I finally got partially back with the program.
Yes my friends, it was a real nightmare. A living, breathing, nightmare. I guess what I'd like to say to the Medical Professional Community is that no matter your take on a persons well being, remember that they are not dead. You may have drugged them into oblivion, but you have not released their spirit. Please treat us as if we were still with it. Don't expect us to act normal when we are hallucinating, suffering, running fevers of 106F, and heavily drugged. When you come in telling us to stop doing something that is annoying you, don't expect us to see it the way you do. We're in a different world, seeing different things then you are. It's like a completely different realm of existence of which you are not a participant, only one of many characters.
Nurses, For Gods sake learn how to read lips! Don't hand us a paper and pen and expect us to write anything legible. It ain't gonna happen. The only way we can communicate with a trach tube in our throats is by mouthing things to you. We can't use our hands, you've restrained us. Also, do not lay a person who cannot breath flat on the back! There was a reason why I kept pushing the button for your attention. It wasn't to tick you off and have you lower the head of the bed and scold me to quit playing with my bed and go to sleep, I was having a hard time breathing and needed suctioning. I needed to know someone was out on the floor and that I wasn't going to drown waiting for someone to respond.
I better shut up now or I'll have a ton of people scared when they shouldn't be. It is only how my surgery went and it was not a typical AVR. I want everyone to realize this and not take this as something to fear. Sorry, I'll shut up now.
