On to the next hell
I’ll go into my release from captivity, AKA, the hospital. I spent about a month in the hospital in Connecticut. That’s a rough estimate because I don’t actually know how long I was in the hospital for and I didn’t consult my parents to find out that information. But on to the good part (sarcasm). I left in a wheelchair I believe. I could barely walk, barely eat, barely do anything without help. I was a couch potato for days. I won’t go into details, but I wasn’t getting the care I needed. My daughter was only a year old at the time, so she couldn’t exactly make me dinner or help we walk. I would have used her walker, but I’m 6’2 and might have broken it. She would have been upset about that. I remember I would put a rope on it and tow her around the neighborhood. But I couldn’t do that anymore. I couldn’t play with her, hold her, feed her, bathe her, I had to just sit there and watch her in her playpen of her bouncy chair. The realities were really hitting my in the face. I felt like a lump of crap on the couch. I had a walker or a cane to use, I don’t remember which, walking was part of my therapy. When I left the hospital, my doctors were hopeful that I would be back to work in 3 months. It seemed impossible for me to do that, but I tried. There was a physical therapist/nurse that came to the house to check on my. I don’t remember how many times, I just know that it happened and I have no memory of it. But I needed constant care. Faced with that fact, I made the decision to go to stay with my parents in California. It was a difficult decision because I had to leave my daughter behind. But if I didn’t get the care I needed, I wouldn’t be here writing this blog. Something funny happened at the airport waiting for our flight. I was wearing pajamas and a robe, with slippers I think. I was just sitting there waiting and a 5 or 6 year old boy sits next to me. I say hi, he says hi, and his mom tells him not to sit next to me. Was I that scary looking? I must have been. That was my first encounter with what I would have to deal with. The subtle but obvious, I don’t know exactly what word to use here, so I will just say prejudice. Thinking about it right this moment, it doesn’t bother me. People like that will always be around. I look normal now, so when I park in my handicapped spot, I get the look. I think only one person has confronted me with it. I just say it’s none of your business and continue with my day, irritated of course. But anyways, sorry about the tangent. So I finally reach my parents house and they had the bed downstairs so I wouldn’t have to walk up stairs. That was nice. I know that I needed help with my showers and it’s kind of embarrassing that I needed help from my mother to shower. I’m 32 years old and my mom is helping with my showers. Luckily, I have no memories of that. I think I remember that I was still in the angry phase at this point. But I was doing my best to adjust. Nothing at this point was easy. And then I had to go back into the hospital. This time in California to a very exceptional hospital and an exceptional doctor. I believe it was because I started going downhill again. Spinal fluid was building up in the back of my neck area and putting pressure on my spinal cord, which is apparently bad. The next thing I remember is needles being jabbed into the back of my head with no anesthesia to drain the fluid and me biting down on some leather or something like that. It was slightly painful. I think I was there for a couple weeks. I had a shunt put in my spine to drain the fluid from my head. Which was another surgery. I’m kind of glad I don’t remember a lot. These are all just vague memories. I went back home to my parent’s house of course. This is when I became a lab rat. The 3 months of going back to work was not looking good, but a short time later I decided to try and move back to Connecticut to be close to my daughter. I was alone, no friends, no family, just a hotel room that I lived in. The picture of me above is in front of this hotel I was staying. This is the only known picture of me right after it happened. My mom didn’t want to have reminders of what I looked like I think. I would have liked to see pictures of me, I don’t know why or what they would make me feel now because it has been so long. I can’t even guess at what I would feel. But I’ll stop at this point for today and continue tomorrow.