Newly discovered fear of elevators

I didn’t used to be afraid of elevators. I used to enjoy when I had to take the elevator. It was like a mini theme park ride.

Today, I had to take an elevator. It filled me with fear.

I don’t think I mentioned in all the chaos that was going on while my dad was in the hospital (or maybe I did) that I got stuck in the hospital elevator on my last day there. The elevator fell several feet and then stopped, with me trapped inside. It terrified me. Mostly the fall. Now, I’m afraid every elevator is going to fall.

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Weary

I am tired. I am weary. I have been so busy this week. Between appointments, spending time at the hospital with my dad, treatment, pre-surgery stuff, helping out around the house, plus we have been going through our storage unit trying to get rid of as much as possible so we can stop paying an extra $200 a month on a storage unit to store a bunch of stuff we don’t need. That’s physically exhausting between the fibromyalgia and the rheumatoid arthritis. I woke up this morning fatigued, tired, ready to sleep another night. My body aches and my brain feels like cotton. I have another day of looking through boxes and moving furniture and then spending time with my dad at the hospital.

I’m grateful to be able to spend time at the hospital. But I feel guilty if I take time to myself because he’s there 24/7 alone, bored, restless, in pain. I know I need to take care of myself too, and I’m trying, but finding the right balance has been hard. Today is a week since we ambushed him. A week he’s been in the hospital. He’ll find out more tomorrow about when he can come home.

Surprise Busy Day

I went to the hospital this morning to spend time with my dad. He had surgery yesterday. It went well. He has another surgery tomorrow. After the surgeries heal, he’ll need skin grafts. He’ll be in the hospital at least through early next week.

This afternoon, I had a follow up appointment with the ENT (ear, nose, throat doctor). My ENT is in the same hospital my dad is in, which was convenient, because I was planning to just walk over to my appointment, then go back and spend time with my dad after my appointment was finished.

However, during my appointment, my ENT decided I need surgery to correct my severely deviated septum. The surgery is next Friday, the 23rd. He sent me off to get an EKG, chest x-rays, and blood work for the surgery. That took a few hours (because hospital) and by the time I finished, I needed to leave, so I didn’t get to spend more time with my dad.

My fibromyalgia is flaring up very badly right now. I’m in so much pain.

Tomorrow, I have more DBT.

Update on My Dad

After my dad was admitted to the hospital, I spent the night and next day with him, keeping him company, making sure he had everything he needed, listening to the doctors to make sure we knew what was going on, advocating for him. It was a long couple days, first in the ER, then in the hospital the next day. Last night I came home and slept. I just showered and I feel refreshed.

My dad’s infection spread into his muscle. The doctor said if he’d left it much longer, it’d be in his bone, and he’d had lost the leg. I’m relieved and so thankful that my family ambushed him and made him go to the hospital. He’ll need several surgeries and lots of strong antibiotics. He goes in for his first surgery today.

My sister is taking today’s shift. I wish I could be there for him, but I also know I need to rest today. I’m very sore, my fibromyalgia is flaring up from the hospital chair I spent the last couple days in. Even with my frequent walks I didn’t escape its cruel consequences.

I talk to my dad via Facebook messenger (because it doesn’t use his data since it’s over the hospital’s wifi) often. He’s, naturally, bored and restless. The next time I go up to see him (tomorrow) I’m taking cards and we’ll play cribbage.

Hospitalization: part one

while doing inpatient over the last 10 days in a local psychiatric ward, I made some journal entries. Here is the first of those entries.

“I need my bag!”

The quote from an episode of Psych flitted through my head in the most terrifying way possible.

Sitting in the stark, barren room in the emergency psychiatric ward, I heard the frantic screams of another patient demanding her purse.

“You threw it out the window on Santa Fe,” a paramedic responded.

The other patient wouldn’t, or couldn’t, accept that, and grew angry, insisting on the return of her bag.

This was the latest in a string of tirades.

She had yelled about not being allowed to go home, over not having feminine pads, over her shoes, the list goes on and on. At one point, she had taken to hitting and throwing things at the staff, and had to be restrained, then proceeded to shout profanities for a good hour.

Here I was, in the next room, just trying to stay alive, feeling like I was being punished for doing the responsible thing and seeking help.

That first afternoon and night were terrifying. I sat alone in the most empty room I had ever seen, just a bed, chair, table, and the security camera. A guard sat outside my door. I had to ask to get water, or use the bathroom. I couldn’t use my phone, and all they gave me to do was a stack of children’s mazes, a crayon to fill them out with. Shortly before I left, they scrounged up a word search book.

Though the bathroom door had an 8″ gap at the bottom, I purged every meal. They either didn’t notice, or didn’t care.

After more than 24 hours in the ER ward, I was admitted to the regular psychiatric ward, or Three West (third floor, west wing).

Another day, another ER

Sigh…

Just another Monday

This morning, I waited about 4 hours for my parents to wake up so I could ask for a ride to the ER…again.

The emergency room I went to has you sign in via kiosk by scanning your ID and selecting why you’re there. They have about a dozen buttons for common ailments. Below that, they have an option to type in your own reason. I was very tempted to type “bulimia’s a bitch” as my reason, but instead just put “bulimia and laxative abuse”.

I was given a room pretty quickly (they know me well there) and was given fluids and poked for blood. My potassium was low. Big surprise. The re-hydrated me, gave me potassium pills and prescriptions to fill at my pharmacy, and sent me home.

When I got home, I was NOT doing well. I was emotionally and physically exhausted. I was feeling very depressed and wanting to stop existing. I had some disturbing internal dialogue that made me realize I needed to get out of my room and do something. I still wasn’t feeling well, but I made myself get out of bed. I determined it would be better to get up and binge and purge than to self-harm in that state of mind.

I came out to the living room and ordered Chinese food I can’t actually afford. I spent money set aside for future bills. However, I feel like it was necessary.

I shouldn’t have to choose between paying my bills or cutting my own fingers off…

Tomorrow, I am supposed to hear more about the partial hospitalization program. Depending on how long they say I need to wait, I may go back to the hospital and demand to be admitted. I am afraid of my own thoughts.

What a long couple days

Yesterday, I woke up with a migraine. I also awoke with high levels of anxiety. The two of them together meant I was NOT going to my appointment with the behavioral health guy. I called him up and explained and rescheduled for next week. He again urged me to go to the hospital.

I spent the rest of the day engaged in either lying in bed or binging and purging or exercising, or taking pills. I tried to sleep last night but couldn’t. Then, in the early morning hours, my brain started telling me I needed to get up and exercise and I needed to do it right now.

So, I got up and exercised for 3 hours. When I finally went back to bed, I was exhausted. “This is good,” I thought to myself, “maybe now I can sleep!”

Nope. I didn’t get any sleep last night.

Finally, this morning after my parents got up, I asked my dad to take me to the ER. He dropped me off on his way to work. I spent most of the day there, my migraine was being stubborn, and they wanted to give me lots of fluids.

I considered, after the getting up in the middle of the night to exercise this, asking to be admitted for a couple days just to give my body a break and maybe help break the cycle I’m in. However, since tomorrow is Father’s Day, I decided not to.

After I got home (around 5pm), I went immediately to bed. The 4 rounds of pain killers made me very tired, especially with not sleeping last night. I slept for a couple hours. I got up with every intention to write letters to my fellow bloggers, but was just too tired and out of it. (I promise, I’ll try to get them out in Monday’s mail.)

I’ve taken nearly a whole bottle (1,000 pills) of laxatives in the last too days. Needless to say, I’m not feeling the greatest despite the fluids and pain killers today. I do, however, feel waayyyyy better than this morning. I’m really hoping to sleep tonight. My plan now is to go workout, then sleep. I hope, hope, hope I can sleep.

Tomorrow, at some point, we’re having a family dinner. I think that’s all that’s planned because my dad works tomorrow. Though, I do have a feeling he will want to play a game of Risk if we can find the time.

Wish me luck with tomorrow. Have a good night. Hopefully I won’t see you again before tomorrow morning.

More hospital updates

It’s so nice to be home.

I have bruises all over both arms from IVs and blood draws. My left hand is very swollen from where my IV blew out. That was probably my fault.

My IV looked much like the one above. My left hand is my dominant hand, and also the one I purge with. I purged every meal while in the hospital. This meant unplugging the pump my IVs were going through from the wall, taking the whole pump with me to the bathroom, and purging with tubes in my hand. Because I’m brilliant.

Yesterday, I was given potassium pills because my potassium is low again. But they gave them to me as I was finishing my breakfast, so those were purged too.

They gave me more later. The nurse asked if I was making myself sick (my history of bulimia is in my file) and I was honest with her. I got a couple lectures and concerned talks from various staff about that.

Both arms have bruises all over them. It took 8 pokes and 4 staff to get my initial IV in. I was then poked 2-4 times daily for blood draws, and a few more times when they had to move my IV. The spot of my second IV alone left me with a 3 inch bruise.

Right when I was supposed to be released, we had a tornado warning. A large tornado was spotted in the area, and they locked down the hospital. All the patients were moved to the hallways and all the doors closed.

As soon as it passed, my dad drove me home. It was still storming pretty badly.

Naturally, when I got home, I took it easy and relaxed.

No, wait, that other thing. I went shopping, then binged and purged.

Purging is more important than an infection

I spent the weekend with my brothers. We drank lots of alcohol, played lots of games, and watched lots of anime. We also watched the first two X-Men movies.

We went to bed late Sunday night (around 2:30 on Monday morning, if you want to be technical). I noticed as I was getting ready for bed that I had a small rash on my leg, about the size of a half dollar coin.

An hour later, I woke up in excruciating pain. The rash had spread up my torso and down the other leg. It was bright red and painful. I was shaking, had chest pain, and shortness of breath.

I woke up my brother and he took me to the ER. I was given IV antibiotics immediately, and they drew 10 tubes of blood.

I was admitted to the hospital and my labs showed that the infection (the cause of my rash) had gone into my blood. I received super strong antibiotics all day and all night last night.

I have to be in the hospital through tonight, then the doctor will reassess tomorrow. I am starting to feel a lot better, but the antibiotics are hard on the body.

I got to shower this morning, which was AWESOME, but I haven’t been able to brush out my hair yet. The hospital’s idea of a hair brush is a tiny, flimsy comb. I couldn’t brush my hair out with that normally, but my hair is a giant not from being in bed all day yesterday, and I had no conditioner or detangler and my hair likes to tangle if I even look at it, so it tangles in the process of brushing it out.

Despite having a septic infection (I think that’s what the doctor called it), I still managed to purge everything I’ve eaten.

Yes, I’ve been purging while in the ER/hospital for a severe infection.

Clearly, something is wrong with this.