089 ONE

Once I became more aware of where I was and in fact who I was, I began to be aware that this could be a lengthy hospital stay.  I had no idea how lengthy it would become but I had to figure out how to get through it.  The crushing boredom is bad enough when you have mobility, but when you are confined to bed 24 hours a day, it’s tough.  I had my iPhone with me, but didn’t have my reading glasses.  I had them when I left the cabin, but between the ambulance, emergency and my ward, they were lost.

Renee brought me a spare pair out of my truck, but they were an old pair and not strong enough.  When the kids came back from the cabin, they brought along my iPad which made things easier to see.  Luckily, Kamloops Royal Inland Hospital has free full WIFI, which allowed me to entertain myself with Facebook etc.

Early on though, I adopted a line from Shawshank Redemption.  In it, I believe it was Morgan Freeman says, “you get through the longest sentence by breaking it down into days”.  So, I called it my “ONE” theory.  Just get through today.  Don’t think about what is past and don’t look to the future.  Just get through the day.  I had milestones to reach during the day.  Breakfast time, lunch time, dinner time and bed time.  Now granted, those goals didn’t work for the first five days when I was not eating at all.  It held me in good stead throughout what turned into an 8-week sentence.

Tamara, Stephen, Karl, Lizeth, Mat and Bridget had a good 5 days visit at the lake.  They made use of my boat for wakeboarding, tubing etc.  What impressed me the most, is that they did not take advantage of the fact that I was not there to take control.  None of them has their boat licence, and even though they could have risked it and taken the boat out, they chose to get my neighbour Perry to drive for them.  I couldn’t be more impressed.

As I was taken away so quickly, I had absolutely no chance at all to pack up my things.  Left in the cabin was all my camera gear, clothing, DVD’s, tools etc.  In addition to having fun, the kids all spent time packing up all my things and squeezing it all into Karl’s, Mitsubishi Lancer.  This in addition to all their gear as well.  When they left the lake, they dropped in to the hospital for another visit.  Stephen stayed behind with the car, because they did not want to leave it unattended with all that expensive camera equipment and other electronics inside.

My iPad has the electronic edition of all the Harry Potter books and I have a tradition of reading that series every summer while I’m at the lake.  In this case I did it while lying in my hospital bed.  I flat out forgot that I had the ability to watch TV on the iPad, and Kamloops hospital does not have rental TV’s.

Ten days in, my shoulder suddenly started to feel better.  It wasn’t better, but it hurt a lot less.  Enough so that I could eliminate pain killers completely.  I still couldn’t get out of bed and move around though.  Physio did come in and try to get me up, but it didn’t go too well.

While lying in bed one day, I was looking at my right foot.  Yeah, I know, I was bored for sure.  I was literally watching it swell.  There was no reason that I was aware of, for it to happen.  I was diagnosed with more diseases than I knew what to count.  One Doctor diagnosed me with gout which is what he said was causing my foot to swell.

MY RIGHT FOOT AS IT STARTS TO SWELL

I was also diagnosed with diabetes, which turned out to be true and in fact my blood sugar was so high they were giving me insulin injections 3 times a day.  I was also getting injections of blood thinners everyday into my very ample belly.  I had so many blood samples taken, I’m surprised I had any blood left.  My arms, hands and belly for so full of bruises, I looked like I had been beaten.

Back to the foot swelling though.  I watched my foot swell and saw a big “blister” appear on the top.  I mentioned it to one nurse and said, “doesn’t that look more like an abscess that needs to be drained, rather than gout”.  As soon as I said it, it broke open and pus was leaking all over the place.  They put an absorbent pad under my foot and it drained the rest of the afternoon and all night.