Still Bewildered (pt. 3)

Smoke haze sunsets of late

So, back to the saga... I was teleported, (rolled? pneumatic shoot-ed? toddled? - don't remember that part), out of the Neuro ICU, up to the Neuro floor, where, as I mentioned before, was 85 G-forsaken degrees, at least. Granted nobody sleeps in hospitals, but that guaran-dang-teed i would not be sleeping. 

Every day they said, 'We'll let you out tomorrow.', but tomorrow they said the same thing. I was having seizures, but to my knowledge none of them were particularly prolonged or severe. (This is not to suggest they weren't still pushing lorazepam or whater by the tranquilizer gun-full.)

Oh, and less-than-titillating, but, i feel it important to mention - I've never gone all the way off one of the pharmaceutical drugs (lamotrigine), but i was on a lower end of the 'therapeutic range' deemed effective for seizures. (There was a study released this year that validated my experience - 'The best response to AEDs used in monotherapy was observed at low dosage.' (This study was specific to refractory epilepsy.) Boom. Case in point.

My lamotrigine level was found to be normal. Turns out it  actually worked against me, I later found out from my rockstar nurse/friend mentioned previously, in making the decision to fly me Spokane. Which is to say, if the levels were low, they could cite that as the cause of the seizures. Presumably, they could have kept me there and worked on getting the lamotrigine up instead of opting right away for the ol' heave ho.

Anyshnitzel, back to the Neuro floor, (is that capitalized i dunno - Hell is, so we'll go with it.) It's pretty fuzzy - wish i remembered more. I don't remember any of the food aside from ordering coffee one morning and wondering if i'd be allowed to have it. (They brought it, and whatever the coffee-like substance, it was better than some tepid, brown,  stomach-stripping agents sold at some gas stations.) I was very grateful for it.

My sister was able to bring Olive in during the day. Tami, my sister's wife, brought me a small fan. Oh, land, and they brought me my cell phone. (I need standing orders for them to prohibit access to any and all technology while in hospital custody.) I was texting people at o'-dark thirty - nonsensical gibberish, calling in to work (Hay-suess Crisco). Thank goodness I am not a shopper. 

(Again, I digress...) May have already told this story, but one time I was stuck in our local ICU for something upwards of a week and tethered to a hospital bed. Again the details were/are few-and-far-between. That time, someone thought it would be a good idea to bring me my laptop. I remember begging the hospitalist to let me out of bed. I will crawl, I pleaded, inch my way like a caterpillar, human-egg roll around, *anything* outside the confines of the head, foot and siderails. (No dice.) I recall feeling desperate about that. It was two or three weeks after my release, I found hospital floor plans downloaded onto my computer. Where do you even find something like that on the internet, guys? All I can surmise is a escape plan was being formulated somewhere inside my snowy, snowy, stir-crazy brain...

Anyway, the Sacred Heart neuro floor was hot and even noisier than most hospitals. I could hear kids. At times it sounded like a slumber party and foot races in the hallway. Or maybe I was simply delirious dreaming the sounds of them.

I don't think i remember any of the seizures i had during the day. I know my tongue and mouth were pretty thrashed. Freaking sharp, aching, constant oral pain. I'd have gladly done myself in with a massive overdose of benzocaine.

Ah, shoots, did I even make any progress here? I got carried away away on the tangent train. (to be cont'd)

Here's some more pictures of our recent smoke-enhanced sunsets: 

Just down the road from work

And the obligatory Olive photo

Have a sweet, sweet day,

Alli