Days passed as I remained in the hospital while medical test after test was done to determine a reason for my physical impairments. Because I was well known to be a hoarder, I was tested for the Hantavirus, a virus that is spread my mice. Each morning the physicians would come and tell me that all tests done the previous day was negative. I didn't keep track of all the tests that were done; there was so many, so I couldn't have asked about any particular test result. Each morning after I was told my tests were negative I would just nod to acknowledge that I heard them.
One morning after the physicians had left the room following their announcement to me that they hadn't yet found a reason for my physical condition, one of them ran back to my bedside and whispered to me, "the Hantavirus was negative."
"Thank you", I whispered back as tears stung in my eyes. I think that was the first dignified thing that happened to me since my admission to the hospital. That physician had quietly told me that the the Hantavirus, the "mice disease" was negative so that others in the room didn't know that I had been tested for it. I do not remember that physician's name but I remember her facial expression as she told me to this day. Her cheery expression also showed relief and optimism. That physician got it. She understood that my physical condition was attached to a spirit that also needed care and she was a ray of sunshine.
The nurses did not have much to do for me other than give me medications and change my sheets when needed. They did however help me shower and made sure I did every other day. I would get myself to the shower that was in my room using a wheelchair but I needed help getting on the bath seat which was positioned in the middle of the shower. Before the nurse left me I made sure that the shampoo and soap was within reach. After I showered I would call for the nurse to help me towel dry, then get back into the wheelchair so I could get myself back to my bed.
Combing my hair following my shower was difficult because I did not have creme rinse and my wet hair got knotted. I got each section of hair unknotted and combed through and it was left to dry. My hair is fine and so it dried straight and limp. This is not a hair style that looked good on a round face with a double chin like mine. I felt beyond unattractive. I had some make up in my purse but I did not use it because it got rubbed off on the sheets when I fell asleep and it was easier at night just to put a wet cloth to my face and not worry about getting mascara off. It never dawned on me that I could ask someone to put a few rollers in my hair. I felt I was in an environment where only the things that kept me alive and clean were the things that got consideration to get done.
It was getting close to Christmas and I faced spending it in the hospital. I loved Christmas with family. I came to the resolution though, if others were in the hospital, I could be too. The nursing staff put up Christmas decorations which I critiqued. If I had all the supplies I need and wanted I am the ultimate decorator.
One morning a middle aged woman entered my room and presented me with a new home made quilt. Joy radiated from my heart throughout my body and a smile broke out on my face. "Thank you" I said choking back a lump in my throat. I was a pink quilt and I used it on top of the hospital sheets through the rest of my hospitalization. That quilt provided me with my own personal space boundaries and gave me comfort in more ways than just keeping me warm. It was mine and someone gave it to me through the kindness of their heart. I still have that quilt.
My grandmother would make a home made quilt for everyone in the extended family that got married. I didn't need a quilt but single still at the age of 40 there wasn't much time left for Grandma to make me one. So I asked her to make one for me because it would mean a lot to me. She did make me a quilt and I didn't have to get married to get one.
Grandma's quilt got ripped apart sadly. I left my dogs and the quilt at a boarding kennel when I went to Mexico. I wanted my dogs to be comforted with the blanket that I slept with. It was familiar to them. When I returned and picked up the dogs, the quilt was not being rendered. The kennel keeper apologized and said "sorry, the blanket got chewed up". I asked if there was anything left of it and the kennel keeper went to the back where the dogs are boarded to check. She came back with a piece of fabric about six inches square. I took the remnant and knew it was my fault that it was destroyed. I shouldn't have given taken it to the kennel in the first place.
I like to think my grandmother who had since passed away when I received the prized quilt in the hospital, was thinking of me and looking out for me through the quilt that was given to me. I felt like she hugged me overtime I tucked myself in at night.
Two days before Christmas I got moved to a medical ward and it was a different environment all together.
Hard to believe this is a First World story. I guess Nurse and Caring Nurse are certainly not the same. Happy to read about Caring Doctor. You must be extremely strong to live therough this story as it is even tough to read.. Hugs girl. Keep writing.
ReplyDeleteThank you, HTH, for your blog. Please don't stop writing. Your honesty and candidness resonates with us. I wish there were more people like you with the courage to be brutally honest. God bless you. I need to hear the rest of your story. What made you see your "stuff"? Did you always know you were hoarding? How did you come to decide to stop, or try to stop? Did you get help? Did anti-depressants help? What exactly did you do? I know you struggle with depression. So do I. I'm not an alcoholic, but I have a compulsive eating disorder that I try to control with meth. Yes, I'm a mess. A functional mess, but a mess nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteBut right now I want to talk about a friend, and I need your insight and would really appreciate your input.
I have a friend whom I love dearly. She has been homeless for ten years. She doesn't drink nor do drugs. She hauls around four, sometimes five carts and a clunky beach cruiser bicycle to which she has attached two of the carts. She has them stacked to eye level with cardboard and covers them with blue tarps. She can't go anywhere because she doesn't want to leave her carts alone and she can't take them with her either because they don't all fit in my truck or anyone else's truck. Besides, she can't show up at my house with all that stuff. I live with a sister, a nephew and two nieces at my sister's house. She'd freak if she saw that on her lawn. She gets shooed everywhere she goes: out of parks, parking lots, sidewalks--everywhere. The few places where she's not shooed, like Taco Bell she feels she's burning out. They don't want her carts in front of their establishment nor on their parking lot.
I want her downsize so that she can be mobile, so that she can go get a pair of shoes, look at vans, get her meds, go to someone's house to bathe--do all the things she needs to do. I offered $2,000 to buy her a van, but she can't go look at vans because she can't leave the carts alone. She's a slave to those carts. I gave her a key to my storage space. "You don't have to throw things away," I said, "just put the less used stuff in storage."
But when it comes down to the actual task of downsizing, she can't do it. She gets angry, argumentative, she yells and rants and raves. She claims she gets "arthritis attacks," sunstroke, narcolepsy, extreme fatigue, or she blames it on me. In the end she doesn't do a thing. I've offered to help her, or do it for her but she refuses. She says she's a grown woman and she should be able to do it herself, that she doesn't need anyone to "wipe my ass for me."
She doesn't say she has a hoarding problem, but I suspect that that is the problem. In the 8 months or so of knowing her she has only given me 4 items to put away in storage. Two of them were big heavy tents she was hauling around which she has never used and never will use, one was a box containing plastic mustard and catsup dispensers, a couple of ice-cream scoopers, some drain strainers, and other such items. I don't know what the fourth box contains.
It is not a matter of wanting to wipe her ass for her, it's that she's got a ball and chain around her neck and she's drowning. I want to get the ball and chain off of her.
Besides pray for her, I don't know what else to do. What would you do? How do I make her realize that whatever she has in those carts is not worth her life?
Cecilia