Total Disability

I had been unemployed for three months. For the three months I took up knitting for something to do but could do that only when I was not drinking. I ended up only knitting about three inches on the side of a sweater.

I would wake up at about nine o'clock and drink the remainder of the alcohol I had from the day before, and then sleep  to late afternoon. I then would go out, get some fast food and alcohol for the evening. After dinner I would go to either one of my neighbors who would drink with me until late, and then I would stumble home and pass out, another day making it through. If I had a calendar and crossed off day after day that I did this I might have realized how my life was passing by, but only by surviving the time that a day measures. That is what my life had become; making it through each day. What worth in life comes from daily survival from self induced complications?  The answer to that escaped me because I did not ask it. I kept drinking so that I did not have to because I was fearful of what the answer would command.

Then one day I woke up sick. It was not a cold with congestion and coughing, nor was it a gastrointestinal illness with nausea and diarrhea.  Every cell in my body screamed with pain. My temperature was up I'm sure as I sweated profusely. My body shivered. It hurt to move. Every joint jolted with pain if I tried to change position.   I had to weigh the result of pain from movement with the discomfort of staying in the same position for long periods of time when I decided if I would move or not.

I did not eat or drink anything. I was not hungry and even if I was I could not get up to get it. Even so, by body continued to function and provided the need to go to the bathroom to void. It took a lot of courage to move to get up and go to,the washroom. When I did my body more than shivered, it almost convulsed with chills.

I was thankful for sleep but was wakened by the need to go to the washroom. Again and again I mustered the courage to move, get up and get to the washroom, each time barely making it due to the pain with removing my clothes.   After some time passed, it did not matter if I could get up.  I lost control of my bladder and that caused the problem with clean up. I grabbed newspapers close by and placed them under my hips hoping that using and removing the paper when soiled would take care of that problem. Whether the newspaper solved my new experience with inconvenience or not I did not care, the pain I was sufferring was more prominent.

I shivered and shook for quite some time.   I had lost all awareness of time but once the fever broke and the shaking stopped and I reoriented myself, I determined that I was sick for three weeks.   Then something very unusual and concerning happened. I could not stand up or get up from my floor cushion.  Every time I would try to stand up, my legs crumpled from beneath me.

My Physical Deterioration

I battle hoarding, depression and alcoholism every day.  Each of  these conditions merit explanation on their own. For now I will focus on my physical deterioration due to the hoard.

I was laying on the floor on my cushion, the remains of my swivel chair, when I noticed I could not feel my right toe. I was sober at the time so it was not because of alcohol induced altered sensation.   Because I am a medical professional, I know how to do sensory testing and so I did. I wiggled my toe but could not feel the movement. I moved my toe with my hand and I could not feel either my toe moving or the touch of my hand. I then got a sharp needle and a knitting needle and poked my toe with each, but again no feeling. I thought that lack of sensation in my toe was mysterious, but I had no concern over a toe while at the present, my physician and I was monitoring a more seriousphysical condition.

I was very overweight due intake of drinking and a fast food diet.  As a result my blood pressure  dangerously elevated . Three times I was hospitalized and treated until my blood pressure came down. I was on medication to treat  the hypertension.  I was embaressed on one occasion when a nurse rubbed an area on my arm to prepare for insertion of an interveneous and the swab was black from dirt on my skin. "Oh my!"  she said.  I quickly replied that I had two dogs. She assured me that she understood because she had dogs too but I knew that she knew that I neglected my hygiene. Remember I had no access to water to my tub and bathing was difficult. Sometimes when I was in the hospital I would stuff body wipes in my purse and used them at home until the supply ran out.

Every time I was hospitalized for high blood pressure I woud get encouragement to stop drinking.  I never admitted to drinking but blood tests reveal the damage of excessive alcohol.  The shape of the hemoglobin in the blood which delivers oxygen to the body become altered and cannot do their
 job.  The blood also shows a deficiency in vitamins and electrolytes resulting in malnutrition and
impairment of any body organ that requires electrolyes.  So the physicians knew I drank excessively even though I told them I didn't drink more than a couple of drinks a week.

I hated my obesity. I have a short build so weight piles on the only places that expands outwards making me very round.  I am well endowed and my large breasts rested on my bloated stomach. When I put on weight my chin bloats up like a frog and my belly expands as though I was pregnant. I had a well earned beer belly, and muffin top. When I went out everyone greeted me by looking into my eyes, and then theirs would shift down to the belly. Even though I hated my weight gain, I did not stop to think that my drinking and fast food was the cause. Drinking provided numbness and I had no choice to eat fast food because I had no fridge or stove.

I also sufferred with stomach reflux and the alcohol didn't help. Often at night I would wake up with stomach acid in my throat. On one occasion that this occurred I had a whispered raspy voice because the acid burned my vocal cords.  This condition was dangerous because I was at risk of aspiration of  stomach acid into my lungs.

Every time I went to the doctor or was in the hospital to treat my hypertension I  mentioned that my toe had no feeling and it was always brushed off by them with a shrug and a reminder to stop drinking.  My next blog will describe further deterioration and spread of  altered sensation.

My Living Quarter

The last room room off the hallway was the living room. It was where I spent all of my time. There was not much accessible space in that room, not because of hoard and piles of items, but because of new furniture.  The haul guys that took my fridge and stove also took my old living room furniture. I had my couch and love seat removed because I heard mice in them. My cat reaffirmed this as she would sit and cock her head while looking at the couch for long periods of time.  I cleared out the living room by shuffling all the items into the other rooms in the house and closed the door  so it was presentable had room for the delivery of my new furnature.

My brand new furniture was delivered;  a new couch and love seat that looked like it was from the 50's with curved arm rests, a swivel rocking chair and a three piece coffee table set as well as a dining room table with a matching side board.  It was  placed along the long walls of the living room. This resulted in stacks of large packaged boxes that left a thin walkway to the television.   The only piece of furniture I set up was  the swivel rocking chair which I placed in a remaining space just inside the doorway fron the hall. where I could see the television.

The new furniture  remained packaged and unmoved  for a couple of years. I managed to set up my new computer that I bought from benefits I received from my last job on a portable table beside my swivel rocking chair. Gradually, the floor space that was not covered by the new furniture was filled up with garbage bags filled with fast food packaging.

My tv was in disrepair and I could not fix it and of course I would not let anyone in to fix it. Because watching TV was my only activity while I was at home, I drank more to numb the condition of my home.  Alcohol was the easiest way of surviving in it.

Over time the swivel rocking chair broke down. The metal framework split at the soldered joints
which left the one piece upholstered seat and back cushion flat on the floor. It was uncomfortable due to the metal frame pieces which remained under the cushion but I learned where the soft spots were.

Just before I was removed from my house by my sisters and taken to the hospital due to my physical condition,  I layed on that cushion on the floor watching mice travel their pathways through the living room. They would crawl to the top of the television antenna, run up the curtains to sit on the curtain
rods, run through the maze spaces between the packaged furnature and in the garbage bags. One day I played dare devel with one. It was in a box and would duck into the box every time I looked at it. It's face looked very cute I thought.

My physical condition was such that I had diffulcty rising to stand from the cushion on the floor and
once I was up I couldn't walk. To get to the bathroom I had to roll on the floor and crawl to the bathroom. Often I could not control my bladder and I voided on the cushion. I took news paper and layed it on the cushion to protect it from my bladder accidents.

Now that I have completed the description of the condition of my house, I want to describe in the next blog, the physical condition of my body and the disabilities I sufferred as a result.

My bedroom did not have boxes or items on the floor however it was no healthy place to be. First of all, it was a circuit for the mice to go through to get to the rest of the house. Mice typically get around  in a house by running along the baseboards or the edges of a room. I noticed that they came up from the basement through a hole in the linen closet then proceeded into the adjacent bedroom along the baseboards. Soon, on their journey they disappeared behind the dresser. Once they were behind the dresser, they were out of mind. If I could not see them, they did not exist. This could be considered denial but frankly the sight of them was overwhelming and my mental capacity froze.

Most of my clothes were hung in the bedroom closet but the few I wore were recycled from wear to washing to piled on the bed.   After a while my wardrobe widdled down to just a couple pairs of pants and a couple of tops. This simplified my morning routine because I washed what I was going to wear every morning to freshen my clothes. I was told by my boss that I smelled. My clothes took on the odour of my house.

Eventually I just kept my two ensembles in my living quarter, the cave I hoarded around. This left the mattress clear of clothes but it took on a whole new purpose. My dogs started using it as a litter box and over time their feces piled up.  The mice regularity reminded me that I shared my house with them as one day I noticed that the dog feces on the mattress had been chowed down on. Half of each feces had disappeared and there was fine brown powdered residue surrounding each poo.  I want to cry now thinking about this. writing about it and putting it out there to share with you makes it real but cathartic. I was so good at ignoring the conditions I was living it. Keep in mind, it took years to get this way. Each day I accepted a little bit more of the deterioration which over time and collectively resulted in a serious medical condition for me and condemnation of the house by the city public health department.

I need to tell you that admitting to this makes me a lot of shame. You will understand why I lived in these conditions as soon as I finish describing my house conditions. Next and finally I need to describe my living room. That is where I spent all my time.

 One bedroom off the hallway was converted into an office. This room was filled with boxes of craft items, art supplies,  scrap booking supplies and photos. My computer sat on a desk but it was hard to reach due to the boxes. This was the room where many things were thrown in to be organized later. Included in the quagmire of items was a photo album given to my family by my grandmother. It included all the photos of us that we had given to her since we were kids. The album was organized by person, each of my four siblings and myself. There was school pictures of all of my four brothers and sisters and myself. The album was to.be passed around to all of my family.

At that time digital photos was new technology. Cameras held digital photos on a memory card and a hard copy of a photo could be scanned and stored in a computer.  I was given the album and I wanted to scan all the photos so that I would have all of them. As well, I started a project to give my parents for Christmas. The project was to do a pencil sketch of oll off us siblings from our grade one pictures and frame them. I got three of them done and they were in the office somewhere but if I was asked, I would not know where to start looking for them.  The sketches turned out really well and I was very satisfied with them.

I am an advid photographer and I had many photos stored on my computer.  As well, included in the boxes of photos in the office were ones I had taken since I was 16 years old. They were a record of many of the trips I had taken, any significant events of myself, my family and friends. They were photos that were imaged on film. The film was taken to a photo printing store and you would wait up to a week to get them printed. Of course that changed to one hour printing which was a great advancement. I loved my photos. When I looked at them I felt blessed. I had done many things and had many friends.

The hallway was a square space which led to two bedrooms a bathroom and the living room. Boxes were piled against the walls but there was  space to move through the hallway to get to any of the rooms. . The hallway had a linen closet.  The back wall of the linen closet was shared with the bathtub facet plumbing. I could not close the closet door  because I had to take out the shelves to try and get to the bathtub  plumbing  because the tub facet was continuously running water. Contents of the closet layer on the floor of the closet and hallway.  I try to fix the running water problem myself with no success and I sure wasn't going to let anybody into my house to do the job. I solved the tub running water problem by shutting off the water  by a valve I found in the closet. To bathe  I would take a pail of hot water from the kitchen sink to the bathtub, step in the bathtub and give myself a rub down and then pour the water from the pail over myself. I washed my hair the same way however the whole procedure took two trips to the kitchen sink to get hot water and I didn't bathe often because I saw it as too much trouble.

Other than the fact that the tub had no running water,  the bathroom was not too bad.   It was small and nothing was piled on the bathroom floor.  One night, however  before I turned the water off to the bathtub, in a drunken stupor I fell asleep for the whole night while the water in the tub kept running. By morning the bathroom, hallway and some of the bedroom floors were drenched with water which seeped through the floor boards and through the ceiling tiles in the basement. To determine the damage I  pulled up the rug in the hallway to find beautiful hardwood floor underneath however  the hardwood was so drenched with water that it swelled and bubbled up.

The water that dripped through the floor soaked a dresser where I stored hundreds of dollars worth of fabric. This fabric I had purched at one time. I loved the fabric and had plans for every piece but now my hoard of fabric was completely drenched.  As well the water had dripped down a wall and I could see the ridge seperating the wet from the dry wall which extended almost to the floor. I did nothing about the damage of of the flood so eventually mold had formed and spread. The fabric eventually rotted and added to the amount of mold in the house .



Why not do anything abou conditions

The dining room table and all four chairs were loaded with boxes. There was not a square inch on the table to place a plate with a meal nor anywhere to sit. In my effort to cook ( remember I did not have a stove),   I bought a cooking device which consisted of a dome that covered an element.  The infomercial promised  it would  cook things increadable well, in fact I don't know why everyone wouldn't have this cooking device it is so good.  This cooking device was one of the things that found a permanent home on the table. Inside this cooker was a layer of solidified fat that had been rendered from a buffalo roast. The Buffalo roast was not a special cut of beef but in fact meat from a buffalo. I was told by the owner of the buffalo farm that it was the leanest meat that a person could buy. Cooking this roast with my new cooking device however resulted in a hard as a rock roast along with the one inch layer of solidified fat relating on the bottom.  That sat on my dining table for years.

The dining room floor was covered with boxes except for a cleared path that lead from the kitchen to the hallway.  As I walked through this pathway past the boxes, mice would jump from box to box like a water fountain that squirted water from bowl to bowl.  Along the wall  was an ironing board that could not not be used because it was covered with items. Even if I cleared the surface of the ironing board, it was dirty and would leave stains on my clothes where pressed with an iron.

So now on to the hallway wich lead to two bedrooms, the bathroom and the living room.