I’m making posts in here about a day late depending on how I feel, which I’m about to get into.

Writing is a bit cathartic. It distracts me from some of the pain, which we’ll be getting to shortly.

For those of you who don’t already know, Bub caused me to bite down on my own lip headbutting me while eating (I do not, and will not accept blame from anyone regarding, him at all, and that is final). I sought medical care for this almost as soon as it happened, and it began a pattern of seeking necessary care because it was clearly getting infected and I was becoming more and more delusional due to the pain. This culminated on April 8th when I took one step out of bed that morning and promptly face-planted into the floor and my son’s computer chair, which resulted in a ride to the local hospital and me being too delirious for my troubles… or, shall I say, the troubles I was about to have. That time, I bypassed the entire waiting room entirely and was brought to triage. You know, the bad sort of triage. It tends to be bad when that happens. They had to wheel me everywhere if not blanket me everywhere. They get my delirious ass onto the table, I hear someone go “we’re going to have to cut her shirt off”, feel it, and then things go black for a little bit…

The lip infection spread to my heart and my heart, my friends, was not a fan of it. Not at all.

I’m being paddled.

At any rate, I begin “coming to” in the CT machine with them doing a second of two CTs on me… on my heart. I realize I have two IVs in my arms, make a satirical comment about “this machine again”, and kind of pass out (though not fully) for a little while. But me getting cheeky like that reassured my care team that I was starting to come back around. I’m almost always cheeky. At any rate, this little stunt wins me a two-day pass on the med surg unit of the hospital… I guess in case they actually have to go in and make this story even more screwed up. My insurance begins fighting it as soon as they start placing the paddles on my chest, even going so far as to attempt to bill me for it (which I am in the process of refuting, and so is the hospital, to give some of you an idea). Like, In what world is paddles to the chest not medically necessary when a heart needs to be shocked back into rhythm, or out of asystole? (I would much later come to find out that my heart rate had begun climbing as a result of this rampant infection, climbing, then climbing more…)

As soon as I begin a good antibiotic and pain management regiment in med surg, I ask my phone to be plugged into the long charging cord that they very helpfully provide and FaceTime my oldest son (one of many times). This elates him, even some of the times when I’m slurring. Nurse shift changes are a bit challenging when it comes to getting new orders for pain management in, but it gets done… except for the last nurse of the last day. But outpatient pharmacy saved the day prescribing me what I needed to get home and not slur the important words when it came to things my kids needed. I’m mainly dealing with nausea.

They got me back to my babies. And I will always be thankful for the effort they put in to do that.