My AVM Story – Part 18

Below is another part of My AVM Story: the recounting of the discovery, removal, rehabilitation, and survival of an arteriovenus malformation. To read from the beginning of the story, click here.

Hallucinations

Since these are obviously not reality, I cannot give a time order to you. I will just list them one by one. Put them occurring at any day/time that you chose. You’re guess is as good as mine!

** NONE of the events are real! Although you might guess that! **

1.  Sleeping at “night” in the hospital: I am sleeping in my bed or trying to. I wake up a lot. My parents, my little brother and sister, and Dan are all sleeping in the room with me. I know I’m in the hospital, but this is more like a hotel. There is a room where Dan and I are sleeping then a room behind ours where my parents and siblings are sleeping on mattresses on the floor. One of the mattresses has a burgundy bottom sheet. During the night I try to amuse myself by looking around the room. One of the lights in the room has cover on it with the logo of the Kansas City Chiefs. I decide that the owner of the hospital must own the Chiefs and that is why their logo is on the lamp covers.

2.  During the nights at the hospital, Dan is sleeping in a chair next to me. I know he is uncomfortable, and I notice (or think I notice) that there is a crib-like portable bed next to me. Why doesn’t Dan just sleep in that? I try to motion to him to get in and lay down, but I just can’t manage to communicate what is going on.

3. At night, the bugs come out. Seriously. They do. There were ants all over my bed. Flying bugs in the air, and they only came out at night. The flying bugs mostly stay in swarms in the corners of the room, but every once in a while they come fly around my head. I am not afraid enough to move in my bed, but I decide right then and there that when I walk out of this hospital, I am writing a nasty letter tell them of this health hazard. Really, they ought to clean these beds!

4. One night, Dan was sleeping sitting up in the chair next to my bed with his head leaning on my bed. Wow, that must have been so uncomfortable! I wake up, and my bed is separated in the middle. Dan leaning on the side of the bed must have pulled it apart. Dan calls in the nurse so I can explain the situation. I try to motion that the bottom half of my bed is moved. I can speak and this point, but my story is gibberish. The nurse tries to assure me that the bed wheels are locked, and that Dan leaning on the bed would not move it. I don’t agree, and I ask Dan not to lean on the bed anymore. My poor husband!

I think this one deserves an explanation: I learned while in rehab at Mary Free Bed that when the brain stops recognizing a part of the body (which my brain had stopped recognizing my entire left side), you can “lose” body parts. What happened this night is I “lost” my legs. It’s really weird phenomenon, but I couldn’t rationally think through that my legs are connected at the hip, so naturally my legs are at the bottom of the bed under the blankets. I’m not even sure I looked for the bottom half of my bed. I was just convinced it was moved to the side because I didn’t know where the rest of my body was.

5. The drugs from the surgery did crazy stuff to my body. Let’s just say I was having trouble going to the bathroom while coming out of the coma. So they gave me that chalking white stuff to help things flow more naturally. 🙂 They put it in through my my oxygen tube that was going into my nostrils. Also my oxygen tube was stapled to the wall all the way around the room. I watched the white stuff flow through the tube, and I know it was in my nose because my nose was constantly itchy and felt like something was in it.

Wow…the things I thought happened!

To be continued…

Next: My AVM Story – Part 19