Things have been different since I almost died.

I haven’t posted in a while, because I’ve had a lot going on.

Last summer, I had a miscarriage. I had complications from that – blood clots blocking my cervix – and I was in agony. It also left me a mess emotionally; I couldn’t stabilize my bipolar disorder. I had to do TMS therapy, which actually did help but its full effects faded after a few months. So I went into the hospital to do ECT.

While I was there I found out I was pregnant again.

My pregnancy was great for me, emotionally. I was so happy. I was so excited. For the first time, perhaps ever, I felt like this was right where I was supposed to be. Other issues I had didn’t magically get better, but I found a natural, inner source of inspiration to keep working on things.

He was due June 22nd.

He arrived May 14th after 3 days of “threatened preterm labour.”

The last 2 weeks are basically a haze of clouds. I got really sick and was in the ICU. I’ll go over the details another time – I can’t really handle it right now – but I nearly died. I didn’t get to see my baby until a week after he was born. I was intubated and tied down, but for reasons unknown to me they kept the sedation at a level where I was basically unable to do anything but was very aware of what was going on.

I feel elated at the birth of my son, who is doing better every day, and supposed to come home in a week or two.

But otherwise? I feel…angry. I feel alone. I feel abandoned. I feel…violated.

As a patient, I’m disappointed. As a nurse, I’m disgusted.

Nobody understands why I feel the way I do. Why I can’t fall asleep at night now unless my husband is there. Why if someone doesn’t come with me that I trust, that I can’t step foot in the hospital – that I can’t see my son without someone else there with me.

I’m scared. All the time.

The last thing I remember at the hospital was the excruciating, endless pain. The pain. I remember screaming eventually in between my sobs when it spiked, and the nurse telling me angrily to be quiet. When it crescendoed, my mind went completely blank. There was nothing but pain and fear and why wouldn’t it stop and was my baby okay? Please just protect my baby, I can’t lose him, that will be it for me, after everything I’ve been through that will be it, losing him is a death sentence –

They gave me an epidural, but it didn’t touch the pain. They tried giving me gas, but it just made me feel sick. At this point, some of them were openly doubting I was in so much pain. “It doesn’t make sense,” one nurse said. “This isn’t normal,” said another. They asked if I used street drugs. I felt a flash of anger as I snarled at them that I didn’t. Finally, I gave up.

“If you don’t want to give me pain meds that’s fine, I don’t care! Please just sedate me-” I cried, and then I was rocked by another flash of lightning in my abdomen.

I know they took me in for a c-section. I know they gave me 3 blood transfusions. I know I had a seizure. I know I became hypoxic because I had laryngeal edema, and they had to intubate me and put me on a vent. I know my blood cultures were positive, and I became septic. I know I had so many lines in me – everywhere – that even if I could move, there were too many cords in the way. I know all this because most of it I was told after the fact. I know when I was awake, all I could think was “where is my baby?” But because of the tube in my throat – I couldn’t ask.

The nurses told my family that I wasn’t aware of what was going on, and even if there were times that I was – I wouldn’t remember it.

Unfortunately that’s not true. I don’t remember all of it clearly – but there were moments I was lucid, and I remember. I wish I didn’t.

I’m haunted by the sensation of the tube in my throat. By the fact that I went to sleep feeling fine, and I woke up with some device in my throat and lungs, that I couldn’t cry out for help, that I was alone, and that my arms were tied to the sides of the bed.

I was helpless.

Nobody understands why I’m scared or mad. They say I should be grateful that I made it.

Why can’t I be grateful to be alive, but also be angry that this happened to me – to my little boy?

Why can’t I be angry that he’s still in the NICU and not home with me?

Why can I not be angry that the nursing care I receive was so poor that Im excoriated with bedsores after only a few days? I was physically healthy and fit before this. My skin broke down so badly because of negligence, not simply because of my condition.

That anger is consuming me.

And no one understands.