Honesty - The Easy Way Out

If you find yourself in the hospital and the admitting nurse asks how frequently you use alcohol – tell the truth. If the same nurse asks you if you take anything for anxiety – like benzodiazepines – and you take more than your allotted daily dose, fess up. The nurse or doc isn’t there to judge you. They want to keep you safe while you are in the hospital. They have probably seen and heard it all. But, be honest because if you end up being admitted to the hospital and you normally drink or take more medication than you said to make yourself look better, this may happen to you:

You may have a fairly uneventful first day and even second day – a series of tests, lab work, standard stuff…and then your night nurse arrives. You seem a little anxious but are pleasant. Then your family leaves and you start getting more restless. You tell your nurse you are feeling short of breath and finding it hard to get enough oxygen. You start to get a little agitated. The nurse thinks your lungs sound pretty good but puts some oxygen on you and calls a respiratory therapist to come see you. The respiratory therapist concludes that your lungs sound good and you just appear to be very anxious. The night progresses. 

You beg your night nurse to help you because, although everything appears ok – vital signs stable, labs decent – you are sure you are dying. This concerns the nurse and she starts looking through all the notes a bit more carefully. There is a vague mention of the possibility that you use more anxiety medication than you have been prescribed. There is another fuzzy mention that you might experience withdrawal while in the hospital. The possibility seems a bit remote so the doc doesn’t put any ativan (common for anxiety) on your medication list so you can taper off. Withdrawal isn’t pretty or always safe so, typically, it is a slow weaning process. Not in this case. There is nothing to taper so the nurse tries to reassure you that you are okay and maybe you could take some deep breaths and get a little sleep? No such luck because you used the ativan to sleep and now you don’t have any. Pretty soon you are constantly on your call light. You want the nurse to sit with you and are appalled that she has four other patients who want some attention. 

Pretty soon you are calling 911 and asking to get admitted to the ER. What you don’t realize is that when 911 gets calls from patients already in the hospital, they alert the hospital. So, the nurse is made aware that you are calling 911. She goes in to ask you what you are hoping for from 911 and you tell her you want to go to the ER and she should take you – right now. You insist. You don’t care when she tries to explain that you are already in the hospital. You are getting help and being followed by the doctors in your current location. You are no longer rational. You strip off your clothes and run into the hallway naked. Why not? Then you realize you can’t leave the hospital naked so you put on your nylons and heels…quite a fashion statement with the hospital gown. You insist you are leaving. The nurse tells you it isn’t safe to walk out on the streets at 3 in the morning with no family here to take you home.

 The nurse realizes that you are delirious and the doctor needs to be notified. The possibility that you are withdrawing now seems to be very real. The doc is roused and the situation explained. An order for ativan is secured as well as some labs. The problem seems temporarily solved EXCEPT you are too agitated to agree to take the ativan. Much to your nurse’s dismay, you refuse. You insist that you must talk to your family and you are sure they want to hear from you at 3 a.m. So, you call. Your family, bless them, calms you down and reassures you that the nurse is there to help you, not harm you. You decide to take the ativan. You settle down and get a few hours of sleep. Meanwhile, you have given the night nurse gray hair that she did not need. Now, wouldn’t this have been much easier if, in admitting, you had just disclosed to the use of a little extra medication to help with anxiety?

Thanks, Stranger

I ran a half marathon on Saturday. I am not going to lie. It was hard. I ran the same one last year so I knew what I was getting into – lots of rolling hills and a gravel road. I really didn’t want to do the same one again but with my work weekend schedule, it was the only one I could find that fit. I like to do longer runs every now and again to push me out of the ruts I seem to find myself in – running and otherwise. So, Helvetia it was and I put my money down early so I couldn’t back out. 

I swore I was going to start out slower this year. I am a terrible pacer. I get excited and start out way too fast and pay for it later. That’s what happened last year. This year I was determined to ignore the 8:30 pacer sign and hang back with the 9 minute mile+ pacers. Yeah. That worked for about ¼ mile. I think I am more competitive than I care to admit.

Anyhow, around mile 5, I hurt. I am running up a hill that seems to have no end. Eight more miles seems impossible. Even Beyonce isn’t helping. All of a sudden this woman who has been next to me for about a mile or two looks over at me and says “high five” – and we do. I realize we are at the top of the hill and she wants to celebrate. It was amazing how the encouragement and solidarity of a stranger in that one instance was enough to change my run around. I had to keep running. The stranger and I ran the next couple of miles together although we never exchanged another word. I felt like I needed to keep going for both of us. I lost her at one of the water stations. I imagine she had no idea how much I needed that high five at the top of the hill.

Around mile 11 there lies a dusty gravel road. It goes on for awhile and it is hard to feel inspired. There are still two miles ahead. That doesn’t sound like a lot at the moment but after 11 miles, two miles can be excruciatingly long. My stranger wasn’t with me anymore and I had heard all the songs on my shuffle at least once. Then I started thinking of a patient I took care of this week . . .the patient who terrified me because he passed out in the bathroom when I was helping him get up to pee. This patient was much younger than me and, about a month prior to our meeting, he had a stroke – a big old bleed in his head and the doctors don’t really know why yet. He had been in the ICU for a long time before transferring to our floor. They had removed part of his skull to decrease the pressure and the swelling. Sorry if that is too graphic but you get the idea of why it was so scary when he fainted. He had to wear a helmet most of the time to protect his head. Another coworker and I were walking him to the bathroom. While we were standing there with him he said to me “I think I am going to faint.”  And then, for a moment, he did. Fortunately my coworker is much stronger than I am and we were able to keep him upright and prevent him from falling. It took four of us to get him back to bed. 

The experience horrified me. I was shaky for the rest of the night. I went over and over what I could have done differently and how thankful I was that he didn’t fall. By morning he seemed to be back to himself but I still worry about him. He has a long road ahead of him. It exhausts him to walk, to pee, to move. His thoughts can be disjointed when he is tired. He will need the bone flap put back in eventually. He has a long way to go but he has amazing family support and a pretty good outlook. As I thought about him at mile 11, I realized that 2 miles wasn’t really that far. How blessed am I to be able run…to be able to put one foot in front of the other with little regard. I made it to the end of those 13 miles with the help of two people I barely knew and will most likely never see again. Thanks, stranger.

Summer…don’t run me over

There are 8.5 days until summer. Make that 8. My kids give me the countdown regularly. They are gleeful. To them summer means no homework, more time to play, mom eases the electronics restrictions, and warm weather. They can hardly wait. I know my teacher friends feel the same way. They are part of the countdown. The kids are restless making learning and teaching nearly impossible. I know this because I helped out in Audrey’s class last week. I was only there for 45 minutes helping with reading groups and I almost went crazy. How hard can it be to get six 8-year olds to sit still for 10 minutes to take turns reading a story? Nearly impossible…I could never teach. Bless those teachers. 

I don’t have the same warm, exciting feelings about summer. Matter of fact, the mere mention of the word makes my heart race, my sweat glands flip to overdrive and my respirations increase. Don’t judge me. I know there are those of you who welcome summer with open arms. You love the lack of schedule and the ability to hang out more with your kids. That is awesome. I love my kids. I really do. But I find the balance of school and the chance for them to spend time with their friends and for me to get a moment either to sleep off the night shift or have a coffee in peace works pretty well around here. It makes things a little less crazy.

I feel like summer is just waiting around the corner, taunting me. I am not sure how it is all going to go down. I have June pretty well figured out but that leaves two entire months. I only get my work schedule a month at a time which makes it nearly impossible to line up a babysitter for nights I work back to back. All these details are irrelevant to my kids .They want to know what I have planned. What exciting adventures we will be embarking on and who we will be spending our time with because most of the time, I am not enough. I don’t think they will be very excited to learn that mom is going to be spending some time in bed and as for exciting adventures…well, I need one of those parents who embrace summer to stop by and line those up for me. 

We did have the wild idea to try backpacking rather than car camping. I am not sure if we will pull it together to execute it this summer but we are going to try. My friend told me her parents tried it with them…once. I hope it isn’t the kind of thing that sounds really great but the reality is a little less awesome. Like running. I took both my kids on a 1.5 mile run last week. Mason has expressed some interest so we have gone a few times. We made Audrey try it with us last week. It sounded great in theory but when we got to the top of our street, she was already tired and complaining. I still dragged her through the rest of the run. I was quite sure someone was going to look out and call child protective services but that was last week and nobody has come to my door. I am hopeful that since backpacking feels like more of an adventure we might have more success. Right?

I know these ages are fleeting. My kids have an innocence and excitement that, at times, can be contagious. I want to embrace and enjoy it but to do that this summer…it is going to take a lot of coffee. My awesome friend who is a teacher told me she sent up a prayer that summer wouldn’t kill me. Amen sister. Here we go.