COVID Pneumonia

I have not posted since October 6. It was around then that I began feeling unwell. 

Ten days later, I was so ill that I was essentially bedridden while fully-clothed. It had gotten so bad that twice when I in desperation visited the bathroom immediately next to my bedroom, I fell. Whether or not I would have been able to get back to my bedroom, I do not know ─ my youngest stepson (in his early 20s) heard me from downstairs and came to investigate, helping me regain my feet and return to bed.

My first fall demolished a little stand next to the bathtub; my second fall broke the lid to the toilet tank.

By October 17, I was so far gone that I could no longer even rise to deal with each small pressing need to urinate ─ I had given up and was just releasing to each and every urge there where I lay in bed, fully-clothed.

It was that day that my youngest stepson phoned for an ambulance, no doubt with my wife's urging. However, when the attendants came, I refused this unplanned evacuation. I was too ashamed to be leaving home wearing the urine-drenched clothes I had on.

One of the attendants impressed upon me ─ made me say aloud that I understood ─ that I might well be about to die.

Unable for anyone to compel me to leave with them, they had no recourse to leave.

The following day ─ the 18th ─ I had resolved that I would finally go to the hospital, but I would first have a bath and change into clean clothes.

Given some help with that change, that morning (my youngest stepson had learned that the hospital ─ the Surrey Memorial ─ did not have an available ambulance. They instructed to have someone drive me there, and they would begin preparing for me ─ they already knew of me because of the ambulance's visit the day prior.

And so it was that my younger brother (69 years old; I had my 72nd birthday just ahead of mid-month) drove me to the hospital while my wife sat with me in the back seat. My youngest stepson followed in his older brother's car.

Thus it was that I was admitted, nasal-swabbed, and soon enough informed that I had "COVID pneumonia".

I was too weak to stand unaided, and in fact had to basically be wheeled about once I was admitted. Once placed onto a bed, that became my means of getting about, for I was given maybe five different hospital rooms over the course of my stay. The second room of which I was supplied with a roommate, but we (his name was "Reggie")  parted after 1½ days when I was unceremoniously bundled up with my belongings and wheeled away to a room on a different floor.

I was unable to rise to use the bathroom. I had to urinate with an affixed condom-like catheter for maybe three days, and then after that I was given sturdy cardboard 'bottles' to pee into while lying there in bed.

As for bowel movements, despite having a toilet in each room, the staff for the first five days only ever wheeled over a mobile "commode" upon which I was helped up and out of bed to sit. And there I would have to sit in full view of any staff who might enter the room. 

It was most humbling.

On that fifth day, I had such a bowel movement in the latter morning. Meantime, I kept assessing how certain I had become that the toilet was within my improving means of achieving under my own power.

When after my supper that same day I found myself needing yet another bowel movement, I resolved that the diabolical commode would never again see me putting it to use. I got to my feet, and cautiously made my way to the true toilet and ─ with some machine attachment affixed to one of my fingers which barely allowed me sufficient reach to get myself seated on the toilet ─ I did what needed to be done, and then returned to sit upon my bed.

Needless to say, when a nurse eventually came and learned what I had accomplished, she was both impressed and taken a little aback. Up till then, the most that had been done for me by way of physical therapy was to help me to my feet and to allow me to stand unaided, practicing a few different movement such as cautiously stepping from one foot to the other ─ basically marching on the spot. 

Having discovered that I could now use the toilet ─ even at night if I felt the need to urinate, for I never again used one of the cardboard 'bottles' ─ I felt considerable liberation.

I had begun spending hours a day seated in a chair by the window ─ this was my doing, for it was never exactly encouraged. I was growing much more sure on my feet despite not receiving any monitored practice ─ it was entirely my own volition.

I came to think of myself simply being there to be medically monitored and fed three times a day ─ mobility was seemingly of no concern to anyone. And I was constantly having my breathing ─ most especially at night ─ interfered with by having oxygen tubes affixed to my nostrils. These were just a couple of prongs that were inserted into the entrance of my nostrils. 

These darned things would keep me awake most of each night because I was unable to shift much or they would come loose from my nostrils. It was more like torture than any kind of help being hooked up with these prongs because I was unable to shift about in bed ─ I longed to roll over onto my stomach, for instance. My butt had begun to both hurt from always lying or sitting upon it, and to grow alarmingly numb.

After that fifth day, I thought that surely the time must be approaching when I would be getting released to go home. As I said, a few days thereafter, I began to perceive that nothing was being done for my physical therapy ─ I was doing everything on my own. All the hospital was doing was feeding me three times a day, and constantly monitoring me with their machinery. And of course, I was given numerous needles every day.

After the ninth day with no end in sight ─ just some teasing of potential imminent release that was swiftly kiboshed ─ and then the passage of even a tenth day with no end in sight, I insisted to a young doctor on the morning of my 11th day that I felt perfectly capable of being home. The only physical therapy I was getting was the activity I was devising for myself, and spending hours each day seated at a window.

The agreeable young fellow said that he would do his rounds and then begin work midday on the release paperwork if I was fully confident about my capacity to handle being home.

The noon hour came and went; and then when a nurse who was possibly in her late 40s or even her 50s learned of what I was hoping would be done, she vowed that I was not going home that day if she could prevent it ─ my breathing oxygen levels were too low.

This was infuriating. My incarceration was to continue because of a contrary nurse?

Well, the young doctor did eventually check back, and he clearly had been a little 'unnerved' by the older nurse. But I refused to submit ─ I maintained that I would find myself more active at home than I ever would be sitting in my room staring out the window.   

I should mention here that I had no T.V. (it had to be rented) nor even music to listen to. Apart from when one of the medical professionals was dealing with me, all I had were silence and my thoughts.

I wanted to go home where I could at least watch T.V.

So on the latter afternoon of that 11th day, the doctor arranged to have me assessed with a mobility challenge.

Another doctor and a nurse eventually came to test me by taking me from my room under my own power ─ i.e., on my own two feet ─ and begin walking me up and down the hall while taking readings on a mobile monitoring system to which I was attached.

I had to undergo this activity despite no one ever 'exercising' me ─ I had only gotten whatever exercise I was able to do for myself.

I had to walk for between five and 10 minutes ─ and while wearing a damned face mask. Breathing was so difficult that my mouth was wide open beneath it as I sought to breathe and not faint, for I began to think that I might not be able to pass this unfair test that had been sprung upon me.

Sincerely, I believe that I was meant to fail ─ maybe even yield and give up.

Through sheer resolve, I somehow endured the duration of their test. And I got congratulated ─ they approved me.

And so at long last, I got released to go home. My eldest stepson (in his latter 20s) came for me, and awaited outside. I had dressed and was sitting in my room waiting for his call. When it came, I sought some directions ─ I was on the seventh floor, and apparently expected to find my own way out of the place.

Fortunately, one nurse did decide to escort me to an elevator and took me to the ground floor, waving me in the direction that I needed to take to get outside.

It was raining, but the cold wet air was fabulous to my reportedly badly scarred lungs.

And so after entering the hospital on the morning of October 18th, I was released late in the afternoon of the 28th. I was free.