I hadn’t felt well for a couple of weeks that spring 12 years ago. My neck had been stiff and I felt tired and achy. One of my favorite doctors looked at me one day over an orbital repair and said “Lickey (that’s what they called me, due to the spelling of my name) what’s wrong with you?” I said I was just tired and hadn’t been sleeping well. Maybe, I said, I needed a new pillow. My neck hurt.
This got progressively worse until one Sunday morning I got up to get ready for church. I stumbled around the house. I finally sat on the couch and looked at Clint and said “I can’t go. I don’t feel good at all.”
I crawled into bed and was still there when Clint and the kids came home from church. By this time, my head was pounding. I knew I had fever, but was too sick to even ask for the thermometer. I couldn’t move my head at all, my neck was frozen in pain. I lay on my side, trying not to move, shielding my eyes from light, getting up only to be sick. Clint came in, worried about me. I rarely get sick, hardly even get colds. I joke that my cast iron immune system only lets the REALLY obnoxious things in.
I knew by this point I had meningitis. I also knew it was probably viral, as bacterial meningitis has worse symptoms and higher fever. I told this to Clint, in a dry whisper. “well, let’s take you to the doctor!” he said. The thought of moving was torture. I started to cry. “no. no. I don’t want to go.” “why?” asked Clint. “spinal tap” I whispered.
That’s the thing about being a nurse. You know EXACTLY what’s going to happen. Nurses are the WORST patients, surpassed only by doctors.
But, I knew I needed to go. If this was bacterial, it could be deadly and harm my family. If it were viral, it could be less deadly and cause less harm to my family. Either way, it stunk.
So, Clint loaded up my feverish, sick body and took me to the ER. (I feel I must interject here, dear reader. Do whatever you can to avoid the ER. Unless you are vomiting blood or have bones sticking thru skin or a gunshot wound or a knife sticking out of your head or burns covering a large area, DO NOT USE THE ER. Try to go to a clinic. You will get better care and the people at the clinic are more apt to get you where you need to be and you won’t be at the mercy of whoever is on call that doesn’t know you from Adam. Ok. I feel better. Carry on)
They checked my temp, gave me something to stop the puking, gave me a pain shot and….yup.
Spinal tap.
The pain from a spinal tap is unexplainable. So, I shall not try. Moving right along, dear reader. Nothing to see here.
They took blood, took spinal fluid, gave me a prescription for phenergan and sent me home. I was worse almost immediately.
So, within 36 hours, Clint took me back to the ER. (I feel I must interject here, dear reader. Avoid the ER, yadda yadda)
Another spinal tap. More anti-nausea medications. Another pain shot.
I actually don’t remember this visit. I don’t remember anything for a week. The next memory I have is calling into to work and telling my boss Deena that I was going to die. I actually don’t know if I remember that or if she told me about it later. Deena called Clint and they decided NOT to take me to the ER, but to a clinic.
Clint came home and got me. I couldn’t walk and wasn’t making sense when I talked. He dragged me into the clinic and sat me in a plastic chair and said “stay here while I check you in” He was checking me in and said he heard a sliding sound behind him and he looked and I was lying on the floor. I had decided to lie down on a nasty, germ ridden clinic floor. He picked me up and said “honey, listen…you can’t lay on the…” and that’s when the nurse called my name and Clint practically carried me into the room.
Next thing I know, I’m being sent to the hospital where they are going to give me IV fluids and try to fix me.
I ended up where I worked, outpatient surgery. I got special treatment because I worked there and I’m fine with that. Everyone gathered around and fussed over me.
My next memories are fuzzy. The doctor that took care of me told me later that he wanted to do a blood patch to stop the spinal fluid from leaking from my spinal column and give me IV fluids and probably admit me to the main hospital.
But….what ended up happening was they had to knock me out with Versed and do a central line in my neck to even draw blood because I was so sick and dehydrated. Then, the blood patch didn’t go well because I have scoliosis. I also know that things went badly because that’s what they DO when nurses have procedures. Ask any nurse you know. It’s an undiscussed open secret. If anything is going to go wrong, it’s gonna be with us nurses. It’s part of the reason we are bad patients. We know and so do the doctors that something will happen.
I don’t remember the central line, just vague, fuzzy splotches of memory and blood and needles in my arm and pain in my neck.
I awoke flat on my back with Clint and my co-workers standing around my bed. I found I couldn’t speak at first, then finally words croaked out.
“hey” I said.
“hey!” they grinned back.
“what happened?” I asked.
Grimaces all around. They told me not to move and just lay there and let the IV fluids sink in and make me feel better.
Clint looked down at me. He looked teary eyed.
“I’m hungry.” I said. “I want Chinese food.”
He laughed and said “well, woman. I guess you’re gonna be ok.”
The doctor came in to see me and looked pained.
“ummm…” he said. “I was going to admit you…but…” I interrupted him softly. “I feel fine!” I said.
He started again.
“see, the procedure we did is only supposed to be done in ICU or the ER. I did it here, but I didn’t know I was going to have to. It was just supposed to be poke your arm, put a blood patch over the hole the spinal tap made, give you IV fluids and help your body get over this viral meningitis. But…a central line. Jeez Louise.” he looked sad. “I should have just admitted you. You should have been admitted 3 or 4 days ago. I’m sorry.”
I patted his big hand and he took my hand in his. “how do you feel, Lickey?” he asked.
“I’m fine. I feel better now than I have all week.”
This made him laugh.
“look, I’m gonna give you another bag of fluids and then you go home and don’t get out of bed except to shower for 2 days.” He instructed.
Clint assured him that’s what would happen and he took me home. I sat in the truck when he went in to get the Chinese food.
I hadn’t looked at myself and pulled the visor down to get a peek in the tiny mirror.
My eyes were sunken and black. Flecks of blood spattered my face. I looked down at my arms, bruised and punctured from the many IV attempts. Veins were blown and my arms burned. A bandage swathed my neck, blood peeking out in places.
Good Lord.
Clint came with the food and got into the truck. I looked at him and said “I look like death warmed over!”
Clint laughed and said “actually, you look pretty good compared to this afternoon.”
He took me home and the kids fixed my plate and babied me and I rested for a couple of days. The bruises on my neck became visible the next morning and by lunchtime, I looked like I had been beaten. Even my face was bruised, blue fingerprints dotting my cheeks from someone holding my head still to start the IV in my neck.
Speaking of my neck…It was completely black and blue with ugly puncture marks. I avoided mirrors for a week.
But, after a week I decided I should try to go back to work. It’s stupid, really. I should have taken a month off to recover completely. But I didn’t and it’s no one’s fault but my own. I had to go be cleared, as I had been sick. They checked me out and said that chances are that I had West Nile Virus and wasn’t contagious. No one else I knew got sick, although several years later a lady that lived near me told me about how she got sick one spring and we compared notes only to find that we had the EXACT same symptoms at almost the EXACT same time and the EXACT central line/blood patch brouhaha.. only she had been actually admitted. They told her the same thing, that it was probably West Nile , but no one drew blood to check. We lived (as the crow flies) 2 miles from each other. We surmise that the same mosquito got us both.
The day I got cleared was on a Friday and I was due to start back to work on Monday. Since I was in town, I thought I’d get my oil changed at the little Jiffy Lube. I tired easily, and would just sit in the little waiting room.
My illness left me with the teensiest of a limp. My right foot drug on the threshold as I entered the Jiffy Lube.
The stares started immediately. I was still bruised and battered looking and my mouth struggled to find the right word sometimes. No one spoke to me or asked why I was bruised. I didn’t want to discuss my medical history in a room full of strangers, so there I sat. A 32 year old blonde, wedding ring on, limping, face and neck beat to pieces. No one even looked at me. Finally, my name was called and I walked carefully up to the desk. The young man rang me up without saying anything, then he carefully slid a piece of paper toward me and looked directly at my face. I read the paper and I started to cry.
“DO YOU NEED HELP? I WILL HELP YOU. DID SOMEONE HIT YOU? DON’T SAY ANYTHING. IS THE PERSON THAT HIT YOU HERE WITH YOU? SHOULD I CALL THE POLICE?”
I patted his hand, wiping my tears with the other.
“no, no, no” I said. “I had a medical procedure that left me bruised like this.” I looked him in the face.
“But thank you. I’ve been all over town today and no one else has asked. They just look away. You are a good man. Don’t ever NOT ask that question.”
He smiled at me, a little embarrassed.
I asked him how he thought to ask me, what compelled him to write the note.
He pointed to the guys working on my vehicle. They all stared back in at me, serious looks on their young faces.
“we saw how bunged up you were and one of those guys thought it’d be best to ask like that, so’s not to embarrass you or get you in trouble if whoever beat you was here with you.” I waved at them and smiled. I mouthed “thank you” and told the young man again how wonderful I thought it was that he checked on me.
He grinned and said “well, I’m glad nobody beat you up! I’m sorry you had a rough time, but at least nobody hit you.”
“oh, my husband is the sweetest. Wouldn’t lay a hand on me. He took good care of me when I was sick.” I assured him.
I wrote my check and limped out and headed home. I told Clint about what happened and he said “it never occurred to me someone would think I beat you.”
It hadn’t occurred to me, either and it made me wonder. I saw a lot of people that day. People I didn’t know. No one said anything. No one asked questions. They just let me limp by, bruised and pale and wan.
Dear reader, I leave you with a few thoughts: West Nile virus left me with migraines, balance issues, some memory loss, and issues with some of my fine motor skills.
I am grateful for that. It leaves some people DEAD.
Avoid the ER if you can. Please.
Always, always ask someone if they need help. Always.
Don’t get offended if people think you’re the one who needs help. Maybe you do and you don’t know it.
I think of that young man. What a spine he must have had, to write that note, to slide it across to me, to involve himself and his co-workers in possible domestic violence.
I think of that girl, that orbital repair I was scrubbed in on. Her face, one side caved in from being hit with a baseball bat. Our anger when we found the man that did it was in the waiting room…her husband. She was so battered, ribs broken, arms in slings, that we put her to sleep on the gurney and then moved her to the OR table to avoid causing her more pain. I remember how the other 4 nurses with me opined that we should go get metal IV poles and give him a taste of his own medicine. Our anger BURNED. We couldn’t speak. We cried softly. We murmured angry words and vague threats to each other.
I wonder. Did someone know? Did someone see? Was there someone who offered help? Did someone slide a note to her or try at all?
The most beautiful words of all. Never, ever, DON’T say them.
Do you need help?
Do you need help?
(well…do you?)
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