July 26, 2006
I was over at Bou's reading about (her youngest) Bones' 9 lives yesterday and as I read, I realized the reason I had such a mental block in my CPR class the day before was because I was remembering how last summer I had to perform the Heimlich maneuver on my son and how I froze at first, trying to recall the CPR process.
He was the primary reason I signed up for a CPR refresher course. This incident was the second reason, and the 3rd was the fact that the adult I saved 6 weeks ago is trying to sue me for "malpractice". I should have let him die then, huh?
In reading Bou's post, I realized I really wasn't doing anything wrong because I was giving the right number of breaths and compressions, but in my head I was rescuing a child my son's age, and the age of the kid I had saved 6 weeks before. The problem was, in reality I had an infant dummy in front of me, which requires different positioning, approach, compressions and rescue breaths. Realizing that made me want to see if I could remember and perform the right rescue techniques on an infant correctly.
So I grabbed my son's panda bear to practice Infant CPR (which he left behind on Saturday) while visiting Mike (who is a retired NYC firefighter, our Building's Fire Safety Director and is certified in CPR training). So while in his office he suggested that in order to make sure I was focusing on the right age group I should close my eyes and envision an infant before me. Just then he was called away so encouraged me to go ahead and practice in his office.
A few seconds later Tom, Mike's Deputy Director, came in and stopped in the doorway. I opened my eyes just as I was removing my mouth off the bear's face. Realizing the awkwardness of the moment I opened my mouth to explain, but Tom held up his hand interrupting: "No... No.... No need to explain, you two obviously need to spend time alone, so I'll just be on my way" and with that he closed the door.
I sat there with my mouth wide open, embarrased beyond belief! This is something the Fire Safety Team will never forget. I can already see the email subject headline to the team: "Michele found making out with bear... Don't let this happen to you." Yes, that's how they're going to make sure that everyone knows about the new CPR guidelines and free classes.
A short while later, when Mike didn't return, I stepped out of his office to find everyone laughing at the sight of me with my bear in arms. Outwardly I smiled with them, realizing that it was Mike's practical joke. Inwardly, to quote Rosana Rosanadana (Gilda Radner's character on SNL): "I just wanna diiiiiiiiie!" Sigh!
It turns out that Mike restrained his laughter long enough to watch my technique and reassured me I was fine. I'm fine... good to know! [giggle]
Anyway, the 6 degrees comes from having learned the lesson from when I last saved a life 6 weeks ago. The chain of events started with the inspiration from my blog dad's post which led to me being equiped to save 2 lives. Same thing with Bou's post yesterday, it reminded me that I had to get my epi-pen refilled. Didn't want to go one more day without it because I was having mild allergic reactions to the different take out foods I was buying (due to the damned blackout). To make a gigantic story a bit shorter. I got my epi-pen refilled and picked it up on my way home. Last night, after putting my son to bed, I had my dinner. Later, I began to have what I knew would be a major allergic reaction and was forced to use my epi-pen.
So, I attribute to Bou, me being here amongst you today, because my cell was pretty low power last night, and the land line didn't work, so I couldn't call 911 or get an ambulance. All the pharmacies were closed as they were still out of power and if they had an epi-pen, well I don't think I would have used it as it might have gone bad in the heat.
Hmmmm, I wonder if I owe Bou something for having saved my life. I seem to remember there's a chinese proverb about that but I'm still under the effects of what my new, cute, temporary, physician gave me this afternoon and so I'm feeling no pain (and no memory to speak of right now). Just sitting here with a stupid grin on my face, feeling euphoric. I'm going to have me a damned good sleep tonight.
Well, I think I'm finished. I'm not going to re-read or edit this one. I think I'll just sit here and smile for awhile. YOu all take care now... ya here!
Posted by: Michele at
01:28 PM
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July 05, 2006
When my boyfriend never showed up to pick me up at the hospital after my biopsy, it was his way of ending our engagement. As I made the round of calls that day to see if someone would be kind enough to pick me up, it was a relatively new friend, David, whom responded to my call for help. During the subsequent months of treatment I learned from him, and my fellow patients, a great deal about courage, life, living in the moment and about hope against all odds. It was during that time that David drilled into me that it takes 40 lbs of positive thinking to defeat 1oz of negativity.
That’s part of the reason I posted the email below. Reading the words “If you heal and recover” made me not only feel someone was betting against me. The effect of those words felt like I had been punched in the stomach. The email made me question my judgment about many things. How was it possible that someone who called themselves my friend would be capable of being so callous and inconsiderate? Not once in that email did they wish the best for me. Why did I not see that before; was I delusional, in denial, blind or just plain stupid? If I had been wrong about this friendship, what else could I be wrong about? How could I trust my judgment about my recovery and focus on staying healthy when I couldn’t even choose healthy people to be in my life? What “If” they were right? Needless to say I cried for a very long time before writting my previous post. After I wrote it I still was ambivalent about it.
However, had I not written it, the negative thinking those words inspired would have spiraled me out of control and taken me to a very dark place. I recall telling someone I had just met last year, that their kind of thinking could easily destroy me. ItÂ’s something David used to say whenever I found myself listening to those who bet against me in 1985, if you listen to negative words you will only accomplish living up to their self-fulfilling prophecy. If you listen to positive messages and words of hope, the future will always remain open to endless possibilities.
With your kind messages you have all pulled me back from the edge of that precipice. Now I have a new “C” word in my life – Caring! Thank you!
Posted by: Michele at
03:15 AM
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July 01, 2006
The Bad: My son needing emergency care for post surgical complications. We were in the ER for over 8hrs dealing with a number of symptoms and finally arrived at root cause to treat it and have been back home now for 18hrs without a relapse. YAY!
The Ugly: New York University Hospital's Emergency Room. One of the top teaching hospitals in the country and the conditions in their environment would fail the American Hospital Accreditation's exam for cleanliness. Not only were the conditions deplorable, they did away with their pediatric emergency ward. I also forgot that June 30 is the date that most residents and Attending's school terms ends and the new docs don't begin until after July 4th. When we were almost done, they wheeled a man into my son's room who was having a heart attack and began working on him as my son looked on. There was no curtain I could close, nothing I could do except pick up my son and carry him to an empty bed down the hall. It pissed off the nurses because we used an empty bed that would now have to be cleaned after we left but I didn't care. My son's mental well being was more important that what these witches thought/said. Oh, I took names and will be reporting the entire hospital to every major place I can. I even took pictures with my cell phone camera to show the violations.
I will never, ever go back there again!
As for me, I'm so sleep deprived I've been making mistakes of judgement and of action. I've been having to stay up to care and medicate my son and although I hired a visiting nurse to help me, I ran errands and started my chemotherapy while she was with my son. Unfortunately they don't work on weekends so no rest for the weary. It seems that I won't get any sleep until possibly sunday night when my brother in law comes to visit and will stay overnight to give me a break.
The worse 2 mistakes I've made was stepping onto oncoming traffic on a busy roadway and forgetting when and if I took my medication. I'm now writing down all the info and have set up alarms in my pda telling me who gets what medicine when. That's a big help! Actually, when we got to the ER, the Dr. was amazed that although I wasn't too coherent or intelligently making correlations, that I at least wrote my son's medical history into my pda prior to his surgery so that I wouldn't forget anything during admission intake. He was not only able to speed the process of my son's assessment by using this history but asked that I download it via the bluetooth feature to the hospital's computer all the info on fever stats, amount/times of fluid intake etc.
As for my son, althought he's hanging in there he's very weak. Not having been able to hold any food down for almost 4 days took a toll on his little body and he lost 6 lbs. He's on liquids only for now until he's able to handle soft solids like ice cream, yogurts and soups.
Well, that's all for now as I have to begin the coaxing, bribing etc. to have my son increase his fluid intake amount. Again, thanks for your emails and voice mail messages, they were greatly appreciated. more...
Posted by: Michele at
11:50 AM
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