My Story Chapter Seven The End

          I feel like I should be wrapping be up this part of my story but so much went on during those 7 weeks that it seems a crime to leave any of it out.  I will try to pick up the pace so I can wrap this small piece of the last five and half years of my life so I start writing what’s going on now.

          I fought with reality vs. fantasy even after leaving that creepy place but I do remember with some semblance of clarity the difficulty we had having me discharged. Every evening the doctor would promise that I’d be going home in the morning so Eric would get my things together and ready to go home and the next morning came it  the same scenario. We would be awakened by the respiratory therapist, I would refuse my treatment,  he/she would change the settings on my oxygen, and I would have chest x-ray LYING FLAT ON MY BACK. The doctor would make his a.m. rounds and tell us my left lung was partially collapsed. Therefore, I couldn’t be released as scheduled and would have to wait another day or two. God forbid it was a Friday, then I’d have until Monday because by the time the physician was finished with rounds to check on my progress it would too late to write up release papers. Of course in my state I thought it was some kind of conspiracy to keep in the hospital/prison forever. Thank God Eric finally reached my spinal cord specialist who explained that a quadriplegic would always have a partially collapsed lung when lying flat on their backs and my blood oxygen level was just fine at 95%. We were ready to leave A.M.A.

          Eric called for the charge nurse and the caseworker who took care the power attorney fiasco my sisters put us through. He also called my peer counselor, a man who was assigned to me to help get me integrated back into society after my injury to whom I became great friends, to bring my power chair to hospital so I could get off my back and sit up so I could breathe a little easier. Not to mention just in case we had to make a mad dash for exit out of that hell hole. I had gained 40 lbs of water weight due to the steroids they had given me for the pneumonia and my hands were like paws. I couldn’t fit into the clothes I had worn to Presby so Dale ran home to get some sweats while we did all the necessary paperwork and bitching. After what seemed like an eternity and endless nightmare I was in my peer counselor’s Don's van, with his attendant and my friend Jo Anne driving, genuinely, absolutely, positively, and FINALLY on my way home! Back to safety, warmth and familiarity. And perhaps, even slowly back to sanity. 

This is my peer counselor Don. He has been friend and confidant for 4 years now.