Cancer, Covid, and How in the world am I still here?

 

Covid: What I remember…

As I said earlier, I “slept” most of the time I was in the hospital, so I don’t remember much, but what I do remember is mostly not good. I remember coming down with this. Never felt so sick in my life. This is the “10” of “How do you feel on a scale of 1 to 10?” I remember some of the very first days in the hospital, but not clearly. One thing was clear and strong, I felt an evil presence in the dark corner. I am told Stephen Albright prayed for deliverance for me.

My conscious memories really began On August 25, the day I was transferred via ambulance to Post Acute Medical. As I said before, the room was so hot!

There was this chair they insisted I sit in. I hated it. It would lay flat next to the bed and they would throw me onto it! Then it would fold down into the most uncomfortable chair in the world, which they wanted me to spend hours in.

Physical Therapy began in PAM. They had to teach me how to sit up in bed, then sit on the edge of the bed. First time I sat on the edge of the bed, the therapist said I could slowly lay back down. I flopped back into the bed!

They taught me how to transition from the bed to the walker, with help, of course. Then slowly how to walk again. Progress: I made it to the side of the bed; to the walker; to this line on the floor and back; to the door of my room. What an achievement it was when I made it out of my room, into the hallway, and to the end of the hallway!! Even when I was walking on my own, they always had this big belt they would wrap around me and hold on to while they walked behind me.

I never knew which therapist would show up in PAM, but I got a report that the first guy said he could “break my leg.” That angered me. Next time he came in I told him I didn’t want him working with me. “Why?” “Because you said you could break my leg. I don’t want anybody working on me who’s trying to break my leg!” At first he denied it, but after awhile explained it was a therapy expression. They need new terms for the Covid confused.

I don’t know if I can fully explain how confused I was and how my mind wasn’t working right. In the last unit I had to order all three of tomorrow’s meals today by 10 am. It was so overwhelming I couldn’t do it. Mary had to do it for me. To make matters worse, I don’t eat three meals a day, but I felt obligated to do so in the hospital. It was so freeing when Mary told me I could eat any way I wanted!

The medicine they gave me, Fentanyl & Ativan, compounded my Covid caused muddled mind. Whew! it sent me on many “trips”! Interestingly, in every single one I was bed bound or unable to walk. Here are just a few, marked by +

+ ICU - many strange, troubling “trips”. They were so intense that when we went back to see and thank the staff, I could not enter those doors!

+ A recurring and very distressing trip: I was preparing to go out west to make a movie. I had been out the year before to audition for a different movie. The first visit had resulted in me having iron nodes implanted in my chest. I went to the doctor, but when he saw the nodes, he would not touch me. I also had a really large handle-bar mustache that had branches and debris in the tips. This was so strong I thought I had been having this dream for a year. It was very oppressive. I think this was demonic.

+ I spent a season thinking they were making a movie about a person with covid, and I was the star of this movie! I was even in a western!

+ These “trips” were always disturbing and distressing. I told Mary one night as she was preparing to go home, “You can’t leave me! You don’t know what happens at night!!”

There was one comforting element. Many times as I began to become distressed, a gray-haired nurse would walk into the room and ask, “Jeff, do you know where you are?” I would reply, “No.” She would reassure me, “You are at Kettering Hospital. It’s OK.” I can’t tell you how many “trips” I took and how many times she appeared and rescued me from the confusion and fear, “You are at Kettering Hospital, It’s OK.”

+ The worst was the night I heard a man drowning next to my bed! I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him! I couldn’t help him, so I raised quite a ruckus trying to get someone in my room to help him!! I can still feel the despair. I think I had 4 people show up, trying to calm me down and assure me there was no one there.

One night, it seemed late and the room was dark, a Doctor came in to check on me. He asked if he could pray for me. I said, Yes. He prayed for me in the name of Jesus, asking the Lord to strengthen my legs and raise me up. That was the night I knew I would be going home. He was real, not an angel.

I entered Inpatient Rehab on Saturday Sept 11. Tuesday morning, Sept 14, Unit Director Dr Beer popped in and said that they were having a meeting later that afternoon to decide my release day, but that I was in charge of my care. They were thinking Thursday or Friday. I said, “I want to go home on Wednesday.” Tuesday afternoon the social worker (they were an evil lot) came in and told us I was to be released on Thursday. I said, “Go tell Dr. Beer I have a counter proposal, Wednesday.” She said she would but was sure it wouldn’t be accepted. I told Mary, “If Dr Beer comes in to tell me I’m not going home until Thursday, he better be standing at the door, ‘cause I’m gonna jump out of this bed and attack him!” She replied, Oh, Jeff don’t be like that.”

He kept his word! He even came by and told me he agreed with my decision. I came home on Wednesday, September 15. What a day that was! I came home with a walker. My first walk was to the mailbox and back. By Sunday I was off the walker. Monday I began physical therapy. I continued until I learned how to get up off the floor by myself.