Oh boy…

***

I was sitting alone on a folding chair in the lobby of an upscale social club. Double doors opened up to a long marble-floored hallway that led to a podium where the club’s director stood managing traffic. On one side of the hallway was a casual bar where cocktail tables dotted the linoleum floor and flat screen TVs lined the walls. Wearing medical scrubs, club members relaxed at the tables sipping drinks after a long shift.

 On the other side of the elegant hallway was a stately dining room. Guests sat at round linen-covered dinner tables. The well-dressed club members enjoyed gourmet meals, chatted over drinks, or played cards. The clientele was an eclectic mix of doctors, hospital administrators, business executives, and public officials.

 The club director was a tall, dark-haired, and handsome young man in his early 30s. Wearing a navy blue blazer, charcoal trousers, a crisp white shirt, and a royal blue tie, he looked regal standing at the podium. He welcomed club members with a warm grin and a gracious southern drawl. Even though he wore a yellow surgical mask, you could see his eyes smiling above the sterile covering.

***

The passage above never really happened. Or…maybe it did.

For a few days after the surgeon successfully closed my chest cavity, I remained on Propofol as doctors and nurses watched over me. This drug is a powerful sedative that’s used for major surgery. It gained notoriety almost a decade ago when singer Michael Jackson famously died of an overdose.

When administered correctly by an anesthesiologist, Propofol is invaluable as its properties keep patients asleep during surgery and causes memory loss while sedated. The medication worked like a charm for me. I don’t remember anything about surgery or the days afterward when my chest was wide open.

According to the Journal of Neurosurgical Anesthesiology, hallucinations are common for patients that receive even a modest dose of Propofol. As the sedative wears off, the dreams are referred to as post-operative delirium. Some hallucinations are based on reality. In other words, activity happening around the patient could be translated in the brain in a different way.

I’m pretty sure that post-operative delirium danced around in my mind as the Propofol slowly left my system. The passage above is in italics because it was part of the hallucinations. I experienced this phenomenon in 2010 when I spent the summer in the ICU. I wrote about this in an earlier post (Check out my blog post from June 22, 2016: https://esereport.com/2016/06/22/summer-in-the-waiting-room-how-faith-family-and-friends-saved-my-life-excerpt-52-new-excerpt/).

The “social club” hallucination is based on real events. I remember so many of these types of dreams from the summer of 2010. Interestingly, this time I subconsciously understood that my experiences weren’t completely true while I was still emerging from the delirium. When Propofol finally washed out of my system, I intuitively knew that something went wrong again.

When I described to Sandra what I knew was a “dream,” she recounted real events in the ICU. The well-dressed club director was actually a nurse who cared for me during the days when I was emerging from the fog. That explains the yellow surgical mask. Sandra said that the nurse stood at the door to my room typing into a laptop that sat on a podium.

In the “dream,” I remember having conversations with doctors, nurses, physician assistants, and the hospital’s managing executive. All these people were members of the social club in the hallucination. One incident I will never forget from the delirious dream was the club’s director cheering me on as he helped me to walk. According to Sandra, all of these events happened while I was in the ICU.

Many characters came in and out of my dreams. I reconnected with old friends and welcomed the faces of family. While all of this was happening in my confused brain, I was semi-conscious and talking to people in the real world. During the first few days of consciousness, I borrowed a phrase (“oh boy!) from my Compa Pancho. He uses “oh boy” when he’s surprised or bothered by something.

I must have sensed that I was in medical trouble. Everyone who visited my room one day remembers that I repeated, Oh, boy!” at least a million times in a hoarse and whispered voice. This brought comedic relief for my family and the ICU team. My daughter Erica described me as my usual goofy self, but “just extra.”

I held court by telling stories that didn’t make sense, many replete with every variation of the F-word like a character from The Sopranos. I invited nurses to join me and Sandra for dinner and a movie. I tried to convince one of the Kaiser speech therapists that we worked at Comcast together. Although she had the same name as a former colleague, she never worked there.

The patience and professionalism of the cardiovascular ICU team was astonishing. The team cared for me with warm smiles and supportive words throughout my state of silliness. Going through this experience for the second time was frustrating and a little scary. It also gave me hope. It meant that I was alive and in the beginning stages of recovery.

***

President Trump stood next to a conference table at one of his resorts. As the president walked toward his office, he looked tired and aggravated. He wore an ill-fitting business suit and his infamous hair was messy. Sandra greeted Trump in the hallway with a hug telling him that she was honored to meet him. Watching from a hospital bed in another room, I was disappointed with Sandra.

***

How Sandra and I ended up at a Trump resort during my delirium is a story in itself. Friends and family who visited the ICU told me how I recounted the story of Sandra hugging and complimenting the president. In a raspy voice, caused by the breathing tube that was in my throat for almost a week, I summoned visitors closer to me so I could describe the scene.

Oh boy!

**********

Next Time: Beginning the long road to recovery