Seriously, Life? What Now?

Because apparently this journey wasn’t complicated enough already.

So, Monday was Labor Day.

Kevin loaded me up and took me to the emergency room.

I had been running low-grade fevers, along with chills and body aches. I was also having some very strange—not bad or scary, just strange—dreams about my dead family. One of those dreams included Kevin’s mother, who apparently showed up just to tell me that she hated me.

Because, apparently, even in my dreams, I can't catch a break.

Theraflu seemed to help with the things that were ailing me, so honestly, I thought I had picked up a fall cold, the flu, or something along those lines.

One thing I particularly remember noticing was my hands. They felt swollen. They didn't actually look swollen, but they definitely felt swollen.

When we got to the emergency room, they triaged me and kept me in the back instead of sending me back out to the waiting room. They got me into a room almost immediately and started running tests.

They tested me for Flu A and B and COVID. They did nose swabs and checked for some of the more serious infections, including MRSA. Test after test was done, and the only solid answer anyone could give me was:

They didn't know yet what was happening.

They looked at my incisions and my drains. They checked everything and felt how incredibly "hot" the area around my left drain was.

Then the general surgeon on call came in.

He introduced himself and explained that they were going to take me back into surgery.

Not tomorrow.

Not in a day or two.

Right then.

It was about 9:30 that night on Labor Day.

At that point, I was terrified.

I tried calling my son because I needed to tell him that I loved him.

Kevin walked with me as far as he was allowed to go. We eventually reached the point where we had to separate. He went one way toward the surgery lobby, and I was wheeled in another direction toward the operating room.

And, strangely enough, I still had my glasses on.

Normally, Kevin always makes sure I don't take my glasses with me when I go into surgery. But this wasn't normal. This was emergency surgery. The normal routine had gone completely out the window.

I was wheeled into the OR, where I met the guy I had been speaking with on the phone all weekend—the general surgeon's PA. He was very kind, which I appreciated because, at that point, I was scared out of my mind.

I remember putting my glasses above my head.

I remember them putting the mask over my face.

I remember being told to take deep breaths.

And then...

Nothing.

The next thing I knew, I was awake.

And man, was I sore.

Kevin was there, along with a flurry of nurses moving around me.

My glasses, however, were nowhere to be found.

They were gone.

Of all the things happening, somehow I was still concerned about my glasses.

Tuesday

The next morning, I expected to be released.

The hospital had other ideas.

Kevin had spent the night at the hospital with me, waiting while I was in surgery until the wee hours of Tuesday morning. He ended up missing work Tuesday, but thankfully, we have a very understanding boss.

At this point, I didn't realize exactly how sick I had been.

I also didn't realize that I was on the CCU floor.

Apparently, I was sick enough to warrant being there.

I had a constant drip of saline going into me, along with what I assume were pain medications.

But I still had the mindset that I was going home that day.

Because apparently, my brain hadn't gotten the memo.

Linda came up to see me, which made me smile. While she was there, some guy came in to change the battery on my heart monitor.

The nurse told him not to change it because I was discharging.

We all got excited.

I'm going home!

Then the nurse smiled and said,

"You're discharging from CCU to the fifth floor."

Oh.

Well.

That wasn't exactly what we meant.

The move to the fifth floor was pretty seamless. They put me in a wheelchair, loaded my stuff onto a cart, and away we went.

"Are You the Septic Transfer?"

Once I got settled on the fifth floor, they needed to get me set up with a new IV. A nurse came in, looked at me, and asked:

"Are you the septic transfer?"

And that's how I found out that I had been septic when I went into the hospital Monday night.

Apparently, somebody forgot to mention that little detail.

My friend Blanche came to visit almost immediately after she found out I was in the hospital. She brought me a big Diet Coke from McDonald's, which, honestly, was exactly the kind of friend I needed at that moment.

She stayed until about 10 p.m.

We talked about old times, laughed, caught up, and even talked with my night nurse.

He was a great guy.

I slept that night, although "slept" may be a generous description.

In the wee hours of the morning, I woke up in an incredible amount of pain.

We're talking an 11 out of 10.

The nurse gave me pain medication to help get it back under control.

I really am happier when I don't have to take a lot of pills. But pain is a funny thing. If I let it get too far ahead of me, it takes so much more medication to get it back under control.

And that is a lesson I am still learning.

Just Below the Line

My plastic surgeon came in to see me after the emergency surgery.

She confirmed that I had been septic.

I was just a hair below the threshold they use to officially diagnose someone as septic.

But I was septic.

And if things had gone on for even another hour, I could have been in real trouble.

That sentence has stayed with me.

Another hour.

Sometimes, you don't realize just how close you came to something terrible until someone tells you afterward.

I had gone to the emergency room thinking I had the flu.

I went from the operating room and learned that my body had been fighting something much more serious.

The People Who Took Care of Me

There are two people from the hospital who I don't want to leave out of this story.

The nurse and the aide who took care of me that day and the next were incredible.

Yes, I understand that nursing and patient care are their jobs.

I understand they get paid to be there.

I also understand that if they had the day off, they probably would have preferred to be home with their families.

But I never felt that way with them.

I never felt like I was a bother.

I never felt like they were simply there because they had to be.

They made me feel cared for.

They were good at their jobs—not just technically good, but genuinely good at taking care of another human being.

The aide even took some of my business cards and passed them around the hospital, telling people about our upcoming Day of the Dead event in Mankato on Halloween.

I mean, if you're going to be stuck in a hospital, you might as well do a little business networking, right?

Those little things mattered.

When you're scared, sick, hurting, and completely out of your normal routine, kindness matters.

Being treated like a person matters.

Having someone walk into your room and make you feel like you're not an inconvenience matters.

I will remember that.

Thursday

Thursday brought another answer.

The cultures finally came back.

I had MRSA.

So the medical team put a treatment plan in place, and eventually, Kevin came after work and brought me home.

Home.

To my own bed.

To my own bathroom.

To my own life.

And, most importantly, back to my Moe, Sasha, and Tinsel.

After everything that had happened over those few days, seeing them again was exactly where I wanted to be.

I had gone into the emergency room thinking I had caught a fall bug.

Instead, I found out that I had been fighting a serious infection, ended up needing emergency surgery, spent time in the CCU, learned that I had been septic, and eventually found out I had MRSA.

It wasn't exactly the Labor Day weekend I had planned.

Then again, I've learned something throughout this journey:

Cancer doesn't always follow the plan.

Apparently, neither do the complications.

And sometimes, the scariest part isn't knowing what's happening.

It's finding out afterward just how close you came to something much worse.

Until next time... keep finding joy in the ordinary, hope in the hard days, and strength you didn't know you had.

Thanks for walking this journey with me.