not what we expected
2 minute read
he didn’t fall off a ladder
Incredibly once things got put into motion for John’s transfer to the next hospital it seemed like everyone except us knew what was happening. I was still in utter disbelief that he was able to leave the care being given by this amazing team but since he was no longer in need of any IV’s or breathing assistance, and had met the criteria from the various physical, speech and occupational therapists it seemed that he was medically qualified. I wished that there was a qualification list for the parents of the person being discharged because by this point all I wanted to do was crawl into John’s magically maneuverable bed and have people bring me food and drinks all day and night.
I most definitely wasn’t ready for this transfer but his care team efficiently processed all that needed to be processed and around 11am, 10 days after arriving in the ER with little chance of living, our son was in a wheelchair headed off the 5th floor stroke unit down to the driveway where we helped him into the back seat for the ride across town to the next hospital which, as it turned out, would be home for another 11 days.
On my way to the elevator a nurse handed me a manila envelope about 2 inches thick and told me it was all of the paperwork and records from both overdoses and that John would be needing this in the coming months as he visited different specialists during his recovery process. I shoved it into my bulging bag that also contained different apparatus that John needed to pull on his socks, pick up things from the floor (he couldn’t bend over and didn’t have the coordination or flexibility to dress himself entirely) and perform other day to day tasks currently out of his range of function.
John was moving along with the transfer process and we’d told him where he was going but I couldn’t tell if he was actually processing the information. The University of Washington hospital is only about 15 minutes away and after a long and confusing check-in process we were told to go to the 8th floor where John would be staying – the acute inpatient physical rehabilitation unit. The 8th floor is a section of the hospital that looks and smells ancient and compared to the stroke unit it felt like what I imagine a mental institution would be.
My heart sank when a CNA led us to the first room inside the unit doors, it was so close to the hallway you could hear everyone and everything. There was also another person in the room, no privacy here. John was looking exhausted and unhappy, so I tried to be as positive as possible about the new place. His nurse showed up a few minutes after we got into the room and transferred John to his bed and told him lunch would be coming up soon. Several times John asked about the rehab he was going to be getting as he believed we were tricking him into drug rehab and was getting more and more agitated as we waited for his lunch.
I wanted to talk to someone about this exact subject because the unit was clearly for physical rehabilitation, but I wanted to know when someone like a therapist or psychiatrist would be entering the picture. All of the patients on the floor had experienced some sort of traumatic injury, from car crashes to workplace accidents and some included TBI – traumatic brain injury, what John had experienced. The combination of the physical damage to his body and the brain injury from lack of oxygen was incredibly scary and I was glad to learn that he wasn’t alone on this journey.
Luckily a psychiatrist did show up and took John’s dad and me down the hallway to another patient room to talk while John ate lunch. It was the first time we hadn’t been with him while he was eating and felt so strange, but also like a move in the right direction. He was eating a meal on his own! The psychiatrist explained that he specialized in helping people recover from extreme physical injuries – which often left a person disabled for life. He worked with the patients there to mentally adjust to whatever new life they were going to be experiencing. Since we didn’t know the extent of John’s injuries this seemed like a good thing but when would he be talking with a mental health professional? I asked. It wasn’t like he’d fallen off a ladder – he had OVERDOSED TWICE I wanted to scream. So, where’s the addiction specialist?!
“Oh, we don’t have that here.”