By s y Go To PostI have discovered white sauce feta cheese pizza
Bechamel? C’est incroyable.
Try a lemon ricotta base next time, brother.
By Pac-12 Go To PostBenadryl knocks me right out. The active ingredient is godlike.I actually used to get slid these as a kid. Might have to try it again
By Daz Go To PostWoke up at 4am…😔4 am is the best time to wake up. 5 am is peak time to be awake
Speaking of sleep, have to wait until October to see a respiratory doc. Can sleep 10 hours a night and feel like absolute shit the next morning, and when I was on holiday with my fam recently they said they could hear me choking in my sleep.
Haven't had a good night's sleep in about 4 years I'd say.
Haven't had a good night's sleep in about 4 years I'd say.
By Punished Go To PostSpeaking of sleep, have to wait until October to see a respiratory doc. Can sleep 10 hours a night and feel like absolute shit the next morning, and when I was on holiday with my fam recently they said they could hear me choking in my sleep.Do you sleep elevated or have a good pillow that keeps your head up?
Haven't had a good night's sleep in about 4 years I'd say.
Probably is a case of sleep apnea.
By Lupercal Go To PostDo you sleep elevated or have a good pillow that keeps your head up?Don't do either of those things.
Probably is a case of sleep apnea.
Sleep apnea is a symptom of Marfan's (which I have), so that is what I'm thinking. But I did have surgery a few years ago with two weeks in hospital and I'm assuming if I did have sleep apnea it would've been picked up on their machines then. So idk
By Punished Go To PostDon't do either of those things.If they put you on a breathalyzer or in an upright sleeping position, you might have had no reason to give thelm any signs.
Sleep apnea is a symptom of Marfan's (which I have), so that is what I'm thinking. But I did have surgery a few years ago with two weeks in hospital and I'm assuming if I did have sleep apnea it would've been picked up on their machines then. So idk
You can try getting a harder pillow, something that keeps you elevated.
If you have a bed you can raise up, even better.
Both things a hospital bed has.
Get a sleep study done asap, demand it if you have to
Sounds like an old wives tale but there's at 99% chance that my cousin died from sleep apnea a week before she was supposed to have hers done, which she'd delayed a couple of times.
Sounds like an old wives tale but there's at 99% chance that my cousin died from sleep apnea a week before she was supposed to have hers done, which she'd delayed a couple of times.
By DY_nasty Go To PostInsomniaaaaaaaIt kicks, baby.
By DY_nasty Go To PostI actually used to get slid these as a kid. Might have to try it againI’m assuming you have also tried melatonin?
By Lupercal Go To PostIf they put you on a breathalyzer or in an upright sleeping position, you might have had no reason to give thelm any signs.Yeah, in hospital I was sleeping at 45 degrees and was wearing a nose tube.
You can try getting a harder pillow, something that keeps you elevated.
If you have a bed you can raise up, even better.
Both things a hospital bed has.
Will sort out a big hard pillow.
By NiceGuy Go To PostGet a sleep study done asap, demand it if you have toAh fuck. My appointment in October is with me going private as well.
Sounds like an old wives tale but there's at 99% chance that my cousin died from sleep apnea a week before she was supposed to have hers done, which she'd delayed a couple of times.
Feels like I have a fucking huge Adams apple as well.
By Kibner Go To PostI’m assuming you have also tried melatonin?Melatonin is terrible for me sadly. Makes me groggy and doesn't help me sleep one bit. Diphenhydramine is my main choice the past 5 years or so.
By DY_nasty Go To PostMelatonin is terrible for me sadly. Makes me groggy and doesn't help me sleep one bit. Diphenhydramine is my main choice the past 5 years or so.well, fuck
I love early mornings when few others are up and about.
I hate having a nail in my tire for the third time in 2023.
I hate having a nail in my tire for the third time in 2023.
By Kibner Go To PostI love early mornings when few others are up and about.
I hate having a nail in my tire for the third time in 2023.
Waking up (5am) and going outside when nobody is there is beautiful. Makes me want to move somewhere remote so I don't need to be around anyone.
I never want to be awake before 10am. I realise this does create a conflict with my professional duties.
By Rob Go To Postsomeone must really hate you, or are you just driving through construction sites for fun?Construction in my neighborhood that I can’t avoid for the last four years.
By You got 14 bricks right there? Go To PostWaking up (5am) and going outside when nobody is there is beautiful. Makes me want to move somewhere remote so I don't need to be around anyone.Aye. I do want a few people around because bursts of activity is fun, but I prefer stillness and quiet more often than not.
By diehard Go To Posti've become dependent on benadryl
It’s also my wife’s sleep aid lol
By You got 14 bricks right there? Go To PostWaking up (5am) and going outside when nobody is there is beautiful. Makes me want to move somewhere remote so I don't need to be around anyone.
walking through the city during the early days of covid was bliss.
so quiet.
By bud Go To Postwalking through the city during the early days of covid was bliss.Covent Garden was like 28 days later.
so quiet.
By Batong Go To PostCovent Garden was like 28 days later.it was great.
By Kibner Go To PostAye. I do want a few people around because bursts of activity is fun, but I prefer stillness and quiet more often than not.
I've lived in NY my whole life, I've hit the activity quota on my life probably 10 years ago. I'm good with interacting via internet and just seeing my family at this point.
By bud Go To Postwalking through the city during the early days of covid was bliss.
so quiet.
Take me back to that time.
I can get pretty good sleep but some stuff just gives me night sweats or acid reflux/heartburn problems so if I truly want to eat it, I need to stay up a bit and definitely not go to bed right after or have an earlier dinner consisting of it.
By i can get you a toe Go To PostI can get pretty good sleep but some stuff just gives me night sweats or acid reflux/heartburn problems so if I truly want to eat it, I need to stay up a bit and definitely not go to bed right after or have an earlier dinner consisting of it.Very relatable 😭
So... I want to let you folks in on some shit. Haven't talked about it. Here goes.
tl;dr: 9/11 Never Forget™
Y’all remember in February 2022 that I had to go to the hospital for a) endless vomiting and b) alcohol withdrawal? I spent a night in the ER, then another night admitted to the ICU. I was treated and monitored through a short detox, given a prescription to Librium, and sent on my way, and I would live my life free of alcohol from there until the end of my days on earth, or so the thought went.
I made it 12 days.
On that day, I allowed myself to believe that as long as I would drink in moderation, I could keep it under control. To rephrase, as long as I control it, I could control it. Finding the logic irrefutable, off I went to the ABC store. And then I binged, as that’s my default setting.
The thing is at the time, I knew it wasn’t as fun as I wanted it to be. I knew it enough that I logged as much the next day in my drinking journal. Yes, I kept a journal of my drinking, which was essentially a rough estimate of ounces of pure ethanol consumed (a 1.5oz shot of 80 proof vodka would be 0.6) as well as some commentary, should I be interested in typing anything out. I could also see my 7 day total and average consumption. The intent of this journal was to try to quit. It eventually became useless towards that endeavor, but I could still use it to shame myself, so that was good. On the day after the binge, I typed in “6.0” and “Did I even feel drunk? What was the point?” Nevertheless, I persisted. On the sixth consecutive day of resuming the habit, the values were “8.9” and “Fuck you.”
Anyway, on this went for several months, and there were several logged attempts to try to start tapering off. These were unsuccessful, the withdrawal was starting to set in earlier and harder. My diet became utter shit again. Eventually, I just stopped logging my drinking. I had been logging for 2 years, and then I just stopped. The drinking didn’t.
I got to early July and I once again tried to make a go of tapering. I spent much of this particular day in bed, keeping my withdrawal under my own observation. Are my fingers trembling more? How is my heartrate? Is it time to go get another drink or can I wait a bit longer? I had gotten my previous drink around 6PM. I rode it out until 10PM and then got out of bed to go get the next one. One problem, though. I couldn’t stand.
For a few days, I had been finding it difficult to get out of bed. My legs didn’t want to stay under me, or I couldn’t straighten up. I would quickly stumble over to the wall nearest my bedside and kind of catch myself with my hands there until my body stabilized beneath me, and then I could walk away as if nothing happened. Just a little momentary glitch, keep it moving. Similar things could happen after sitting for a long length of time. But on this night, I wasn’t going to make it to the wall and I quickly knew it, so I fell back towards the bed. I could sit up, so I sat there and thought to try again. And then again. After however many attempts, I knew I needed a drink or else, but that really wasn’t an option anymore, so my “else” became doing a controlled fall out of my bed, crawling down the hall to my office (where my cell was), and calling 911.
The 911 operator told me to get to my door and have it unlocked prior to the ambulance arriving. Easier said than done! I couldn’t walk and my front door was down 1.5 flights of stairs. I had to crawl kind of like I was playing crab soccer (but without my ass ever getting off the floor) from the front of my house on the third floor to the mid part where the stairwell started, taking me down to the back of the house on the second floor, back around to the mid part to get to the stairs that would lead me to the front door.
I hadn’t made it down to the second floor before my doorbell was already ringing, and it took me several more minutes to get there. Even when I got within eyeshot of the door and the paramedics were yelling in saying I needed to unlock it, it still took seemingly forever to first make it to the door and then reach with all my might towards the lock. Once the door was open, they came in and soon enough came around to telling me “You’re in DTs, and maybe a few minutes from slipping into a coma.” Off to the hospital again. I didn’t return home for 27 days.
I first spent a day and a half in a room off the ER. I could tell you more about the specifics of the first ER trip than this one, as this was a blur. However, I can say that it was here that I hallucinated for the first time in my life. It was rather tame, and I quickly recognized it as a hallucination, as it was hard to believe anything else with what was happening. I saw a person standing outside the window, kind of looked menacing to a degree but also looked kind of like Carrot Top. Then within a blink, it shifted to a different person. Then shifted again. Then back to menacing Carrot Top. So I was like “alright, I’m hallucinating an almost scary Carrot Top, what’s for dinner.”
After the ER, I was once again in ICU, then after a few days, I was transferred to TCU. I was told early on that I needed to start physical therapy, but nothing happened in the first week, that time was simply to allow me to detox and then for my body to recuperate to some degree. Once they thought I was able, I started getting roughly 30 minutes with physical therapy per day, and another 30 minutes with occupational therapy. This started first with progressing towards standing in a walker. Later, seeing if I could use the walker and make it to the door. Later still, try to make it down the hall. OT would also help me with ADLs, things like just being able to get to a sink and brush my teeth.
The remaining 23 hours of the day were all potty humor. In reality, I got to experience multiple condom-catheter failures as they would explode or simply be forced off midstream. This is something you should know about if you’re ever bed-bound, kids. Urinating is dangerous. Better still, I got to plead with the staff to be able to use a bedside toilet instead of a bedpan, recruiting my therapists to my cause. This pattern of life continued though day 20, when I was transferred out of the hospital and to an acute rehab center to continue with PT and OT.
Not to drone on and on, I went to acute therapy on a Thursday and was released on the Friday a week after. During that time, I received 3-4 hours of therapy each day, received counseling often uninvited but I took it in with good, if not exactly full, intention. And then I was back to my home. I left only a couple of days into July, I returned with only a couple of days remaining of it. It felt like I had lost a month. You would think I learned a lesson.
11 days.
“You dumb motherfucker.”
Just over a week into August, I returned to work. I remember feeling euphoric at some point during that workday, and that was I think the first notion I had of taking another drink. Not to sprain my shoulder patting myself on the back, but I wouldn’t give in so easily at that moment. I waited an additional day to do that part.
I don’t know the lie I told myself this time, I don’t know if I said I could do the moderation thing again or if I just said fuck it. All I know is that this was a speed run of the last time. It went downhill and it went downhill fast. My nutrition again returned to shit. I found it difficult to eat at all, couldn’t so much as force myself to do it. I was growing weaker rapidly. I couldn’t really take care of myself. I wasn’t venturing too far from home – I couldn’t.
Here's where things get blurrier. What is known is that I worked on Wednesday, 9/7. I had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for 9/9, and I knew in advance that I wasn’t sure I was going to go. And on 9/11, my father found me on my bathroom floor flipped over backwards in a chair, and if he had not, I would be dead.
For the unknown, I am still not sure how being on the bathroom floor happened. This isn’t like blacking out and that’s just where I ended up. I have a memory of what could have happened, I just don’t know that it did. I have lots of memories from the days between 9/7 and 9/11. Hell, I have memories that happened after 9/11… before 9/11. With so many provably false memories, it’s hard to arrive at what is provably true.
For example, I can say with 99.2% confidence that I did not hang out with members of Dusty Rhodes’ family and Snoop Dogg discussing Snoop’s 3 year wrestling career of the early 2010s. With the same confidence I can say that I also did not later talk to either the ghost or reanimated corpse of Dusty Rhodes’ mother (leaning more towards ghost). So even if I have a memory of falling in my bathroom – and I do – I have no way of knowing if what I remember is what actually happened. I have memories of being on my bathroom floor. I have memories of trying to get up and not being able to. I also remember starting to hallucinate quite early, recognizing I was hallucinating. I have at least a vague notion of how much time had to have passed at minimum (it’s still not known when I actually fell!) just by knowing I heard my alarm clock radio go off 3 separate times and make its way into my hallucinations.
Back to what we do know. On 9/11, I was in the middle of one of another tale woven together by my decaying mind. I was in a setting where I was waiting for my mother to come and speak to me about my drinking, as it turns out. A lot of my hallucinations went back to drinking. A lot of them had to do with me being unable to get up. In this one, I was slouched and couldn’t maneuver myself to sit up, I was with people, and I was waiting for my mother to get upstairs in the building I was in and come into the room. I would send people down for her, she wouldn’t come up. I thought she had come up and then I heard her walk away. I heard pounding at my door, I figured it was an angry customer. And then someone finally did come in, but it was my dad who rushed into view, and he looked at me and said “HE’S ALIVE! HE’S ALIVE!” I said “where’s mom?”
I saw my father actually walk into the room. This part of the entire thing was really happening in front of me. After finding me, he called up firemen and policemen who were already on scene. They rendered aid, and eventually I was carried downstairs and outside. I was shocked to notice I was being carried down stairs and not an elevator. When we got outside, it was hot as hell, or so I thought, which was also a surprise. I never knew I was at my own house, let alone that it was supposed to be hot.
Anyway, skipping back to medical reality again, not to shift all around. I was severely in DTs. I was dehydrated, and I had a very high level of CKs in my bloodstream and a bad case of rhabdomyolysis. The normal CK range in a healthy person is somewhere between 30-300 U/L. Ideally, it’s closer to the lower limit. It can vary due to such things as physical activity, but it shouldn’t venture far and not for too long. My first measured level was above 26000. That’s toxic. I have been told, and I have no reason to doubt it, that I had maybe hours to live had I not been found? Setting everything else aside, there’s only so long you can go without water. Whatever the number is, I know I was never pulling myself off that floor. It would have literally been impossible.
Actually, let me kind of summarize from here but I’ll answer whatever questions. Once at the hospital and once mostly clear of mind, that’s when I again learned that I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t sit up really. I spent 26 days in the hospital, and then another month at a skilled nursing facility. Most of my time even there was spent in a wheelchair. In addition to considerable muscle loss from rhabdo, I had suffered nerve damage in my right leg that is still healing to this day. It was not merely loss of strength that kept me from walking normally, it was an inability to even transmit the signals necessary. It was only in the very last week at the SNF that I walked without the aid of a walker during therapy.
While in the hospital, I was diagnosed with depression and put on Lexapro and trazodone. I take an unholy amount of gabapentin daily for nerve pain. Despite the sedating effects of trazodone and gabapentin, I have to take Benadryl just to get to sleep at night, but at least I discovered that it worked. Before that, the pain would keep me up well into the morning hours before drowsiness could win for a bit until anything woke me up and then I was hosed once more. (At the SNF, I would be on trazodone, gabapentin, tramadol, and lorazepam, all sedating, still couldn’t sleep.)
Since being discharged, I have not been living in my house, I have been staying with my parents at the beach. My time at my house has been only for a day or two at a time for appointments, mostly medical but some not. I have hopes of being able to return home to stay in the coming months, but it won’t be this month. I’d like to say it could be this year. In the interim, I have been slowly trying to cobble together a home worth returning to.
I have been sober 11 months. The eternal pessimist in me will say – has said – I also haven’t had the opportunity to drink. But that’s actually not true, I have had opportunity, when outside the seeing eyes of my parents. I just haven’t done it.
By the way, nothing makes you feel like a child again quite like living with your parents again and feeling as if you’re under their supervision.
Control your vices, kids.
AMA.
tl;dr: 9/11 Never Forget™
Y’all remember in February 2022 that I had to go to the hospital for a) endless vomiting and b) alcohol withdrawal? I spent a night in the ER, then another night admitted to the ICU. I was treated and monitored through a short detox, given a prescription to Librium, and sent on my way, and I would live my life free of alcohol from there until the end of my days on earth, or so the thought went.
I made it 12 days.
On that day, I allowed myself to believe that as long as I would drink in moderation, I could keep it under control. To rephrase, as long as I control it, I could control it. Finding the logic irrefutable, off I went to the ABC store. And then I binged, as that’s my default setting.
The thing is at the time, I knew it wasn’t as fun as I wanted it to be. I knew it enough that I logged as much the next day in my drinking journal. Yes, I kept a journal of my drinking, which was essentially a rough estimate of ounces of pure ethanol consumed (a 1.5oz shot of 80 proof vodka would be 0.6) as well as some commentary, should I be interested in typing anything out. I could also see my 7 day total and average consumption. The intent of this journal was to try to quit. It eventually became useless towards that endeavor, but I could still use it to shame myself, so that was good. On the day after the binge, I typed in “6.0” and “Did I even feel drunk? What was the point?” Nevertheless, I persisted. On the sixth consecutive day of resuming the habit, the values were “8.9” and “Fuck you.”
Anyway, on this went for several months, and there were several logged attempts to try to start tapering off. These were unsuccessful, the withdrawal was starting to set in earlier and harder. My diet became utter shit again. Eventually, I just stopped logging my drinking. I had been logging for 2 years, and then I just stopped. The drinking didn’t.
I got to early July and I once again tried to make a go of tapering. I spent much of this particular day in bed, keeping my withdrawal under my own observation. Are my fingers trembling more? How is my heartrate? Is it time to go get another drink or can I wait a bit longer? I had gotten my previous drink around 6PM. I rode it out until 10PM and then got out of bed to go get the next one. One problem, though. I couldn’t stand.
For a few days, I had been finding it difficult to get out of bed. My legs didn’t want to stay under me, or I couldn’t straighten up. I would quickly stumble over to the wall nearest my bedside and kind of catch myself with my hands there until my body stabilized beneath me, and then I could walk away as if nothing happened. Just a little momentary glitch, keep it moving. Similar things could happen after sitting for a long length of time. But on this night, I wasn’t going to make it to the wall and I quickly knew it, so I fell back towards the bed. I could sit up, so I sat there and thought to try again. And then again. After however many attempts, I knew I needed a drink or else, but that really wasn’t an option anymore, so my “else” became doing a controlled fall out of my bed, crawling down the hall to my office (where my cell was), and calling 911.
The 911 operator told me to get to my door and have it unlocked prior to the ambulance arriving. Easier said than done! I couldn’t walk and my front door was down 1.5 flights of stairs. I had to crawl kind of like I was playing crab soccer (but without my ass ever getting off the floor) from the front of my house on the third floor to the mid part where the stairwell started, taking me down to the back of the house on the second floor, back around to the mid part to get to the stairs that would lead me to the front door.
I hadn’t made it down to the second floor before my doorbell was already ringing, and it took me several more minutes to get there. Even when I got within eyeshot of the door and the paramedics were yelling in saying I needed to unlock it, it still took seemingly forever to first make it to the door and then reach with all my might towards the lock. Once the door was open, they came in and soon enough came around to telling me “You’re in DTs, and maybe a few minutes from slipping into a coma.” Off to the hospital again. I didn’t return home for 27 days.
I first spent a day and a half in a room off the ER. I could tell you more about the specifics of the first ER trip than this one, as this was a blur. However, I can say that it was here that I hallucinated for the first time in my life. It was rather tame, and I quickly recognized it as a hallucination, as it was hard to believe anything else with what was happening. I saw a person standing outside the window, kind of looked menacing to a degree but also looked kind of like Carrot Top. Then within a blink, it shifted to a different person. Then shifted again. Then back to menacing Carrot Top. So I was like “alright, I’m hallucinating an almost scary Carrot Top, what’s for dinner.”
After the ER, I was once again in ICU, then after a few days, I was transferred to TCU. I was told early on that I needed to start physical therapy, but nothing happened in the first week, that time was simply to allow me to detox and then for my body to recuperate to some degree. Once they thought I was able, I started getting roughly 30 minutes with physical therapy per day, and another 30 minutes with occupational therapy. This started first with progressing towards standing in a walker. Later, seeing if I could use the walker and make it to the door. Later still, try to make it down the hall. OT would also help me with ADLs, things like just being able to get to a sink and brush my teeth.
The remaining 23 hours of the day were all potty humor. In reality, I got to experience multiple condom-catheter failures as they would explode or simply be forced off midstream. This is something you should know about if you’re ever bed-bound, kids. Urinating is dangerous. Better still, I got to plead with the staff to be able to use a bedside toilet instead of a bedpan, recruiting my therapists to my cause. This pattern of life continued though day 20, when I was transferred out of the hospital and to an acute rehab center to continue with PT and OT.
Not to drone on and on, I went to acute therapy on a Thursday and was released on the Friday a week after. During that time, I received 3-4 hours of therapy each day, received counseling often uninvited but I took it in with good, if not exactly full, intention. And then I was back to my home. I left only a couple of days into July, I returned with only a couple of days remaining of it. It felt like I had lost a month. You would think I learned a lesson.
11 days.
“You dumb motherfucker.”
Just over a week into August, I returned to work. I remember feeling euphoric at some point during that workday, and that was I think the first notion I had of taking another drink. Not to sprain my shoulder patting myself on the back, but I wouldn’t give in so easily at that moment. I waited an additional day to do that part.
I don’t know the lie I told myself this time, I don’t know if I said I could do the moderation thing again or if I just said fuck it. All I know is that this was a speed run of the last time. It went downhill and it went downhill fast. My nutrition again returned to shit. I found it difficult to eat at all, couldn’t so much as force myself to do it. I was growing weaker rapidly. I couldn’t really take care of myself. I wasn’t venturing too far from home – I couldn’t.
Here's where things get blurrier. What is known is that I worked on Wednesday, 9/7. I had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for 9/9, and I knew in advance that I wasn’t sure I was going to go. And on 9/11, my father found me on my bathroom floor flipped over backwards in a chair, and if he had not, I would be dead.
For the unknown, I am still not sure how being on the bathroom floor happened. This isn’t like blacking out and that’s just where I ended up. I have a memory of what could have happened, I just don’t know that it did. I have lots of memories from the days between 9/7 and 9/11. Hell, I have memories that happened after 9/11… before 9/11. With so many provably false memories, it’s hard to arrive at what is provably true.
For example, I can say with 99.2% confidence that I did not hang out with members of Dusty Rhodes’ family and Snoop Dogg discussing Snoop’s 3 year wrestling career of the early 2010s. With the same confidence I can say that I also did not later talk to either the ghost or reanimated corpse of Dusty Rhodes’ mother (leaning more towards ghost). So even if I have a memory of falling in my bathroom – and I do – I have no way of knowing if what I remember is what actually happened. I have memories of being on my bathroom floor. I have memories of trying to get up and not being able to. I also remember starting to hallucinate quite early, recognizing I was hallucinating. I have at least a vague notion of how much time had to have passed at minimum (it’s still not known when I actually fell!) just by knowing I heard my alarm clock radio go off 3 separate times and make its way into my hallucinations.
Back to what we do know. On 9/11, I was in the middle of one of another tale woven together by my decaying mind. I was in a setting where I was waiting for my mother to come and speak to me about my drinking, as it turns out. A lot of my hallucinations went back to drinking. A lot of them had to do with me being unable to get up. In this one, I was slouched and couldn’t maneuver myself to sit up, I was with people, and I was waiting for my mother to get upstairs in the building I was in and come into the room. I would send people down for her, she wouldn’t come up. I thought she had come up and then I heard her walk away. I heard pounding at my door, I figured it was an angry customer. And then someone finally did come in, but it was my dad who rushed into view, and he looked at me and said “HE’S ALIVE! HE’S ALIVE!” I said “where’s mom?”
I saw my father actually walk into the room. This part of the entire thing was really happening in front of me. After finding me, he called up firemen and policemen who were already on scene. They rendered aid, and eventually I was carried downstairs and outside. I was shocked to notice I was being carried down stairs and not an elevator. When we got outside, it was hot as hell, or so I thought, which was also a surprise. I never knew I was at my own house, let alone that it was supposed to be hot.
Anyway, skipping back to medical reality again, not to shift all around. I was severely in DTs. I was dehydrated, and I had a very high level of CKs in my bloodstream and a bad case of rhabdomyolysis. The normal CK range in a healthy person is somewhere between 30-300 U/L. Ideally, it’s closer to the lower limit. It can vary due to such things as physical activity, but it shouldn’t venture far and not for too long. My first measured level was above 26000. That’s toxic. I have been told, and I have no reason to doubt it, that I had maybe hours to live had I not been found? Setting everything else aside, there’s only so long you can go without water. Whatever the number is, I know I was never pulling myself off that floor. It would have literally been impossible.
Actually, let me kind of summarize from here but I’ll answer whatever questions. Once at the hospital and once mostly clear of mind, that’s when I again learned that I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t sit up really. I spent 26 days in the hospital, and then another month at a skilled nursing facility. Most of my time even there was spent in a wheelchair. In addition to considerable muscle loss from rhabdo, I had suffered nerve damage in my right leg that is still healing to this day. It was not merely loss of strength that kept me from walking normally, it was an inability to even transmit the signals necessary. It was only in the very last week at the SNF that I walked without the aid of a walker during therapy.
While in the hospital, I was diagnosed with depression and put on Lexapro and trazodone. I take an unholy amount of gabapentin daily for nerve pain. Despite the sedating effects of trazodone and gabapentin, I have to take Benadryl just to get to sleep at night, but at least I discovered that it worked. Before that, the pain would keep me up well into the morning hours before drowsiness could win for a bit until anything woke me up and then I was hosed once more. (At the SNF, I would be on trazodone, gabapentin, tramadol, and lorazepam, all sedating, still couldn’t sleep.)
Since being discharged, I have not been living in my house, I have been staying with my parents at the beach. My time at my house has been only for a day or two at a time for appointments, mostly medical but some not. I have hopes of being able to return home to stay in the coming months, but it won’t be this month. I’d like to say it could be this year. In the interim, I have been slowly trying to cobble together a home worth returning to.
I have been sober 11 months. The eternal pessimist in me will say – has said – I also haven’t had the opportunity to drink. But that’s actually not true, I have had opportunity, when outside the seeing eyes of my parents. I just haven’t done it.
By the way, nothing makes you feel like a child again quite like living with your parents again and feeling as if you’re under their supervision.
Control your vices, kids.
AMA.
