The Unbearable Truth

Then, my wife decided to share some of news that I was not aware of…

I remember looking at my wife, with the bright lights beaming directly on me.  I kept blinking my eyes to adjust to my surroundings and the unfamiliar voices that I could hear.  I still was tying to understand how I got from my local hospital to Boston.  There was such a glow on my wife’s face and I could tell there were a tear drop or two in the corner of her eyelid.  She was looking at me in amazement like she never saw me before.  What really happened?  Seriously, what really happened?

My wife started to explain, (before she started her lecturing), “Bruce you have been in the hospital in Boston for 2 weeks now.  You had a major heart event at home and rushed to the emergency room at home, where they were forced to incubate you.  They called Dr. George (my cardiologist) and he had them send you to Boston, because you had a high temperature and your stats were not looking all that great”.  Wow, Mr. George had me transferred.  I have seen Dr. George for over 10 years now and really like him and respect his decisions.  He is stern at times but his personality as a cardiologist is what makes me keep going.  We have had up’s and down’s but he always ended up being right (except when I lost 100lbs on my own).    

She went on to explain that my temperature spiked extremely high and they discovered I had pneumonia on top of everything else going on.  I really didn’t understand how that was even possible as I was at my job the day before without a trace of anything wrong.  Apparently, they treated me for a week for pneumonia and remove my tube.  Once the tube was removed, my temperature rose again and the doctors could not figure out what was going on.  They ended up placing the tube back into my throat and did further testing.  This time, another type of pneumonia showed positive, and once again they began treating me for the other strain of pneumonia that was taking over my lifeless body.

During all of this, my left lung had collapsed, and they talked about putting a trachea in to allow me to breath better.  Deciding not to put the trachea in, they once again attempted to remove my tube.  Later I was able to figure out, when the doctor wanted me to say hmmmmmmmm, was when they were taking the tube out.  My temperature remained stable.

It appeared that I started to come out of everything slowly and my life started again.  I had so many questions that I wanted to ask, to have answered.  How is Ruby?  Did the paramedics lock the door?  Did anyone call my work and tell them I was not going in?  And then, what seemed to be in 5 minute time Kristen and her parent’s left so I could get some sleep.  HOW DARE THEM!!!

They knew what tomorrow would bring and I laid there unaware of how much my life was about to change…..

*please understand that this was extremely hard for me to write today.  I apologize if there are parts that may be confusing.  I just couldn’t go back and re-read it.  The next entry will be even harder for me but I feel that it needs to be done to put some closure on the whole situation that occurred.  Thank you for your understanding.  -Bruce