July 31, 2020 – The Day My Life Went to hell

From late 2017 until January 2020, I was very happy driving for Uber and Lyft in Houston. Then came the virus. I had to quit driving and go back home to Lufkin. I received unemployment so I was doing okay. But I caught some kind of head cold or something and went to the Veterans Administration Clinic to get some help. My doctor there thought I had COVID and sent me to the hospital for a COVID test and to get some antibiotics. And then my life went to hell.

The Dr. sent me to St. Lukes Memorial Hospital, Lufkin, Texas.I don’t exactly know what happened because I was given heavy doses of propofol for a month and a half. I was kept in a coma and my memory was wiped away. Something bad happened.

It appears most likely that someone gave me some medication that caused me to stop breathing. The hospital told my wife that’s what happened to me. When I went into that hospital, I was perfectly fine and had no trouble breathing. So somebody fucked up somewhere. Eventually I was on a trak tube. They put a peg tube in my stomach to feed me. The peg tube leaked into my abdomen. On my birthday, August 29, they performed emergency surgery to deal with sepsis.

After a month and a half, they told my wife and children they were wanting to put me in Hospice. They were saying that I would not live too long. I believe they were hoping I would not live too long. During those times, many people died strange deaths because of that disease, COVID. The hospital got money for COVID deaths. Pathetic but true.

My family would not put me in hospice. Instead, they put me in another hospital that was inside the same building as St. Luke’s. It was called the PAM unit. That was an acronym. Post-Acute Medical Hospital. I spent another two months or so there. They took me off propofol. I remember all the nasty shit that happened in the PAM unit.

That hospital had a high rate of nurses turnover. Quite a few of the nurses were rude. The doctors were all idiots. The first thing I remember is having lots of pain in my hips and legs. I insisted they gave me something for pain, but they went way overboard. They rotated doses of fentanyl and tramadol every four hours. They had me so stoned I was totally whacked out. I had delusions.

There was one day when I thought the aliens were going to come get me. I mean extraterrestrial aliens. I believed I was being held in my bed by some kind of strange force from a machine behind the light. I believe my wife was compromised. She knew what they were doing. I called my daughter who was all the way down in Conroe and told her to come get me. She would not do it.

I worked three hours to get my legs, which did not work very well, up over the side of the bed. After I did, the nurses all came in, put my legs back, and told me to be still. I was convinced then that I was screwed. They were going to take me away. I called my son, who is a Marine and was stationed in North Carolina. I called to tell him goodbye. The aliens were taking me away. Needless to say, he kind of freaked out. They took me off all those drugs.

Several of the nurses were hard to work with, but there was one that was a real bitch. She was my night nurse. One night I had soiled myself and she came in to clean me up. She took the pad from underneath me and put it up in my face. She said, “see what you have done.” It was a disgusting episode, but it shows what a crappy time I had there.

I asked to get a different Nurse. That made all of the nurses, especially on the night shift, angry with me. They kept saying I fired that nurse and all I did was ask for someone else. I would have fired the bitch if I’d have been able to. After that, through the night, I was neglected.

There was one night that I somehow, for some reason, started bleeding. I actually think they did something when I was knocked out, but I couldn’t ever prove it. I dread so bad it ran onto the floor. They gave me four pints of blood. When I mentioned to the idiot doctor that I had been given iron when I was anemic before, he decided to give me iron.

When the first IV bag of iron ran out, an orderly came in to change it out. I asked him how he was doing. He said he was putting another bag of iron on there. I said, “what?” He said the doctor prescribed four bags of iron. That would very likely have killed me. I told the guy to quit and not give me any more. Fuck up doctors.

I was completely disabled at that time. Having been in the bed in a coma for a month and a half, I had lost my ability to do anything. I had developed several physical problems. I did not have many of the ailments that they said I had.

The doctors claimed I had severe COPD. They claimed I suffered with sleep apnea. They said I had severe heart failure. They had some other things, but I forgot what they said. When they discharged me to go to a rehab, they said I would not live a year. I’m still here five years later.

I went to a rehab hospital in Humble, Texas. I was there a couple of weeks, but they didn’t do a thing. I was still completely unable to move when they took me home and dumped me in the bed. The VA got me some equipment, a bed, and a patient lift. It took me months to get back on my feet. It took me years to be able to get around fairly well. I still live with some ailments that began when I was in the hospital.

Honestly, I hate that hospital, and I will never forgive them. They basically destroyed my life. I was in no shape to go back to work. The car that I drove for Uber and Lyft was repossessed because I could not pay the notes when I was in the hospital. Basically, I lost my life there in many ways. Everything is different now.

If you’ve gotten this far, thank you for learning about my illness. If you have somebody that you love that winds up in a nasty hospital situation like me, be sure to give them your love. It is a miserable place to be.