Timelines

Today I found myself in discussions regarding the timelines of when things happened when I was in the hospital.

When I was in the ICU, time became a big ball of timey-whimey goo, a string of images and half-remembered events. There are certain things that I remember with some clarity. At one point after I got the traych, I got a mucus plug stuck in my airway. This made it extremely hard to breath. Emily called the doctors in, as I tried (unsuccessfully) to remain calm and breath slowly. Eventually, as my breathing became more and more labored, I lost consciousness. I'm not exactly sure how much time passed, but when I came to, the doctors had successfully removed the plug. Another time that I remember is one of the nights soon after I was put on the liquids restriction. I seemed like the longest night ever, as I tried to satiate my thirst with ice chips. Memories like this are there, but I really can't piece them together into a coherent timeline.

I began to think about when I was able to actually stand without a number of people helping. I believe it was sometime in early March that we started to work on standing with a lift in physical therapy. This was nice in that it was a way to get me upright, but was a hindrance in that it wasn't tall enough to allow me to stand up completely. When I went to the University Hospital in Iowa City for surgery in April, the PTs there worked with me using another method to help me stand. That was the first time I actually stood since before all of this had happened, albeit with the assistance of 3 PTs. It was soon after this that I started to head in the right direction as far as standing and, eventually, walking.

I've wondered why it took that long to get to that point. I've tried to pick other memories out from that time to tell if there was any discernible change in how I was feeling, or how I was working on things, and I haven't been able to come up with anything. It is somewhat of an unknown part of my hospital timeline, but one that was a major milestone.

Please stop putting knots in my timeline... I'm going to need that later.