Making Sh** Happen

My stubborn refusal to take any of the meds Dr. Z offered me lasted just shy of a month.  It was a grim month with no sleep, and full of flashbacks...day and night.  I could not stop seeing her on the road.  In my mind, I ran down my street over and over and over again, but I was always too late.  I always arrived, just as I did that day, to find her laid out on the road, facedown, her hair obscuring her face, and one arm horribly twisted.  Several times a day I relived the horror of not being able to get close to her, or to touch her.  The passerby had already called 911, and had enough sense to know not to try to move her.  I screamed, "Is she breathing?" to anyone and everyone, but no one would meet my eyes.  Watching the ambulance come down West Michigan, seemingly in slow motion, sirens going full blast is an image that will never leave my mind.  I cannot abide sirens to this day.  At the least, I will visibly cringe, and the memories come flooding.  On a worse day, I will begin shaking all over, with a crying jag not far behind.

As the first responders arrived, I would shout to anyone who would listen that she was my daughter, and that she was 19, only 19...as if, somehow, her very age might protect her.  As I ran down the road, I thought a broken leg, a broken arm, at most, please God, please.
When I saw her, I thought concussion, but we'll go the hospital.  She may have to stay over night.
But then they turned her over.  My insides collapsed as I got a good look at her face.  Her beautiful lips were blue...blue.  I have never felt such utter terror.  My hands begin raking and pulling down the sides of my face of their own accord.  I could only scream, "Is she breathing?" at the top of my lungs like a broken record, until at last a man came over to give me the news.  Six words that sent me to my knees on the concrete, screaming at the sky, quite out of my mind.

So, thirty-odd days of these types of unbidden images finally took their toll.  I still stoutly maintained that I was not depressed.  This was not depression.  No pill could fix this, or make it better.  But I needed to sleep.  I needed to shut my eyes for once, and not be at the side of the road.  So, I agreed to take something to help me sleep.  This was a tiny white flag that I struggled to lift, and I wondered if Cory had felt the same way when she went on meds.
 I think for everyone, there must be that initial denial that anything is that wrong, or that they are wrong to the point that nothing could possibly help.  But after suffering has gotten a good strong foothold, you begin to weaken, and rethink your position on help, and on medication.  I would budge on the sleep meds, but on an anti-depressant, the jury was still out.

Dr. Z was entirely pleased to write me a presciption for something to help me sleep.  I had this idea that I would take it, and the lights would go out.  Knock me out.  I should've known better.  When your mind is unsettled, sleep meds don't always work quickly or efficiently.  On a day Cory was doing pretty well, she nodded out about twenty minutes after taking her meds.  But if she was delusional, they made no dent.  Her brain was in such high gear, it would take one look at those meds, and sniff, saying, to hell with you, catch me if you can.
It was the same case for me.  We had to try more.  Then we had to try something different.  He gave me Seroquel, and guaranteed I should be out in no time.  In fact, he told me to be sure I took the pills laying in bed because I might not make it safely to bed if I didn't.  I was duly impressed.  Cory had taken this med, and while it wasn't for her, I did remember it being quite sedative.
Yeah, not so much.  It did nothing.  I wasn't even drowsy.  Dr. Z told me not to worry, and doubled the amount.
I should cut in here to talk just a bit about my diet at this time.  It was non-exisistent.  I wasn't eating, or really drinking at all.  Eventually I went to my comfort food,and subsisted on Chips Ahoy cookies and milk, going from one package to two a week, and then eventually the family size.
Is it really any surprise that I started to have some digestive issues? 
I began to feel bloated.  Even drinking water, made me feel too full, and ill.  I started to vaguely notice it had been awhile since I had moved my bowels.  Within a couple more days, my stomach was visibly swollen, and continued to swell until I could only fit into a roomy maxi dress.  From the side, I looked about 5 months pregnant, and my belly had begun to ache all the time.
I went to my next appointment with Dr. Z, and asked him if constipation was a side effect of the Seroquel.  Indeed, it was.  And certainly, my current diet was not helping.  He told me what to buy at the drugstore, and what to eat...dried fruit, veggies, lots of water, all the usual suspects.  I left feeling relieved; I would soon be feeling better.
Only, none of that worked.  I took the drugstore meds.  Nothing.  I ate prunes by the handful.  Nothing.  I beat a steady path between my bed and the bathroom, crying and screaming by turns.  At one point, I climbed on my kitchen counter (completely unsafe), and began ravaging the top shelf of my baking cupboard for dried fruit of any kind.  With tears streaming down my face, I crouched, eating huge handfuls of golden raisins, dried apricots, and craisins.  Nothing.
A friend called to check in on me, as was her daily habit, and suggested I do the bicycle exercise they have infants do when they can't have a bowel movement.   I tried that as well.
Still nothing.
I began to feel like I was going to literally explode.  Desperate, I asked Jake to call my sister and brother in law and beg them for help.  They came to the rescue, bringing over a large container of powder laxitive and a Gatorade.  They told me my worries were over.  Both of them were at the age that they had suffered the indignity of a colonoscopy.  Their doctor had them clear out their systems before the procedure by taking heroic amounts of powdered laxitives.  They mixed it, and stayed with me while I drank it.  I laid on my bed, prudently on my side, butt in the air.  At this point, I could not lay or sit comfortably.  They assured me if I drank every drop, I would be pooping like a champion within the hour.  I cannot describe how much I looked forward to this prospect.  If someone had offered me a million dollars or the immediate  ability to take a shit, I wouldn't have hesitated to turn that  money down.  If you have ever been truly constipated, I am sure you understand.  It is misery, in every sense of the word.
It took me thirty or forty minutes to down that vile powdery orange flavored gloop.  To this day, I cannot look at an orange Gatorade without my stomach rolling helplessly.  Once I had managed the last sip, talking with my sister and her husband about Cory and the accident, sobbing the entire time, and stinking the up the room with a foul stench, they assured me I would soon feel the urge to go, and went back home.
They were gone about five minutes, when I had an urge all right.  I barely made it to the toilet when I began violently throwing up all over the place.  I have never vomited quite like that before.  I could feel my eyeballs pushing out of their sockets, as my bladder gave way.  By the time Tim got home a few minutes later, I was in a pool of my own vomit, urine, and some unidentifiable foul liquid solid that was seeping out of my rear.  I had vomited so much, I could not move.  Tim, a cleancut, slightly OCD sort of fellow about his grooming habits, looked in the bathroom doorway to find his wife, who certainly wasn't looking her best these days in the first place, had become a dirty, stinky salamander beached on her side, laying in her own filth, vomit splattered hair in her face.  "Oh dear!"  were his first words.
With a protective layer of towels down on the car seat, Tim and Jake drove me to the E.R.  I was crying and wailing with pain.  They put me in a wheelchair, that I could not sit in on my butt, but had to wedge myself into on my side.  Then the wait began.  During the next two hours, Tim later told me, I cried out for Cory every few minutes.  At one point, I asked him to call my mom to make sure she was okay.  I begged for him to tell me she was ok.  He would not.
When I was finally called back into triage, the E.R. doctor asked me what meds I was on, and what they were for.  I would only allow that the Seroquel was because I had trouble sleeping because my daughter was very ill.  "She has a mental illness, and she's been very sick".
Tim, the voice of inarguable no-nonsense logic overrode my statement, telling the doctor about the accident.  At this point, I naturally -and quite logically to me- covered my ears and began screaming hysterically.
I wasn't truly delusional.  Deep down, I knew where and how she was.  I only wanted the small comfort of not facing it for a bit.  These medical personnel didn't know me or Cory.  If I told them she was alive, just ill, they had no reason not to believe me.  In a sense- for a couple of hours anyway- she could be alive again.
I was in tremondous physical pain.  I just couldn't juggle that pain with the mental agony of her being gone.  It was too much.  I wasn't strong enough.  The physical pain I could do nothing about, but if I could pretend away my loss for a few minutes, what was the harm?  My mind created this temporary reprieve to protect itself from becoming overloaded like a jammed switchboard. 
I wanted to be the mother of two beautiful children, again...my dynamic duo.  For God's sake, why won't he let me?  Didn't he ever play dress up as a child?
The doctor absorbed this information quietly, and ordered something to calm my nerves.  They sent me to x-ray to make sure a load of crap was all that we were dealing with.
In the end, that's just what it was.  The Seroquel combined with my poor diet had blocked my system.  The doctor informed me, once Tim and Jake had left the room, that there was only one way to remedy the situation.  The nurse pulled the curtain, and the doctor gloved up.  I don't have to tell you what happened next.  You really don't want to know.  Let's just say, I've never let a man become that intimate with my ass, if we weren't in a committed relationship.
I didn't even know his name.  But I know he earned every cent of his money on that particular shift.
Just as a follow up treat, the nurse gave me my first ever warm water enema.
If you've never had one, try to avoid it at all costs.
Not only will it clear your system, it will also strip away any semblance of dignity that you have maintained.  Nurses giving enemas are not cheery and caring.  They are irritable and frightened...mostly frightened because with any false move, they will become splattered with another human being's shit water from head to toe. 
To add insult to injury, Tim ducked his head in to check on me, mid-enema.  I don't know how he could ever look at me sexually again.  The smell was so foul, he practically sprinted away with a dubious, "Check on you later, honey!"

 So, my point for this overshare is this:  whenever you think things cannot possibly get worse, just remember they could.  You could feel that way AND be unable to poop.
It seems God enjoys a little healthy perspective taking.