Previously on Ginny Is Constantly Dying
I was having such a good day on Saturday. My breathing had been bad for the past couple days, but I was huffing my nebulizer and pushing through. The house was extra clean in prep for my landlord visiting. That went fine, and I stifled my want to admonish the evils of landlording so I could continue having a place to live.
After that, I got to visit a new friend who just bought a house and some farm land. My puppy, Georgie, got to come along and was an angel the whole time. I was taking hits of my inhaler and really getting annoyed at how it was hard to get a breath. But I didn’t mention it because why would I? I always have trouble breathing, and I was having a nice time.
Back home that evening, it quickly got worse. I made the call to my friend to come over because I wasn’t breathing well. I was sucking on my nebulizer and trying to do jedi mind tricks to relax my body but it wasn’t working. It felt like my chest had locked up and was refusing to cooperate. As we waited for the ambulance, I lost consciousness.
From my friends account, I then collapsed onto the floor. I was unresponsive, eyes open, lips turning blue. The paramedics showed up and I went into seizure, my fists balling up, jaw clenched, and reportedly “scary as shit”. They got me into an ambulance and to the hospital.
My memory goes from kneeling in the kitchen, to being in hospital with multiple people doing various things around me and yelling “MADAME?? MADAME CA VA??” in my face. This is also where I learned that sometimes when you have a seizure, you pee your pants.
I was shuttled from room to room, most of this time I was still out of it. Eventually I was wheeled into the oubliette room, which is what I called this same room the last time they put me in it after an asthma attack and just left me there with no one checking on me for long stretches of time.
I finally woke into proper consciousness around 22:30 because my phone, which was in a bag under my stretcher, was vibrating due to the puppy’s potty alarm. I slowly got the strength to get my phone out and tell someone I wasn’t dead and to make sure my pets were okay.
I tried to sleep, but a bare hospital room with no bed or pillows does not exactly make for great rest. I rolled up the jacket I had with me as a pillow on the stretcher and did as best I could until about 4:00. My sciatic shit and other leg issues made it not ideal.
In the morning, I start to realize that I do not have a mask. Okay, I thought, I’ve been on and off breathing treatments, certainly that is why. Then another patient walks by the door. No mask. Now I’m confused. The medical staff are wearing masks (more on this later), but the Patients!! Are Not!!!
!!!
My main communication about anything happening is through my friend’s texts. Trying to conserve battery, I turn it on only once every 30 minutes to check messages and my puppy’s webcam. In the morning, I’m told we are waiting for a specialist to see me soon. Morning comes and goes. No doctor. There is a discussion about moving me somewhere else. They end up admitting me into the pulmonology department. As they are doing so, my friend shows up and starts helping with answers in French.
By now it’s mid-afternoon on Sunday. We wait and wait. Then we’re told I have to stay overnight again because the doctor who was supposed to see me didn’t see me. I say no thank you, especially considering my vitals were all stable and no one had been treating me since I left the ER. (Their “treatment” was just the same nebulizer treatments I can do at home, and some saline IV.)
There is a lot of back and forth with different nurses. They argue that the chart says I saw a doctor and was given a breathing treatment at 3PM (the time when my friend was there helping with admission questions, no treatment in sight). At that point we can see they are most likely manipulating their records to cover their asses for not treating me or even having a doctor examine me while simultaneously telling me that what happened was so dangerous that if I leave I could die.
Meanwhile, we find the call button in my room is disconnected.
Hilariously, this is the same doctor (or at least his department) that we made an appointment with upon recommendation from the hospital the last time I was there with an attack. That was the beginning of July, and the first appointment they could give me was February 2022. So I ended up in the hospital again because they couldn’t find time for me in the past 6 months, then tried to keep me in a hospital where patients can’t wear masks during a pandemic (We were told that staff are tested daily. I had just sat with one nurse who took her mask off and was chewing on her pen while taking notes, and was in a room with an elderly patient with no mask. Visitors need to prove vaccination/clear test with a health pass, but those aren’t exactly perfect. It should be one visitor per patient, but my room had multiple visitors for someone crammed in with us. With no open windows or anything. Patients are only tested on the way in, not continuously. I wanted out immediately.) while they wouldn’t bother to find a doctor to see me.
They claimed I was refusing treatment by leaving. I countered that they were refusing to treat me, and thus I was leaving.
So I left.
I have not yet allowed myself time to think about what happened. I don’t know that I’m ready for that yet. This is the closest to death I’ve been. If my friend hadn’t answered her phone, or the paramedics hadn’t been on their way when I lost consciousness, I’d probably not be here. I’ve never had a seizure before. Right now I only have so much energy and that needs to go to either caring for my pets or keeping track of the ridiculous amounts of medical shit that needs tending. Adding to my trauma inbox doesn’t seem like the best idea right now.
I again thank anyone and everyone who helps keep me alive. I’m doing my part to keep living as much as I can.
Say hi to your pets for me. <3 I’ll write more when I can.
PS – This would have been the last photo I took before I died.
