ICU

ICU

Ok, now it starts to get a little foggy. I was admitted on the afternoon of August 11. I remember answering some questions while they rolled me to my private room. The place looked almost full, there appeared to be only a couple vacant rooms. As we came to the bed, I remember it looking very tall; the two nurses looked at each other and said it would be a few minutes because they needed to get some help to get me into the bed. I said, “I got it.” I took a deep breath, stood up and hopped into bed. That really impressed one of the nurses. She said, “Wow, ok!”  I met a couple more nurses. One of the nurses said, “You don’t know me, but I know you. You are my daughter’s favorite teacher.”

She started to explain the treatments they were going to use to try to get my oxygen level up. I said, “I’m not going on a ventilator; I heard if you go on one of those, you’re not likely to come off.” She nodded her head and said there were some other things to try first.   A guy named Josh came in and started me on some breathing treatments. He ended up putting me on three different machines and masks and tried to teach me how to breathe, in through the nose and out through the mouth. I thought that’s what I was doing.  Who knew breathing could be so challenging! My room had a big window that looked out at the yard, a sidewalk and a lone little tree. My room also had a small tv. That’s about all I remember about the first day or so, breathing treatments and tv. My O2 was still very low, and they did not allow any visitors, including my family.  I still had my phone.  I couldn’t talk to anyone because of the mask, but at least I could text.

Sometime on Thursday, I received a care package from my mom and some clothes from my wife. They still wouldn’t let me see my family. I was flipping through the channels and found out that the movie Zootopia was starting at seven. I texted my wife and said, “I miss you, but we can still have a movie night.” I told her which channel and when. She said that sounded like fun.  When the movie started, we texted back and forth. About an hour in she started giving me a bad time about my spelling and my sentence structure. I wasn’t always making sense. I noticed that every time I texted my o2 levels dropped. I texted her, “This texting must be hard work because my levels keep dropping.” When the movie was over, I texted her that I loved her, that I was tired and needed to go to sleep. We said good night.

I must have passed out because I don’t remember much after that. It must have been rough; I vaguely remember them trying to convince me I needed to go on the ventilator. I kept refusing.

Now there were many people in my room; I think it was my nurse that sat next to me on the bed and rubbed my arm and Josh kneeled in front of me, the others stood around him. He told me they had no choice; they needed to ventilate me soon. I refused, then one of them said, “Casey if we don’t, you going to die.”

After some hesitation, I answered, “I guess”. It was a blur; before I knew it there were people all around me telling me what they were doing and what I needed to do. I vaguely remember someone holding my head and saying breath out…    It was FRIDAY the 13th.