At Death's Door

Last Sunday night I was sick, but just passed it off as being too tired. When I got to work on Monday, I couldn't talk right, felt confused, and I kept changing words around and people didn't understand what I was saying. Also, my hands were shaking so badly that I couldn't type my username and password into my computer. I vomited and decided it was time to go home. I thought I had the flu.


By Wednesday I was miserable. I hadn't been able to keep anything down since Monday morning. I still assumed I had a super flu, but also realized I was probably dehydrated too. I finally called my doc that afternoon, only because I had already missed three days of work and now needed a doctors note. They told me to go straight to the ER for IV fluids to get rid of the dehydration "and not to wait so long to see a doctor next time".

A friend of mine drove me to the ER because I was so weak. I should mention at this time that during these three days I had developed strange symptoms. I was all of the sudden seeing decorations on the wall in my bedroom, mixed in the paint, that weren't there before. My sense of smell was so sensitized I couldn't handle the cats being near me or I'd throw up.

They got me back pretty quickly and started an IV on me. They thought I was pretty close with my diagnosis and worked me up for dehydration. After the first liter of fluid they had given me via IV, I was still nauseous, so they gave me a second bag of IV fluid and decided I must be really dehydrated.

They were getting ready to discharge me after the second IV bag was infused when the doctor decided to run one more test on a medication I was taking. I'm supposed to get levels on a regular basis, but since I hadn't taken any medications in four days, that was the least of my worries. In the ER I was still seeing and smelling weird things.

I was getting ready for my IV to finish and go home when the doctor came in almost ashen. Looking back, if I'd been a little less confused I would have realized he probably thought I was going to die. The level of the medication I was taking was at toxic levels. It wasn't supposed to go over 1.8 and was at 2.5.  Even though I hadn't taken it in 4 days, they said that the dehydration concentrated the medication and raised it up. The doctor (who was in his 50s) had said he had NEVER seen a level so high. He told me I would have to be admitted immediately and monitored closely.

Mind you, I'm delusional at this time due to the toxicity, but of course didn't realize it, so everything is just exagerrated 3-fold. They transferred me from a small room to the main trauma room in the ER where they hooked me up to an EKG monitor (this is my job, to monitor the ekgs), drew more blood and checked all my vitals again. Then all of these doctors came in asking me all sorts of questions. They wanted to know if I wanted them to bring me back to life if I died....I think that scared me most. Heart doctors came in and listened to my heart, they checked out my kidneys, all the while giving me more and more IV fluids, trying to flush the toxic medication out of my body.

When the results of my EKG came back it turned out my QT wave was longer than it should be.  This was a textbook sign of toxicity.  Having the QT wave too long is not the worst thing that could happen to my heart, but it was scary just knowing that the medication had messed with the conduction of my heart.  By the next morning, they did a repeat EKG and found that my heart conductivity had returned to normal.  I was thanking God profusely for this.

Shortly after I wound up on the exact floor I work on, the telemetry unit. I was attached to monitors all night long so nurses would know if there were any more changes in my heart. I think I was admitted about 9:00p. As hard as I tried, I only slept an hour that night.

What's worse, was the visual hallucinations were ever present and very scary at night. There was a mirror in my room, and a man in uniform kept pointing at me on the other side of the mirror. There were cut out Christmas decorations covering the wall and cartoon characters covering the floor in the bathroom. I kept thinking that I had worked at the hospital for four years and had never noticed all the decorations on the walls and floors. At this point, I didn't know I was hallucinating.

Even my pajamas had decorations. Not only that, but one time when I went to the bathroom I noticed on imprint of the decorations had transplanted to my hand, from the pants!! A hallucination trasferred itself from my pants to my hand. Now that's weird.

I had no clock and no one came to visit me, so it was just me and my hallucinations all night. Sometime early in the morning I heard ringing in my ears. Later on I would find out that one more symptom of toxicity. Well, being on the floor I was and being a nurse, I thought the ringing was an alarm for asystole, which is when a person flatlines and dies. I truly thought I was dead and was waiting for the nurses to come in and do CPR on me! I had convinced myself so much that I was dead, that I actually called the nurse in to empty my urine so I knew someone saw me and I was really alive. I can laugh about this now, but I was TERRIFIED!

The bed was comfortable, but between the IV and being hooked up to the telemetry monitor, I couldn't find a comfortable position. Plus, although I kept closing my eyes to get rid of the hallucinations, they would show up behind my eyelids, just as vivid as ever, so there was no escape.

The next morning, Thursday, I couldn't eat breakfast. My body was still in the "I have a bad thing in my body and must get it out" mode so I was nauseous all morning. By this time I hadn't eaten any solid food since Monday morning when I had one granola bar.

There was this young student nurse who had been assigned to me and to tell you the truth I just wanted her to leave me alone. I was so miserable. They gave me something for nausea but it didn't do much.

The doctor came in and I told him about the hallucinations. I had finally realized they were hallucinations by this time, although it would be many days before I could get rid of them. He told me I was stressed out, my heart rate kept going up and I hadn't slept and that was why I was seeing things. He told me to try to sleep. Yeah right, with all the hallucinations and people coming in and being nauseous....good luck with that.

Finally, that afternoon, the doctors came in and told me they finally figured out what happened. The medication I had a toxic level in was because it is not supposed to be taken with Ibuprofen. Which I take all the time for the torn hip joint I have. No one told me this and I didn't even think to read up on it. It is my doctors responsibility to know (and tell me!!) if anything she prescribes for me is going to cause a reaction and this is a big one. I was not happy. The hallucinations were actually a symptom of toxicity and I didn't completely get rid of those until yesterday. I still have a heightened sense of smell.

One last doctor came and told me that I was about one day away from acute renal failure (my kidneys would just stop working) and she was suprised they put me on the telemetry floor instead of medical intensive care unit. She said my case worked out surprisingly well for how toxic I was. I'm very thankful for that and refuse to even start thinking about what if I had waited one more day or whatever...

After about 5 bags of IV fluids, the toxic medication was flushed from my system. I was released on Thursday. I spent most of this weekend on the couch now having withdrawal effects from the medication. I actually didn't eat solid food until yesterday (Sunday). I was finally able to work today although I only worked four hours and was exhausted when I got home.

One of the other symptoms I had and didn't realize until later was severe anxiety.  I take Lorazapem as needed for anxiety, but hadn't taken that or my anti-depressents for four days.  Also, the toxicity causes severe anxiety.  I'm sure the hallucinations didn't help at all.  While I was sick at home I had watched "The Time Traveler's Wife" and an Animal Planet show called "Fatal Attraction" about people who have wild animals for pets.  The episode that I watched was chimpanzee's.  I still can't tell you about the episode because it upsets me so much.  There was also some real crime show I watched that was horrible.  These three shows haunted me the days I was sick in bed and the night from hell in the hospital.  Although I'll be the first to admit "The Time Traveler's Wife" was a good movie, it scared me due to the anxiety I felt when I was toxic.

When I got home from the hospital I was scared of EVERYTHING.  I was afraid to take anything but my anti-depressent, my GERD medicine and my allergy medicine.  So I didn't take my anxiety pills.  After you find out that medicine can kill you, it's scary to start taking ANY medication.

I was afraid of my cats, of going through my mail, of going on my computer, of going to bed at night.  I mean EVERYTHING.  My heartrate kept skyrocketing and I couldn't calm down.  This was also Easter weekend and my whole family was at my brother's house.  I kind of downplayed what happened so they wouldn't have to worry about me.  So I went through all of this anxiety alone.

My doctor had told me to just spend the weekend keeping hydrated and sleeping.  Well, I couldn't sleep due to anxiety.  But, I was scared of the silence too.  I had to watch something on TV to pass the time, but I was afraid to watch just about anything.  I went through my DVD collection and found all the Disney movies and children's shows I had.  Those were the only shows I was able to watch.  But sometimes I had problems with those.  I was watching the second "Toy Story" and had a real problem when the girl abandoned her doll.

On Sunday I finally broke down and took a Lorazapem.  OMG the change!  It helped with the anxiety so much and I was actually able to take a nap!  It was then I realized that the severe anxiety was due to the toxicity and not something I would have to put up with for the rest of my life!  Just knowing that made me feel much better.

A "God" thing I thought was interesting during this whole fiasco, when I started having signs and symptoms of toxicity, my hip pain just went away. It barely bothered me the entire week I was so sick. Yesterday, as I started to feel better, the pain came back. God knew I could handle one or the other, but not both.

So now I continue my very slow recovery. I am off the medication that caused toxicity as well as ibuprofen for awhile to give my kidneys a rest. I'm in a lot of hip pain, but it reminds me I'm alive, so that helps. I have yet to confront the doctor who didn't pay attention to protocol when prescribing medication, but I do plan to. I don't want anyone else to go through what I did!

Posted to Facebook on Monday, April 5, 2010 at 6:41pm