Tales of the ‘Rona, Episode 2 - Panic! At The ICU

"There is no pain, you are receding,

A distant ship, smoke on the horizon...

You are only coming through in waves,

Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying...

When I was a child, I caught a fleeting glimpse,

Out of the corner of my eye...

I turned to look, but it was gone

I cannot put my finger on it now,

The child is grown, the dream is gone...

I have become...

Comfortably numb..."

- Pink Floyd, "Comfortably Numb"

Olympia Fields, Illinois 

January something 

ICU, Franciscan Health

“These pants need to come off! Why do you have pants on? Why does he have pants on? You really shouldn’t have pants on!”

January something.

Day whatever of my ICU nightmare.

Breathing is difficult.

Very, very difficult.

I’ve never thought much about breathing.

No need to.

It’s always been as easy as, well, breathing.

By the time I’d been admitted to the ICU, I was staring down a double barrel shotgun of a diagnosis, namely double viral pneumonia with a bacterial infection thrown in just for kicks.

My oxygenation level was topping off at a little under 80%, which is dangerously close to lost brain cell territory.

Looking back at my life experiences, I don’t have a lot of those cells to spare.

As I had just recently discovered:

“In patients with healthy lungs, an oxygen-saturation level below 90% is cause for grave concern: when vital organs such as the heart and brain become starved for oxygen, the risk of death skyrockets...”

Grave concern.

Starved.

Risk.

Skyrocketing death.

Not comforting-hospital-ICU vocabulary.

I’m hooked up to a heated, high flow oxygen machine and when it’s working, it’s keeping me alive.

When the bag runs down, the humidity disappears, the air starts to burn, and it’s pretty uncomfortable.

The nurses are good - they’re all great, actually - at knowing when it’s time to switch up bags, but this time it’s the machine.

It isn’t working.

The dam machine isn’t working.

Nurses are starting to congregate (I think from now on where two or more nurses are gathered together, they should be called a “Hero of Nurses”) around my bed and around the malfunctioning machine.

Just a few hours earlier my pulmonary doctor and his cohorts were checking in on me and the discussion turned towards intubation.

Intubation is ventilator talk.

Not good.

Not cool.

With all of this information seeping into my already fragile psyche, the anxiety dial is turning up.

Way up.

The shadow of a full-on panic attack is growing longer.

And then one voice out of the chorus of concern grows louder:

“These pants need to come off! Why do you have pants on? Why does he have pants on? You really shouldn’t have pants on!”

I know hospital gown protocol - nothing underneath just in case things get out of hand and they need to get at your entire body with ease.

That and a bit of cheeky embarrassment as you amble down the hall.

When I was admitted I was wearing sweat pants and for some reason I’d been allowed to keep them on these first few days.

In fact no one noticed or said a word about them until now.

This nurse or nurses’ aide seemed overly concerned that I was still partially clothed under those sweet hospital duds until she realized I was close to an anxiety tap-out.

So she quickly shifted gears and the following is as close to verbatim as I remember of what she said in the next few moments: 

“OK, I want you to close your eyes. Close your eyes. Now I want you to just relax and go to your happy place. Close your eyes, go to your happy place.

Now I want you to picture a balloon. A balloon. Do you see it? Now I want you to put all of your worries in that balloon. Do you still see the balloon? Now let the balloon go. Let it go. Watch it drift away. Are you watching it drift?”

This one-way conversation continued while she was rubbing my arm and the others were working on getting my oxygen back up and running.

It seemed a little weird and bizarre at first, but I have to admit it was oddly calming.

It was working.

I was slowly relaxing and the panic was dissipating.

I watched my little worry-filled balloon float off into a cloudless sunny sky and I was back in my happy place.

I was calm.

Panic-free.

Anxiety-less.

Until.

Until Nurse Happy Balloon shifted gears again and crashed my mojo.

“Now let’s get these pants off!” she barked.

My balloon popped.

My worries floated back to me like confetti.

My happy place reverted back to my I can’t breathe place.

Fortunately the others in this Hero of Nurses prevailed.

My oxygen was flowing.

I was breathing easier. 

My brain cells were still intact, and lo and behold, I still had my pants on.