What happened?

I want to delve deeper into what happened and what led me to where I am today. It started in late 2022. I wasn’t feeling well, and I believe much of it was due to my nerves. At the time, I had been diagnosed with agoraphobia for over five years. In the summer of 2022, I was told I would have to move from the hotel suite I was living in because they were closing it to build a new one across the street. 

I knew I would be moving sometime in November, and as it got closer, my nerves really started to kick in. I couldn’t eat most of the week, and when I did, it wasn’t healthy. Even though the move was just across the street, it became a significant ordeal in my mind. I finished moving by the end of November, but by then, my nerves were completely frazzled, and my feet were in immense pain. I thought I had developed plantar fasciitis again, as the pain was unrelenting.

During my first full week in the new hotel, I rested, trying to feel better, but the pain only worsened. About a week and a half into December, I was admitted to the hospital. I could walk a bit, but it was extremely painful. I went into rehab for about a month and left on a walker. I had home healthcare services for a couple of months, which ended around mid-March. Despite some improvement, I still had pain and was using the walker. The most alarming issue was my inability to eat properly and the increasing difficulty in leaving my room.

Sometime in April, I lost my appetite entirely and started drinking only Gatorade and water. I tried to consume Ensure for calories, but I was constantly tired and spent most of my time in bed. My nerves were on edge, leading to frequent panic attacks—two or three major ones a day, accompanied by dry heaving. One day, the shaking, hyperventilating, and dry heaving stopped, and I began to vomit several times a day, sometimes painfully. I couldn’t keep anything down, not even water. I tried making Gatorade popsicles to suck on ice chips, but nothing stopped the vomiting.

I would sit on my Rollator in the bathroom and sometimes fall asleep because it was too difficult to get out of bed. I started falling a lot, even with the walker. I was exhausted and dehydrated. Around mid-May, I began experiencing severe vertigo, making it hard to see straight, walk, or do anything. I was falling more frequently and staying on the ground longer, but I could still get up.

Eventually, I fell and tried to get back up, but my midsection lost all strength. My arms and hands were still strong, so I kept trying to pull myself up on the Rollator, but I was so tired. I used my elbows to low crawl toward the end table, grabbed a pillow and blanket, and had a trash bag beside me to vomit into. I was prepared to die, and part of me wished I had. I was really disappointed when I woke up because it meant I needed to go to the hospital again, which was the last thing I wanted.

From that point forward, a whole awful chain of events unfolded. I knew there was wickedness in this world, but I never knew personally how far or deep that wickedness could go—with a smile on its face. The medical abuse I encountered, I wouldn’t wish on anyone. To be in such a vulnerable position where you cannot use your hands or feet, hallucinate, and have lost most of your hearing, and for a group of people to find joy in your situation, is terrifying.

As this blog goes on, I will talk about it in more depth. I don’t know if I’m emotionally ready to pick it all apart yet. I am in trauma therapy and have had many conversations with family members and staff about that time. Yet, I want to talk about it here so that maybe even if just one person comes across these words and feels understood, they know someone hears them and is praying for them. There were some nurses and nursing aides who gave me little love breadcrumbs to hold onto because they saw how confused and in pain I was. And there was nothing, absolutely nothing, I could do about it.

Looking back, sometimes I wonder what I could’ve done differently. Given that I had lost control of my bodily functions, there wasn’t anything else I could do. I could only focus on moving forward.