Waking Up Is Hard To Do

From the time I was put on the vent (apparently the terms "respirator" and "ventilator" are used interchangeably) until I was taken off was about a week. At that point it was determined that I was still unable to breathe on my own, so they waited for an operating room and performed two procedures: they did a tracheostomy and a lung biopsy. Around Thursday of that week I developed an infection in my colon. That was my first major setback. This was the week that my kids and siblings were waiting for me to wake up, but with all the antibiotics on top of the leftover grogginess from the sedation, that wasn't going to happen. My kids, I understand, were quite distraught. I don't know if they articulated it, but apparently there was a fear that I was never waking up. Finally, the following Tuesday, two weeks to the day from the time I was admitted, I was fully awake and actually sitting up in bed. That was when Blimie hugged me (see earlier post, "nisht ahin, nisht aherr"). She wasn't there when I came to, but Chayie called her to tell her. She couldn't believe it. Is he really, really up and being himself, she wanted to know. Yes, Chayie said, he's even being nasty. That's when she knew that I had returned to the land of the living with a vengeance, and she came running. The most bizarre part of my coming to, according to Chayie, was that I didn't seem to mind or even notice that because of the thrach, I couldn't talk. Chayie says it was as if I had woken up from a nap. I had no idea how long I was out and no idea how sick I was. In my drug-addled mind I was ready to be discharged.