Journal WannaBeGeekGirl's Journal: Paper's Pen Bleeds Intimacy in Hopes to Heal
{I want to get this journaled today, because today I was in the hospital for the first time since what I write about below. It was supposed to be a quick steroid epidural for a disc injury. I warned them I have PTSD and might flashback and asked for a sedative or psych consult, but they didn't even believe me that ECT is still used. So while the needle was in my spine and the guy holding it said "Uh-0h!". I asked if everything was ok--seemed reasonable, he has a needle close to my spine and just told me the risks. He gets pissed of and tells me not to question his judgement. I try so hard to keep holding still, but with the smells, beeping and my anxiety, I flashed back to ECT and passed out. The doctor lectured me until I sobbed, for passing out, told me there is no ECT or PTSD.
How much harder will it be for me to go in a hospital next time? WTF call it "health care"?~pf}
My first ElectroConvulsive Therapy procedure performed 10/13/05
"Its very effective for treatment resistant depression." The paper the pamphlet is printed on feels surreally cold and slippery between my fingers. I can't bring myself to read it yet, so I nod blankly back, my eye contact on auto pilot mostly, still trying to take in the fact that I'm sitting in a locked psych ward. Things so bad it has come to this.
I force myself to concentrate again though--I long so badly to be free of this pain and exhaustion overwhelming me. The doctor in front of me can't be any older than I am. Her voice is gentle and soothing--it matches her sweet, heart shaped face--so out of place in this dungeon for the tormented and suffering.
Now her countenance is almost eager as she tells me of a videotape. My broken, tired, drugged mind tries to interpolate how some simple piece of media is certain to answer all my questions and ease the fear growing within. I am already terrified, i don't want to see anymore so i decline, and before i know it i have an appointment for the first "treatment". Suddenly 4 days from now seems awfully close.
By the time i arrive at the hospital i've done my homework though, researched this controversial procedure that is my last hope at getting my life back somehow wading through the websites that tell of the worst case outcomes to find the few scientific resources that explain something so taboo. The few friends I've told I'm trying it were surprised its still used. But, oh no, the Mayo clinic says it has a bad rap but is highly effective so i dive in headfirst, somewhat blindly, on a wing and a prayer. The gurney slides into the cold unfriendly OR and I enter the world of ECT.
Praying silently, trying to hide my shaking, i focus on the ceiling above. Cold hands place sticky electrodes all over my chest and head and the beeping begins. Haunting like i can barely describe, this steady, eerie beeping of all those machines. God, that beeping drove me nuts because those the machines were steady, they weren't in time with each other. I'm a percussionist, it was rattling my nerves to have such dissonance in tones and times. More wires and then the limb restraints. I committed now, tied up and theirs to play god with. Finally the anesthesiologist places the mask over my nose and mouth. The smell is some weird plastic scent--just like beachball, forever engrained in my mind now. (At rock concerts when they throw me a beachball and it get close enough to smell, it triggers a flashback.)
The young, kind, heart-faced doctor smiles encouragingly at me and holds my shaking hand. I believe she is sincere in her belief that this procedure will help me, but how she can smile before such a violent, terrifying treatment is unleashed upon me i do not know.
The general anesthesia enters my veins through the iv in my hand burning and immediately i feel myself fading but I don't quite go under before the paralyzing agent stinging my veins kicks in turning me to cold stone. My chest tightens and i cannot even gasp for air. I can't move at all, can't scream, but i feel like i'm choking. Memories of Metallica's _One_ video flash in my mind and I'm terrified beyond any fear i've ever felt. No! N_____ go back to the Lord's prayer--say it Spanish, backwards, anything else, don't think of that damn video now, you're only making this worse! My will is gone though.
Oh God, there truly are worse things than death aren't there?
No one hears my screams for air, and i feel i'm choking--trying to throw my useless body.
Please Lord, take me now, i'll do anything if you end this. Send me to Hell!
Why the fuck can't anyone hear me?!?
The warmth of two single tears flowing down my cheeks is all i sense through that madness. I cry without moving or making a sound. Oh God, thank you, the signal to the doctors that i'm not quite out enough finally registers and they give me more general...
[nothingness]
"N_____ your ECT is finished, you're in the recovery room, you did fine."
I am so disoriented it takes me a while to realize they are talking to me and where I am. My right forehead and jaw ache like i've been hit, and my muscles are all cramping.
"I want my mother, please!" I cry, this place I'm waking up is unfamiliar and I feel more frightened than ever. Silence. Tears and shaking.
"Where am I?" "Was I in an accident?" "What day is it?" and more questions. I know who I am, at least it seems I do or did a long time ago. God its so surreal, but not a nightmare.
I notice a nurse is there, she takes my vitals and tells me to relax that i'll feel better soon. I can't get the words out through the tears and confusion fast enough to ask the questions pummeling my mixed up mind. Like a doll, one of those dolls with glassy eyes that just look through everyone I am there helpless.
She asks me if I'm in pain. I don't even answer yet she disappears to get meds, leaving me still more than alone. I lie there close to sobbing surrounded by other confused disoriented patients in recovery for an hour. Why does it smell like human excrement across the room? Why don't they do something for that man who moaning?
Then they remove my IV, wheel me to another room and put me in a recliner. I am told to eat the graham crackers and drink the gingerale so that I can take a pain pill and go home soon, like I am a child. So I nod.
Emotionally numb, i chew the crackers even though my jaw hurts and manage to drink up the soda. Narcotics arrive and willingly i swallow them, waiting for the relief to hit. As it does the nurse shuts the curtian and tells me to stand up slowly and get dressed. She has me sign a few forms and tells me to "come back in two days and call if there are any problems" at the speed of light. Before i know it, i'm in a wheelchair down an elevator and being helped into my dad's vehicle.
Its all so surreal because I don't remember anything before going into the OR, even weeks before, I know I should but its missing. Thats not all thats missing, I can't tell my dad how to get home to my condo in a city i've lived in for 10 years that God forbid I let him drive in. When we arrive, I don't even remember that I live there. Its so peculiar, my childhood teddy bear is on the bed, staring at me with its one remaing glass eye.
That was just the beginning of a nightmare. I had 28 more procedures...
© 2007 paperflowers
(author note: {updated June 2007}
i spoke with the heart-shaped-face doctor, telling her about being paralyzed. she initially told me it was common to dream these things in anesthesia. when i recounted to her the name of her two dogs that she had been talking about to the rest of the OR team, she believed me and set to work with the anesthesia teams of the future to try to avoid further mistakes. unfortunately, this mistake happened at least twice more and is the major reason that my psychiatrist has diagnosed me with PTSD from the experience. that is not the way ECT is supposed to happen. i find it terribly ironic that i can recall those moments in such distress but lost other memories. some attribute that to the adrenaline rush from the panic i felt when i thought i would choke to death. ~shrug~
gradually with the help of memory exercises, time, night terrors and flashbacks I am starting to recall more of the experiences of the procedures and memories lost during the time. unfortunately, the lost memories often return in the form of flashbacks set off by sounds, smells and sights in hospitals, which a person in my support group has told me is common. i hope to begin treatment for PTSD in months or weeks, now that I have been formally diagnosed with PTSD caused by improperly performed ECT and other events.
what is written so far is taken from extremely detailed journal accounts i began writing as soon as i made the choice to endure ECT despite the low risks of memory loss i was warned of during only the treatment time. they literally took my journal away from me as they wheeled me into the OR and i asked for it back as soon as i was lucid enough to write. i borrowed a trick from a movie and wrote on my arm with a marker "start journaling" so i'd remember to do that in the recovery room because i wanted to capture such a taboo and terrifying treatment. research from websites of other ECT patients, and common knowledge of anesthesia amnesia led me to believe i would have to trust my pen more than my memory based on the side-effects common to ECT. It has been a little over 2 years since the first treatment and I still rely on those detailed journal accounts for alomst everything that happened during the 5 months of "therapy". i am sad to say that it was unsuccessful treatment and in the long run did more damage then healing. i do not make this statement about ECT in general. ~pf)
How much harder will it be for me to go in a hospital next time? WTF call it "health care"?~pf}
My first ElectroConvulsive Therapy procedure performed 10/13/05
"Its very effective for treatment resistant depression." The paper the pamphlet is printed on feels surreally cold and slippery between my fingers. I can't bring myself to read it yet, so I nod blankly back, my eye contact on auto pilot mostly, still trying to take in the fact that I'm sitting in a locked psych ward. Things so bad it has come to this.
I force myself to concentrate again though--I long so badly to be free of this pain and exhaustion overwhelming me. The doctor in front of me can't be any older than I am. Her voice is gentle and soothing--it matches her sweet, heart shaped face--so out of place in this dungeon for the tormented and suffering.
Now her countenance is almost eager as she tells me of a videotape. My broken, tired, drugged mind tries to interpolate how some simple piece of media is certain to answer all my questions and ease the fear growing within. I am already terrified, i don't want to see anymore so i decline, and before i know it i have an appointment for the first "treatment". Suddenly 4 days from now seems awfully close.
By the time i arrive at the hospital i've done my homework though, researched this controversial procedure that is my last hope at getting my life back somehow wading through the websites that tell of the worst case outcomes to find the few scientific resources that explain something so taboo. The few friends I've told I'm trying it were surprised its still used. But, oh no, the Mayo clinic says it has a bad rap but is highly effective so i dive in headfirst, somewhat blindly, on a wing and a prayer. The gurney slides into the cold unfriendly OR and I enter the world of ECT.
Praying silently, trying to hide my shaking, i focus on the ceiling above. Cold hands place sticky electrodes all over my chest and head and the beeping begins. Haunting like i can barely describe, this steady, eerie beeping of all those machines. God, that beeping drove me nuts because those the machines were steady, they weren't in time with each other. I'm a percussionist, it was rattling my nerves to have such dissonance in tones and times. More wires and then the limb restraints. I committed now, tied up and theirs to play god with. Finally the anesthesiologist places the mask over my nose and mouth. The smell is some weird plastic scent--just like beachball, forever engrained in my mind now. (At rock concerts when they throw me a beachball and it get close enough to smell, it triggers a flashback.)
The young, kind, heart-faced doctor smiles encouragingly at me and holds my shaking hand. I believe she is sincere in her belief that this procedure will help me, but how she can smile before such a violent, terrifying treatment is unleashed upon me i do not know.
The general anesthesia enters my veins through the iv in my hand burning and immediately i feel myself fading but I don't quite go under before the paralyzing agent stinging my veins kicks in turning me to cold stone. My chest tightens and i cannot even gasp for air. I can't move at all, can't scream, but i feel like i'm choking. Memories of Metallica's _One_ video flash in my mind and I'm terrified beyond any fear i've ever felt. No! N_____ go back to the Lord's prayer--say it Spanish, backwards, anything else, don't think of that damn video now, you're only making this worse! My will is gone though.
Oh God, there truly are worse things than death aren't there?
No one hears my screams for air, and i feel i'm choking--trying to throw my useless body.
Please Lord, take me now, i'll do anything if you end this. Send me to Hell!
Why the fuck can't anyone hear me?!?
The warmth of two single tears flowing down my cheeks is all i sense through that madness. I cry without moving or making a sound. Oh God, thank you, the signal to the doctors that i'm not quite out enough finally registers and they give me more general...
[nothingness]
"N_____ your ECT is finished, you're in the recovery room, you did fine."
I am so disoriented it takes me a while to realize they are talking to me and where I am. My right forehead and jaw ache like i've been hit, and my muscles are all cramping.
"I want my mother, please!" I cry, this place I'm waking up is unfamiliar and I feel more frightened than ever. Silence. Tears and shaking.
"Where am I?" "Was I in an accident?" "What day is it?" and more questions. I know who I am, at least it seems I do or did a long time ago. God its so surreal, but not a nightmare.
I notice a nurse is there, she takes my vitals and tells me to relax that i'll feel better soon. I can't get the words out through the tears and confusion fast enough to ask the questions pummeling my mixed up mind. Like a doll, one of those dolls with glassy eyes that just look through everyone I am there helpless.
She asks me if I'm in pain. I don't even answer yet she disappears to get meds, leaving me still more than alone. I lie there close to sobbing surrounded by other confused disoriented patients in recovery for an hour. Why does it smell like human excrement across the room? Why don't they do something for that man who moaning?
Then they remove my IV, wheel me to another room and put me in a recliner. I am told to eat the graham crackers and drink the gingerale so that I can take a pain pill and go home soon, like I am a child. So I nod.
Emotionally numb, i chew the crackers even though my jaw hurts and manage to drink up the soda. Narcotics arrive and willingly i swallow them, waiting for the relief to hit. As it does the nurse shuts the curtian and tells me to stand up slowly and get dressed. She has me sign a few forms and tells me to "come back in two days and call if there are any problems" at the speed of light. Before i know it, i'm in a wheelchair down an elevator and being helped into my dad's vehicle.
Its all so surreal because I don't remember anything before going into the OR, even weeks before, I know I should but its missing. Thats not all thats missing, I can't tell my dad how to get home to my condo in a city i've lived in for 10 years that God forbid I let him drive in. When we arrive, I don't even remember that I live there. Its so peculiar, my childhood teddy bear is on the bed, staring at me with its one remaing glass eye.
That was just the beginning of a nightmare. I had 28 more procedures...
© 2007 paperflowers
(author note: {updated June 2007}
i spoke with the heart-shaped-face doctor, telling her about being paralyzed. she initially told me it was common to dream these things in anesthesia. when i recounted to her the name of her two dogs that she had been talking about to the rest of the OR team, she believed me and set to work with the anesthesia teams of the future to try to avoid further mistakes. unfortunately, this mistake happened at least twice more and is the major reason that my psychiatrist has diagnosed me with PTSD from the experience. that is not the way ECT is supposed to happen. i find it terribly ironic that i can recall those moments in such distress but lost other memories. some attribute that to the adrenaline rush from the panic i felt when i thought i would choke to death. ~shrug~
gradually with the help of memory exercises, time, night terrors and flashbacks I am starting to recall more of the experiences of the procedures and memories lost during the time. unfortunately, the lost memories often return in the form of flashbacks set off by sounds, smells and sights in hospitals, which a person in my support group has told me is common. i hope to begin treatment for PTSD in months or weeks, now that I have been formally diagnosed with PTSD caused by improperly performed ECT and other events.
what is written so far is taken from extremely detailed journal accounts i began writing as soon as i made the choice to endure ECT despite the low risks of memory loss i was warned of during only the treatment time. they literally took my journal away from me as they wheeled me into the OR and i asked for it back as soon as i was lucid enough to write. i borrowed a trick from a movie and wrote on my arm with a marker "start journaling" so i'd remember to do that in the recovery room because i wanted to capture such a taboo and terrifying treatment. research from websites of other ECT patients, and common knowledge of anesthesia amnesia led me to believe i would have to trust my pen more than my memory based on the side-effects common to ECT. It has been a little over 2 years since the first treatment and I still rely on those detailed journal accounts for alomst everything that happened during the 5 months of "therapy". i am sad to say that it was unsuccessful treatment and in the long run did more damage then healing. i do not make this statement about ECT in general. ~pf)
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