We live in a small town.  A very small town.  There are no banks, no grocery stores, no traffic lights, there are only a few antique shops.  To the immediate north and south of us there are bigger towns.  The one to the north of us is in a different county than we are, the one to the south of us is in our county and that is where we tend to do most of our shopping and get most of our medical care.   

The town to the south of us also happens to be where the hospital is that I was taken to after my suicide attempt in May, and where the crisis team had me go after they had come to my house.  It is not a very big hospital and between those two visits and other visits for different reasons, I had become very familiar with some of the staff at the hospital.  I had developed a “reputation”.


It is a reputation based on my crazy, screaming, violent behavior after I tried to kill myself in May.  Behavior that I still have absolutely no memory of.   It is also based on my angry pissed off behavior after I went there because of the crisis team.  


Now that I am on the right mix of medications, and I am further along in my recovery, when I think back to both of those times I was admitted into the hospital, I get rather embarrassed and ashamed of myself.  I really did not want to have to go back to that hospital and its emergency room ever again.  


Of course, as things usually go, the choice to go back to that hospital any time soon, was taken out of my hands.  The Saturday before Christmas I developed a nasty wheeze in my chest and had to go to the emergency department at the hospital.  I could just picture in my head what it was going to be like when I got there.  Some of the nurses would recognize me, some would stare, waiting for me to freak out.  The nurses who did not know who I was, soon would, as the facts about me and my craziness were passed around.  I could also see the doctor’s reaction to seeing that I was there again.  I had built up in my head a very terrifying experience, as well as a very embarrassing one.  


The reality was actually some what different.  I was taken back by the triage nurse almost immediately.  That is a common thing when you go to an emergency room with a breathing problem.  I had seen this particular nurse several times, so she was very familiar with my past visits.  I shared with her that I was rather nervous and afraid to be there because of what happened the last two times I had gone to the emergency room.  Her response to that was very sweet and quite surprising.  It put me at ease.


What she said to me that night was that the past was the past.  She said she did not make judgments about people or their reasons for being in the emergency room, and that she could tell that I was doing so much better than I had been doing before.  The final thing she said was that it was her job to take care of me for what I was there for that night and that I should not let what happened before prevent me from getting the help that I needed.



I ended up being admitted to the hospital.  Surprise! Surprise!  The doctor who was my treating physician while I was in the hospital, was the same doctor I had when I had tried to kill myself.  He was the doctor that dealt with me when I was being violent and had to be restrained.  He remembered me.  


It was at this point I realized I had two choices.  I could be a flake, and let my anxiety about being in this situation be in control, or I could use this as an opportunity to show the nurses and doctor that I am doing better and that at this time I am not acting like a crazy person.


I decided to go for the more positive of the two choices and show them that I was doing much better now.  I made sure that every morning when I woke up I gave myself a quick sponge bath and did other things to show that I cared about my appearance.  I talked with the nurses when they came by my room.  Asked questions, and looked up information about my treatment on the internet, staying engaged in my own treatment plan.  It was easier than I thought it would be.  


I ended up having to stay in the hospital several days longer than I thought I would have to.  The IV steroids that I had to have for my breathing, caused my blood sugar to be incredibly high.  At one point the doctor tried to take me off of the IV steroids and my breathing got bad again.  I was put back on the IV steroids and from that point on, my blood sugar had to be checked every four hours, night and day, and I had to have insulin injections every four hours.  My long lasting insulin dose was changed from 30 units to 72 units.  


Several times the doctor changed my other medications, took me off of one, and added a couple of new ones in the mix.  So I was having to keep up with the changes and keep up with why the doctor was making so many changes to my medications.  It seems my ability to keep up with all that the doctor was doing, and the questions I was asking, went a long way with the doctor.  He was able to see me for the intelligent person I am, instead of the raving, mad woman he had experienced before.  As a result I was allowed to go home Christmas Eve, with a very detailed set of instructions to follow. 

I learned a couple of things from this experience.  The first thing I learned is that for the most part, the staff in a hospital really want what is best for their patients, and truly believe in not holding past experiences with a patient against them.  The other thing I learned seems to be something that I have to keep learning over and over again.  That lesson is that very often my own anxieties make a situation worse in my head than the reality of it is.  One of these days, I hope, that lesson will stick with me and I will learn to not get so anxious about things.