Tag: infusion

Where Did I Go Wrong?

Statue of person holding drooping head with one hand
~ Linda Wright

Tuesday morning I telephoned the doctor. I’d stayed awake most of the night wondering what I could have done that would cause my right shoulder to hurt. I certainly did not want to get an infusion of clotting factor, we had been enjoying a month at the beach and we had been there less than a week. I wasn’t actually sure I had a bleed in my shoulder joint. “It might just be arthritic pain from an old injury,” I said to the answering machine and asked the doctor to decide if I should get an infusion. The recorded message promised that a nurse would get back to me soon.

It had been years since pain in this shoulder had kept me awake. The first time I had an x-ray that showed previous injuries, joint damage, but not active bleeding. I went to a physical therapist and the pain eventually subsided although it came back whenever I didn’t keep the exercises up. I had no memory of a bleed in that shoulder, but the x-ray was proof.

The older I get the more previous injuries become painful. I feel ashamed that I can’t tell the difference each time a doctor says, “Why didn’t you call me sooner?” The implication is that I was in denial. That is probably at least partly true. However, I have also had false alarms and then the doctor’s scornful reproach implies hypochondria.

The next time I had pain in that shoulder was when we moved to Florida six years ago. That time I tried to return to the exercises but the pain got worse by the day. I had been packing and hefting books for our move to Florida. Motivated to meet the deadline for packing I suppressed my doubts until the pain became so intense I had no choice but to go to the Emergency Room and get infused. The doctor told me to rest the shoulder and wrote a prescription for a narcotic pain medication. Resting was not an option. The movers were coming in a day or two and we would be loading the car and driving south to Florida from Massachusetts whether my arm had healed or not.

We arrived in Tallahassee a few days before the moving van and settled the cat in our new house before the three of us checked into a motel. The next few days we spent shopping for essentials and delivering them to the house. We made frequent trips to the house to feed and reassure the cat. My arms loaded with supplies I missed a step and landed on the paved walkway to our new front door. Not only did I smash my glasses, bruising my face, I hit my right knee and landed on my shoulder, the same shoulder that had been injured packing books. That time it took several re-infusions of fibrinogen to subside and the doctor instructed me not to lift anything over five pounds.

So after calling the doctor’s office on Tuesday morning I waited, and waited, and waited. No return call as promised. Wednesday morning I called again and this time I was more sure of myself. The pain was worse. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” apologized the nurse. “I’ll schedule the infusion for this afternoon, can you get here by 2 pm?”

Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, “Where have I gone wrong?” Then a voice says to me, “This is going to take more than one night.”

Cartoon boy extending both arms appears to be wailing

—Charles M. Schulz

Tooth Fairy

~ Linda Wright

At a restaurant with friends, I bit into my sandwich and was surprised to hear a distinct crack coming from inside my mouth. That was odd, I thought, it looked like harmless turkey and cheese with some lettuce and cranberry dressing. Not wanting to embarrass myself, I rolled around the chewed food in my mouth and examined it with my tongue. I found nothing suspicious. Then my tongue landed on the tooth farthest to the back lower right. Missing by at least half, the jagged edges and gap told the story. I had broken a tooth.

I have always taken excellent care of my teeth. Until that moment a few fillings in childhood and the removal of my four wisdom teeth, when I was a teenager, were the only times I had ever needed dental work. I had bled significantly with the loss of each baby tooth and when the permanent teeth came in and the bleeding stopped, I brushed and flossed them aggressively.

The dental hygienist who cleaned and polished my teeth every six months complemented me on my thoroughness, as she would hand the x-rays to the dentist. “No problems again,” she would say. It made me puff up with pride. My arrogance deflated at the moment I realized I had broken a tooth. My wayward tongue kept exploring the gap and the rough edges, reminding me each time that my teeth were no longer perfect. My first reaction to most injuries is, “What did I do wrong?” This was no different. Having allowed myself to feel proud of the way I had cared for my teeth, I now felt self-blame.

It was Friday evening when the tooth broke and I was grateful to have no pain. I waited until Monday morning when the dentist’s office opened to call and book an appointment. “We can fix this,” the dentist said enthusiastically when he finished checking the damage, “I’ll just put in a crown.” At last he had me, I thought grimly.

“Must have been all the times I chewed ice cubes, even when I knew better,” I muttered.

“Did you know that compulsively chewing ice cubes can be a symptom of anemia?” he said.

“No, but that would make sense,” I said glad to be forgiven for my sin.

Then I smiled and said, “Of course you realize I don’t want you to use any Novocain.”

He looked concerned, but not alarmed at the idea. “Is it the injection or the use of Novocain? Because we don’t use Novocain anymore.”

“Both,” I said. “Novocain, like a lot of topical anesthetics, is an anti-coagulant and any injection site will bleed unless I get an infusion of fibrinogen. But, don’t worry,” I added, “I won’t kick you too hard in the groin.” Nothing like a little added incentive for him to be as careful as possible I thought.

He smoothed the fragments left of the broken tooth and gave me a few breaks when I began to squirm and in the end the process wasn’t that bad. Now my most expensive gold jewelry is inside my mouth where no one can really see it and I plan to sip cold beverages from a straw, so ice cubes won’t tempt me.

Remorse

~ Linda Wright
 
“Do you have any regrets?” my friend asked me after she sent me a link to a piece about the “Top five regrets of the dying.”
 
So I began looking back on my 60 years of life, considering the things I regret. These things didn’t happen when I was a child, I have forgotten those mistakes long ago.

This is a short list, there are others. It’s a list of things that, if given a second chance, I would not do again.

I regret not noticing the artificial Christmas tree laying on the floor in the store and hitting the hard edge of the trunk with the top of my foot. I especially regret not wearing laced shoes that day. The bruise that formed on the top of the foot kept me confined to bed for a weekend and required an infusion to stop the bleeding.

I regret standing on the sofa to hang a picture on the wall — it started a knee bleed – the joint damage from that incident still pains me twenty years later.

I regret tripping over the cord that led to my father’s heart monitor in the intensive care unit of the hospital. I lost my balance and slammed my head on the wall and had to leave my father’s bedside to be infused in the emergency room.

I regret ignoring the shoulder that ached while I packed and lifted the boxes of books. I regret thinking the increasing pain was muscle strain and not a bleed into the shoulder joint.

I regret having so many packages in my hands that I could not see the newly paved walkway was uneven with the asphalt driveway. I fell hard on the concrete smashing my glasses, bruising my face, my hand, my shoulder and my knee.

I regret the times I have been in a hurry or preoccupied with thoughts and emotions. I regret the injuries that could have been avoided if I had been mindful of what was in front of me.

The knowledge of the past stays with us.  To let go is to release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our spirit.

Jack Kornfield