Page 276 - Total War on PTSD

looked at him attempting to say I couldn’t go any farther, and he simply kept ordering me to keep fighting and keep breathing. When Sonia returned for her turn to watch over me, she let me know in no uncertain terms that I was not going to be able to kick her out of the room again. I resigned myself to the situation and just began to focus on the next breath. Eventually, my lungs began to clear, and my breathing became close to normal. It was only then I was able to ask how long I was going through this, and I was told by the doctor it was just short of eight hours.
It was a bit later that I would learn that my battle to stay alive was far from over. When the doctor explained to me that the aneurysm had burst, and I lost blood flow to my Spinal Cord resulting in my paralysis, the doctor explained that my internal organs also suffered damage. My kidneys were rendered completely inoperable, my bladder and bowel, small and large intestines, possibly my liver and gall bladder had suffered major damage too. Additionally, I had developed bed sores on both my legs and my lower back. I felt helpless as I would lie there and watch the nurses change the dressings on my chest, the dialysis technicians sit there and run their machines, all the while internally wondering if I was going to survive another day. Additionally, some of those doctors, nurses, and technicians were indifferent to cruel, and I believe that contributes to the fears and bad memories many people have regarding medical care. One of my brighter moments was when Sonia would stop by and give me a vegetable smoothie to drink about four to five times a week. A few weeks later, a nurse noticed there was urine in the Foley catheter drainage bag. My kidney function was returning.
After a few months, I was transferred to the nearest Veterans Administration Hospital (VA) and the medical staff labeled in the transfer documents my condition “good”. But my first night at the VA was far from that. First, I was given two units of blood. The
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