#apbd

He did: that.

Freedom

The other week with warm weather and my beloved Jocelyn by my side we decided to go for a swim. I had been longing for the water’s freedom to envelop me in weightless bliss for over six months. During that time one relentless medical hardship followed the next. I am merely bones and skin. My trunk more of a twig. Leg strength nonexistent. Arms following suit.

It took both Jocelyn and my angel caregiver Karina to seat me in the pool’s power lift chair. I steered the chair from the deck into the water anticipating the water’s freedom.

Thank goddesses for Jocelyn’s readiness to hold me. I would have drowned without her. My bones are not hollow; skin not buoyant.

Jocelyn enveloped me in her loving embrace allowing me micro movements with arms and legs. Simultaneously love and despair flowed through my heart, my last hope of freedom gone. Or was it?

Hey guys ! 

I’ve been struggling so damn hard to find a link to watch Joe in Pure and I finally found it !!! So I thought it’d be a good idea to share it here ! Enjoy my loves 💛

15%

I’m awake, in my bed, clean, no beeping monitors, fresh air, birds chirping, sipping tea. Dog by my side. Life restoring.

The simple lung biopsy wasn’t. After a bad winter cold my breathing kept worsening and I recalled as a child getting asthma from certain viruses. I relayed this memory to the doctor and rather than conducting any tests to confirm or deny was given a strong anti-asthma medicine. After two months of that not working I was referred to a pulmonologist who determined it wasn’t asthma. Chest X-ray. Dark area. CT scan 2x2cm growth. Cancer? Bacteria? Fungus?

To find out I would need a simple biopsy. Arrangements made, a few weeks later at 7a.m. Thursday I went for the simple in/out procedure having had nothing by mouth for 12 hrs. The sidebar to the simple in/out is that 45% of all lung biopsies result in air being trapped between the chest wall and lung which in 85% of cases heals by itself. But I was the 15%.

Once I awakened from the procedure I was admitted to the hospital, plopped in the bed and made as comfortable as possible by the first of a series of compassionate RN’s. Wheelchair bound I had no chair since I came for the simple in/out using their transfer chair, the hospital doesn’t have drop arm commodes to use bedside nor was enough room even if I had a chair to maneuver into the bathroom. Foley cath or spend hours soaking in my own sauce. Former please even though with these we know the odds of UTI are greater than 15%.

They would watch me for 6 hrs by which time hopefully the X-ray would reveal the air pocket healed itself and was gone. If not they would insert a chest pump to assist draining the air. Parched and famished as I had no food or water for 20+ hrs I still couldn’t drink or eat since I might require another surgery.

At 3p.m. another X-ray and blood draw. At 4p.m. bad news. Back down to the operating theatre. Flash forward, scene three reveals patient with 2" x 2" plastic box above right breast being gurneyed back to her room at 5. Morphine and Tylenol 4 at 7p.m. as pain starts stabbing. And thus a hospital rhythm, albeit an atonal one, begins.

4:30a.m. X-ray, 4:40a.m. blood draw, 10a.m. doctor visit. Bad news. Still not closing. 2p.m. X-ray. Doctors return, still not closing. It’s Saturday now. Repeat morning cycle. I’m feeling dehumanized. Except for the kindness of the overworked RN’s I imagine myself in prison. Please let me out for good behavior.

Instead more bad findings and at 3p.m. I return for an additional pump to target the lower area of the leak. Back to my room a few hours later. More morphine and Tylenol 4 at 7p.m. before the pain starts stabbing. Good night and thus the syncopated rhythm continues.

Sunday X-ray looking better–glad something is–I’m looking like the bottom of a shoe and feeling just as good. Step on it pumps I want to go home. At least today when Jocelyn comes to visit I secured a transfer chair and we can move around the floor, to a sunlight filled visitor area and an atrium where I momentarily breathe fresh air.

By 3:30p.m. the next day the space was gone and the pumps were ready to come out. A cheerful PA came in and explained removing the pumps was quick and painful. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. Pull. Breathe, no breathe, black out pain, gasp, no air, zing, bam, pow, f#ck, sip of air, gasp–if ten is threshold that was a thirteen. After about three minutes it mostly subsided.

HARIANSOLORAYA.COM, JAKARTA  || Pemerintah melalui Kementerian Transmigrasi (Kementrans) terus memperkuat program transmigrasi dengan menyiapkan implementasi 400 kajian strategis hasil Tim Ekspedisi Patriot (TEP) 2025. Kajian tersebut diharapkan menjadi fondasi utama dalam mendorong pembangunan kawasan transmigrasi yang lebih terarah dan berkelanjutan. Wakil Menteri Transmigrasi, Viva Yoga…