Rough Patch
This journey started back in March of 2007 and continues to slowly deteriorate an already altered mind.
Walking to the bathroom late in the evening of March 17th 2007, I suddenly had a pain in my stomach that brought me instantly to the ground doubled up. I layed there for around 15 minutes crying and unable to move as the pain slowly receded. I was finally able to get up and make my way to the bed where I curled up and finally went to sleep. Within a week I had seen two doctors and was admitted to Prattville hospital in Alabama. For two weeks I stayed there while they placed a drain tube in my colon and drained puss out of an abscess the size of an orange. The doctor comes in and tells me that it is drained and I can go home and resume my life. I had just started a new job so returning to it I was determined to work hard to ensure the absence I’d had wouldn’t hurt me during my probationary period. A week went by and on Wednesday I had extreme pain in my stomach again so had to leave work and go to another hospital in Montgomery where they did a cat scan and admitted me for an emergency operation on my colon.
Waking up five days later in ICU I found that the abscess had again grew to the size of an orange and while I was being visited by my brother and sister [no relation] the abscess broke and poison flooded my system. I had a colostomy bag attached to my stomach and was told that after four months I would have a reversal and be able to go back to my normal life. After the second surgery I woke to find I still had the colostomy and was told I would have to keep it the rest of my life. After another eight weeks I was able to return to work driving a dump truck and relocated to Foley Alabama where I tried to resume my life. After another two years of living in constant pain while accumulating six hernia’s in my stomach I was not able to work any longer. I ended up back in Montgomery where I found employment with a temp company detailing cars at Hundai and tried to resume a normal lifestyle. This wasn’t easy to do for my friends which to this day I hold in GREAT RESPECT for putting up with the…how do I say it Allen, inconveince of being close when the bag broke away from my skin. and had become so depressed I thought life wasn’t worth living like that anymore.
I talked to my brother and made arrangements to go to Indiana to stay with him for a couple of months to figure out what to do. Arriving in Indiana I was depressed and had a plan to say good-bye to family and friends and commit suicide, I ended up in a hospital’s ward for suicide patients which turned out to be the best thing that happened to me since this all started. A nurse there told me about the Cleveland clinic and after I was released gave me information for help which included going to the free clinic in Ft. Wayne IN. A doctor seen me there and came over to look at my colostomy and sent me to a specialist. Understand all this happened without me having insurance so I was expecting to be turned away yet again when to my surprise Dr. Marks told me the operation shouldn’t have ever taken place. He knew I had no insurance and couldn’t work so he graciously preformed the operation and charged me a measly $2,200 for another operation. These three operations with follow up appointments, hospital care, and medical supplies had me in debt close to the tune of $1 million dollars! I was however put back together and given hope for a normal future. I filed bankruptcy and was looking for a job when my step father passed away in February of 2011.
My mother was in the first stages of Alzheimer’s disease and couldn’t be left alone so I stepped in to care for her. This was/is a full time job that really can not be described as it has opened my eyes to quite a few things I would have never realized before doing this. Alzheimer’s is a terrible disease that affects memory and slowly eats away until there is nothing left of memory. For the last three and a half years I have been with my mother 24/7 with the exception of three days while friends [family] from Alabama came up to visit and another week while I was in the hospital getting yet another operation to repair the damage in my stomach wall which looked like swiss cheese due to the hernia’s. During these last 3 1/2 years I have watched my loving mother regress into a child like state. The first year found me trying to understand this disease and coping with it while keeping mother happy and arguing with family about expenses.
to be continued…
©2014 beibejones 
beibejones 