The Hospital Stay from Hell [Part One]

The last picture we ever took of him

Have you ever had one of those days where everything is going wrong? You try so hard to change things for the better, but all you can do is sit back and watch the chaos burn away any chance at hope you'll ever have. Amplify that by two weeks and you'll have a glimpse at the two weeks from hell that I experienced.

At the time, I guess you could say I was depressed. I was still not feeling better, I was in constant pain, there was nothing anyone could do about it. But I kept my depression in check. If I did have any weird suicidal feelings, I felt like I could tell my mom about them. But they never really did materialize. I was just sad. I didn't want to kill myself, or anyone else. I talked with a therapist, and even she agreed that I was just sad and my depression wasn't dangerous to myself or anyone else around me.

But then all Hell broke loose. 

My mother works at the Humane Society of San Antonio, and every once in a while, she gets the urge to foster a dog for a short amount of time. We already have two dogs, so my father usually doesn't allow her to bring home homeless dogs, no matter how long she says they will be there. But this was a special case.

The dog's name was Rusty. He was 15-years-old, was blind, deaf, and had arthritis. He wasn't much to look at, but he was sweet and very smart. My mom brought him home as a sort of hospice care. The vet said he may only live another couple months, or so. I was reluctant to bring home another dog just to watch him slowly die, but I had no say in the matter. The second she brought him home, I was obsessed with him. He was a bit skiddish at first with both my parents, but when I introduced myself to him, he stuck by me and never left. Maybe he could sense that I was sick, too, and he felt it was something we could bond over, or maybe I used the same perfume as his previous owner and it gave him a sense of nostalgia, or, just maybe, he got tired and happened to fall asleep on whatever lap was willing to accept him.

Whatever the case, he and I grew very close and we bonded.

Within a couple of days after Rusty appeared into our lives, my mother brought home a German Shepard puppy. She was supposed to go to a training camp for service dogs in a couple of days, but they had no room for her in the shelter, so, of course, we decided to keep her until the camp was ready for her.

Yes, ladies and gentleman, we had doubled the number of dogs in our house in less than three days.

The puppy didn't last long in our house, but she did leave her mark. Bite marks. On my feet. And the chairs. And everything else in the house.

Just a few short days after the puppy left, Rusty began to show symptoms of kidney failure. We rushed him to the vet, and the vet confirmed our suspicions. We scheduled to put him down the next day.

I remember bringing him back to the Humane Society the very next day. He was wrapped in a blanket. He didn't know what was going on. They put him in the back of this big, green, cart and wheeled him way. He couldn't keep his balance as the cart drove away, he was whimpering long, loud cries for comfort. I couldn't even be there with him as he crossed the rainbow bridge.

And then he was gone.

To shorten this blog post, I will be making a list of all the other crap that went on during those same two weeks:

-Someone died
-I got into a fight with my best friend
-My parents were pressuring me into going back to school, or getting a job, even though I wasn't physically ready
-My parents pressured me into going on disability. 
-My relationship with my boyfriend was falling apart.

He looks cute, but watch out!

-Someone else died

Needless to say, I was grieving three times over and I was a wreck. I needed a way to cope with all the loss surrounding me, but I couldn't. I needed control, but I had none. So, I did something stupid.

I emptied a bottle of pills into my hands.

I wasn't going to take them. But I told myself that I at least had control over my own death, if I so desired. I could play God.

But I didn't take the pills. I didn't intend to. When my mom found out, she panicked and called my therapist, exaggerating the story, saying I WAS going to kill myself, not that I was giving myself a philosophical coping mechanism. My therapist told her to send me to the hospital, where they would analyze me and put my mother's thoughts at ease.

When we got there, all I could smell was old cigarettes and death. We went up the the window, the woman asked me why I was there. I didn't know what to say, so I sarcastically said "Apparently I tried to kill myself".

I was lead to the back room, where they put me in a hospital gown and sat me in front of a TV while I waited for the doctor to see me. There was one other lady in there with me. I tried to pull out my phone to maybe play a game or text my friends, but then I remembered my parents were holding on to my purse.

The whole thing was agonizingly slow. It took almost half an hour to get seen. When I was finally sent to the room, I was very surprised to see a TV screen waiting for me, not a doctor. A doctor from India was working today, so I had to Skype with her instead. Man, if I actually was suicidal, this probably would have sealed the deal for me. Not even the physician wanted to physically be there with me. They couldn't be bothered. After a 2-minute chat with her, she determined that I was not suicidal, but I was depressed, so she wanted to put me on some anti-depressants. She was wary, though, because of all the other medications I was on, so she said it would be best to hospitalize me for a day or two so they could monitor me for any drug interactions.

That made sense. I'd spend one day in the hospital to try a new medication that had the potential to interact with my other medications. I agreed to the treatment.

But when they wheeled me upstairs, I wasn't ready for what I saw.

[Continue to Part Two]

<3 Mouse