Keep kicking.

I remember lying on the cold, hard gurney of the almost empty emergency room. It was the middle of the night and I was again hooked up to an IV getting a calcium infusion. I’d done this for years. I had thyroid cancer and had my thyroid removed at around age 25. I was one of the unlucky ones that subsequently lost my parathyroid which regulates the absorption of calcium in your body. When they told me I had this condition, I wasn’t particularly alarmed until they explained that a lack of calcium is not just a “got milk” joke. Calcium is what regulates muscles, with your heart being the largest muscle in your body. Thus, a lack of calcium results in a heart attack and is a serious condition without aggressive treatment. I was told by one intensive care doctor I would be lucky to make it five more years with my condition as my heart would weaken over time. For a period of time I had infusions 3-4 times a week. I would get a blood test to see what my level was and then get the call from the doctor that it was again low and be ordered to go to the emergency room for an overnight visit to get an infusion. I was a single mother at the time and would take my kids to my parents house and head to the hospital for what became my normal. I would spend the night on a gurney and in the morning I would make my way to work. Life didn’t stop. I had children to raise and bills to pay.

One of the most memorable nights was in the county hospital ER. We all know county hospitals aren’t the Ritz hotel. The gurney was in the corner of a large room. The large room was divided into little areas by curtains with a gurney in each curtained area. Of course I had free entertainment lying on my bed listening to everyone else give their report to the doctor of their emergency ailment. Back then there were no glass doors or privacy issues. It was a flimsy curtain between you and the next patient.  Person after person would come and go as watched the clock pass the time.

That night was a slower than normal night and I spent much of the night lying on the gurney with the steel frame jabbing into my back uncomfortably. I had been fitted with a PICC line a few months back because of the frequency of my visits and had been told if it moved even a little it would have to be removed because it was a line directly to my heart. I would become fatally infected if the end of it were exposed to open air. So, that night I sat still waiting for morning. Since I had the permanent IV in my arm I was tied to the bed with no way to get up or even move.

Around midnight, I heard an officer bring a young man about 25 into the curtained area beside me. It was me, the officer and the very drunk assailant. “Oh boy”, I thought. “I’m going to get a show now and get some soap opera style dirt on what this guy had done to get arrested!” I got a lot more than that!

A few minutes later the nurse came in and assessed him. He apparently needed a couple stitches from his wrestling match with the officer. She left to go get the doctor and there we were, just the three of us. Soon, the still drunk man had a burst of liquid courage and decided he was going to escape. He and the officer started wrestling for a second time that night and my curtain began to flow like the spring wind was coming through an open window. Within minutes, the officer came rolling under the curtain with the drunkard right behind him. They rolled on the floor crashing into my gurney that was up against the wall. Fear for my life or safety did not cross my mind in the least. My only thought was if they rip out this PICC IV line, I will have a bad situation on my hands.  

Several minutes went by with them continuing to tussle at my bedside. They would shake my bed back and forth and sporadically move it even though the wheels were locked. Bang, bang, bang. I felt like I was on an octopus ride slamming me into the wall and back and forth. It was clear this young thug was much stronger than the officer and also clear that the nurse and doctor were in no hurry to return. From my bed I began strategically becoming the karate kid. I would time my kicks off the side of my bed to only hit the young man and not the officer, pushing him further away from my bed with each chop of my foot. Under no circumstances was this needle coming out of my arm! Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the officer overpowered the young man and cuffed him to the gurney in the next curtained area.  

I had hundreds of emergency room visits over time and eventually stopped getting infusions so frequently. I normally have one about once a year or so now. I’ve had two heart attacks but I’ve made it 20 years since that time. That night in the rough county emergency room stands out not only because of the obvious shocking altercation I was involved in, but also because it mimics my fight with this condition. I’m tied to a cold, hard, steel disease unable to shake it for life. But, I continue to kick and fight tooth and nail unafraid. I continue with a spirit that I can do anything as long as I just keep going and don’t stop.  

Life is what you make of it. You can lie in bed crying out for someone to come save you or you can knuckle up and make it happen. You can deem yourself too weak and sick to participate in the beauty of life or you can muster all the strength you’ve got and reep the rewards by soaking in every moment of this amazing life you have left.  

So the moral of the story is, keep your spirit positive and always, always….keep kicking.