Intensive Care

I completely forgot about when I had to be admitted into Intensive Care in 2006. What a story...

On June 25, 2006 (not that I remember dates or anything), my exBPD and I were cleaning out her kitchen when I found a box of sandwich toothpicks, the ones with plastic tassels on the end of it. I also found straws and started blowing darts across the kitchen. The second dart, I put into the straw, and inhaled, getting ready to blow the dart across the kitchen.

Unfortunately, the dart went the wrong way.

When I inhaled through my mouth, the dart went into my mouth and down my throat. I swallowed hard, and the dart was gone.

I felt like the dart was sitting in the back of my throat, but it must have scratched my throat as it was going into my stomach. We called the hospital and they advised us to go right in.

I went to Somerset Medical Center and was checked out. A specialist came and gave me an Endoscopy, trying to get the toothpick out of my stomach.

The specialist couldn't get the toothpick out of my stomach. They said that I had eaten too much for lunch and couldn't find it. They told me to go home, and it should hopefully pass.

The next few days were relatively uneventful. I periodically checked to see if the toothpick had passed, and I'd periodically feel pains in my stomach, but didn't worry too much about it.

The following weekend was the fourth of July. We were scheduled to go to my friend's for a barbeque, then drive down to my place in Delaware to spend a weekend at the beach with all five of the kids. Fun for all. Unfortunately, I was in great pain at my friend's house, but hung tough. She drove down to Delaware because I was in such pain, and I decided that if necessary, I would go to the hospital down there. That evening, I was in great pain, but I decided to wait the night.

The next morning, I felt fine. We had a wonderful weekend in Delaware, and I wrote our Commitment Declaration, which we celebrated on the beach and had a great time overall.

We came back from Delaware on Tuesday, I believe. I felt fine. By the end of the week, however, I was in great pain whenever I urinated. On Friday, I went to the doctor, who said that I would need to go to the Emergency Room and get a CAT scan. They needed to see if they could find the toothpick.

I spent the entire night in the hospital and got two CAT scans. At 4 a.m., the doctor admitted me into the hospital -- Intensive Care. They wanted to watch me because they thought that the toothpick was floating in my body cavity. I had a fever and they put me on an IV right away.

In the morning, I prepped for my surgery, couldn't eat and had two operations.The first, which was like a colonoscopy (forget the name), produced nothing. The second was surgery where they went into my body and retrieved the toothpick.

In recovery, my lung collapsed. Back into Intensive Care I went for 2 more days.

The BPD was with me for much of the surgery, and she stayed with me the first night after my surgery. She was quite supportive overall, but of course, when I asked her to get my phone because I wanted to call my friend Mike, she suspected that I was going to call women.

Her anxiety got worse though. On the second night, when she was going to stay over, I was flipping TV stations and in my own world, according to her. I guess that I wasn't paying enough attention to her, so she was upset and she stormed out around 11 p.m. There I was, upset, and she had left because I wasn't paying any attention to her while I was in Intensive Care.

Does anyone see the problem with this?

The next day, I was moved out of Intensive Care, and my Mom was coming to see me. They (my parents) had been there through all of the surgery and the later days, but she was coming to see me. I asked her to stop at my house and pick up my laptop, as I had a credit card bill that was about to be late. She stopped and picked up the laptop, which caused yet more anxiety with the BPD. She thought that I was going to email others or reach out to people, I guess.

She came to the hospital upset and not happy with me. Anyway, I was released the following day, and we had 1-1/2 weeks to spend together as I was told to stay out of work by the doctor.

The Tour de France was on during this time, and I love the tour. An American was in contention, so I was particularly interested and I tried to watch it every day.

This again was not good. The BPD felt that I was so focused on the Tour and not paying enough attention to her. She was greatly upset by this.

Some of these episodes became the BPDs reasons for telling me that I had Dissociative Identity Disorder -- because I did not pay enough attention to her or would focus on something other than her.

I returned to work after 2 weeks of being out. The BPD made the entire time, just like when I was in the hospital, about her. I couldn't recover and not pay attention to her, as the BPDs narcissistic tendencies make them the focus and require them to be the focus regardless of others' needs.

Looking back, I should have walked after the episode was over. How can someone justify walking out of another when they're in the hospital? That's downright abuse and something that I wish that I had brought up in counseling.

I told my coworker about this, and her response was appropriate: "That's not a sick person, that's just the most selfish, most immature person that you'll ever meet."

So true.

Good riddance.