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| Me, not looking so well |
It took being put to bed by paramedics at 6:30 PM on a Saturday evening and staying there until 9:30 AM on a Monday morning for me to “get” that I really needed to hire more personal care attendants (PC A’s). Upon their return, the head paramedic inquired whether I had enough help, adding that it really wasn’t “their job” to get people in and out of bed. Jackie, who’s been with me as my main PCA and overseas my life, assured him that the circumstances were unique. As if It wasn’t enough to have multiple sclerosis and be a power wheelchair user, I had been running a temperature prior to having oral surgery, where, to my dismay, two teeth in the front of my mouth had to be extracted due to fractures, decay and bacterial infection. I had been in denial about having the infection because I already experience so much sensory phenomenon and pain related to having MS 24/7 that I didn’t take the symptoms of tenderness in my mouth seriously.
I had grown accustomed to and took for granted my ability to transfer out of my queen sized bed onto the commode, out of the power wheelchair into the shower chair and back again after bathing myself. For the most part, I was independent. Over the years, however, I had also grown accustomed to having to wear a an adult diaper when going out for any period time, but to date, hadn’t needed to wear one at night.
I wear one of those “help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up buttons,” and I use it. In this case, Pam, a friend who lives nearby, had come over to assist me in my post operative need for, among other things, hydrating myself. I was on my third round of a strong antibiotic and was forcing fluids in an attempt to also flush toxins. When it came to transferring into bed for the night, I was too weak. The paramedics had to move furniture and me into the bed, a task that rendered me embracing a new level of humility. I remember not caring that I was butt naked in a diaper. I remember asking to be moved more toward the headboard and a little to the left so that I could reach the grab bar. For some reason I thought I would still be able to sit up.
I was wrong.
