12.29.05
All that ends well…
Today is all better. The twenty-sixth of December, however, was a nightmare.
The day we got our bookcase was supposed to be a really happy day.
Several weeks ago, I ordered a custom made bookcase in a gorgeous shade of blue, slightly weathered and well waxed. It had to fit a very tight space, and so I had it made extra deep to accommodate the majority of our many, many books. I also had the crowning on top designed so that the bookshelf could stand easily beside a wall on the right. Standing over 6 feet tall, it’s an impressive piece of furniture to behold.
It was delivered sooner than expected. We had not yet made the room ready by the time the call came informing us that it would arrive between two and four o’clock in the afternoon. A flurry of activity ensued, and tensions rose as our room took on a distinctly deconstructed appearance. Trouble is, that tension sent Kisha headlong into the worst panic attack she’s ever had. She hyperventillated bad enough to pass out twice. My beloved suffers from chronic PTSD brought about by events in her life that are not my place to discuss here, and panic attacks are a serious issue when they occur. To help combat them, Kisha has a prescription for Ativan. She took the usual dose when the panic started to rise. Unfortunately, the pills apparently failed to do their job, and in her panicked state she took several more, then several more. Sometime during the sever panic attack she ingested all the remaining pills in the bottle plus the remaining pills in another bottle of Ativan. I was not aware that she had done so until she said, in a somewhat muddled and worried tone, “It’s all right… [but] I just took a whole bottle of Ativan”.
My first reaction was to grab the phone and dial 9-1-1. I don’t remember a lot of what happened immediately after that, but I do remember being frightened out of my wits. I also found myself wrestling with how the event of her overdosing came about. With a little time, I determined that she had not been attempting suicide. For one thing, she would not have told me what she’d done. Also, she’d not have done it when anyone but her was home. I still do not know if there was some unconscious motivation that even she was unaware of - how could I? - but in all likelihood she was simply desparate to escape the panic and too confused to rationally cognize what she was doing.
The EMTs were quick to get her downstairs and onto a stretcher. I walked with her to the ambulance and rode along in the front seat as we sped to the hospital. In the back, they gave her tubes of charcoal to ingest and monitored her vitals. Once at the hospital, they pumped her stomach and did a blood workup. In the end they figured she’d taken over seventy pills.
People were called, people arrived, people talked to her as she lay abed, in and out of consciousness. Family tried to wrap their heads around what had just happened. When I spoke to her, Kisha simply told me she was sorry, that she loved me, and that she wanted me to stay. I would never have left her side but for the fact that only one visitor at a time was allowed in. When it came time for me to go back in I was informed that no-one was allowed back in for at least a half an hour. Only later did I learn that Kisha had torn out her I.V. tubes and demanded to go home - “AMA”, no less. Suprisingly enough, they ultimately did let her leave, and we brough her home and got her to bed and let her sleep.
Later in the night she awoke and talked to me, though most of it was incoherent dream-laced rambling that made no sense. I stayed by her side and watched over her, finally falling asleep. She was much better in the morning, relatively speaking, but was thoroughly wiped out, mentally and physically. Even now, three days later, she’s sleeping a great deal, recuperating from her ordeal.
She loves the bookcase. I love that she loves it. It was the last material gift of the season. But the last real gift was that my beloved survived and came home.
