The cards were set, the chips were dealt, and the Mitch was stuck. As I mentioned before, a psych ward is the last place you want to be when going through opioid withdrawal. They have very strict schedules and procedures. They don't have doctors but instead have staff who have had training in mental health, not in withdrawal and chronic pain. To make matters worse the worst night of my withdrawal happened to be the night when the worst nurse was on duty.
My withdrawal symptoms had reached their peak. Sweating, vomiting, trembling. I spent the entire night vomiting into the tiny kidney basin they gave me then and cleaning it up. I wasn't allowed to turn the lights on to read or see where I was vomiting so I was stuck in the dark, bored and delirious. Eventually I quit this to go to the toilet instead, since I wasn't going to be able to sleep anyway. This was the usual routine, but the problem was the sheer amount of times I was vomiting. My stomach was starting to take some damage, and I started vomiting up blood. I felt a weird tenderness in my stomach and was worried I was going to get an ulcer if I kept vomiting. I felt an impending sense of doom for the second time in my life, the other being when I had swine flu and couldn't stop coughing to breath. If you're not familiar with this, it's a really weird feeling of dread that you're about to die, kind of like a panic attack but specifically about death. I left my room and went to the nurse for help. You can picture the nurse as a really old woman who hates her job. As she looked up at me when I walked up to her she immediately got a look of impatience on her face. I explained what was happening, but the nurse wasn't impressed. She told me to go back to my room and that vomiting is normal during withdrawal. I told her I know vomiting is normal but I was starting to vomit up blood and so need to see a doctor. She told me to show her the blood-vomit. I told her I can't because I flushed it down the toilet. She gave me this smirk that said, "I don't believe you," and once again ordered me back to my room. I pleaded and I begged to see a doctor to ensure I wasn't in danger all to no avail. I wanted to be in sight of an adult in case I really was in danger but also wanted to get out of my room because the stench of puke was overpowering. I asked if I could just sit outside the room she was in until the current bout of withdrawal receded but she denied me that as well. I went back into my room to endure withdrawal... alone.
Nights were hard. Without my medications I couldn't sleep much. When I did, I had nightmares and flashbacks, mostly about myself waking up in the hospital from my coma. Specifically those first few seconds when I open my eyes and look around to see 4-6 doctors including my dad looking down at me concerned. Then the realization that I wasn't dead. The realization that my pain would continue, causing me to break down in tears and ask to no one in particular: "Why am I ALIVE?!?" This memory will stay with me forever, and I wonder if it even caused some form of post traumatic stress disorder. I'd have plenty of time to ponder such things as I laid awake in bed. Mornings would come, and I'd always be woken with everyone else at 8:15 AM. This is a big change from when I was waking up at 2 PM when I was at home, causing exhaustion to be my constant companion. I was still expected to partake in all the daily events. All the kids/teenagers would sit down with a counselor and talk about lovely things like our future goals and aspirations. We'd be forced to bake cookies and make coffee (not for us) and go just outside the ward to set up a stand in the hospital to raise money for the hospital. Thankfully they gave me back my normal clothes to replace the hospital gown before this. We'd do certain sporty things that I couldn't take part in because of my legs, but that I still had to be present for. Some of the kids were real pieces of work that I managed to deftly avoid. It wasn't all bad though, because I managed to make a couple of friends. There's nothing that brings people together like being collectively stuck in a place you don't want to be.
