August 6, 2015
From my propped-up position in my oversized hospital bed (at six-foot-six, I could not get comfortable in a bed made for normal human beings), I was presently “Live in Concert!” with two rows of doctors and nurses in front of me.
What an audience! Standing room only. Lots of bright spotlights. Someone hand me a piano, please.
A portable X-ray machine was being wheeled in to my right. With its giant feet and head, it resembled one of the all-terrain scouts in The Empire Strikes Back. It was there to determine if the nasal gastric tube (NG tube) that the doctors wanted to insert through my nose in order to clear the ileus in my intestines made its way properly into my stomach.
And yes, it’s as awful as it sounds.
The tube was six feet long. Its job was to suction out the extra air and material that I may otherwise vomit because of the backup in my intestines. In its packaging, the NG tube looks innocent enough, like a French horn made out of flexible PVC tubing. Out of its packaging, though, and in the hands of a licensed health-care professional intent on inserting it into your nose, it looks like something out of the Saw movies.
Fight-or-flight hormones started flooding my brain. I imagined Michael Crichton punching up this scene for an episode of ER. Or, more aptly, that scene from Rosemary’s Baby where Mia Farrow exclaims, “This isn’t a dream! This is really happening!” The doctors weren’t helping either. They wouldn’t give me drugs for my anxiety because that would make the bowel paralysis worse, and if I continued to wretch from the nausea, I would likely rupture the surgery sutures inside my abdomen and bleed internally. I began to panic again. My senses were on fire. I was now hyper-aware of my predicament.
The pitying look on the RN’s face as she approached me with the NG tube spoke volumes.
“Try to relax, Mr. Tesh,” she said. “Please keep swallowing. You need to swallow the tube.”
Connie’s voice cut through the chaos in my mind. “Just look at me, John. Keep your eyes here. I love you, honey.” I searched her face. Had I forgotten that her eyes were this green? They looked tired from all the nights sleeping on that tiny couch by the window, but right then they were so brilliantly green. I recalled the hours and hours of her reading Scripture to me. It reminded me that I wanted to live, and that I had to fight.
It was a beautiful moment of serenity. But it was short-lived.
My fear response was in overdrive. I reached up to yank out the tube. Someone held my arm down to stop me. I fought with them. The heart rate and telemetry monitor seemed to be ear-splittingly loud. Blood was pouring from my left nostril where the NG tube had pierced my nasal passage. And then the room seemed strangely bright. Everyone seemed to be moving much slower now. The loud beeping from the monitors was barely audible. It had been replaced by a rushing sound in my ears, like the sound you hear as a kid when you put that big shell up to your ear.
“Do you hear the ocean?” my mom would ask.
Before I could answer, I was back in the moment, bleeding, gagging.
Through tears, I mouthed the words to my loving partner that neither one of us will ever forget: “Kill me. Please, kill me.”