TTSOML #120: Suicide Recovery

I should mention, some of the interactions I had with Wenatchee jail, regarding a couple of inmates I was trying to interview, after I write about the suicide attempt. I suppose this is a note to remind myself. Also, should write about a lawyer I lived next to who Beau Blixseth knew evidently, in Oregon.

The ipecac didn't work, and I think I wrote the charcoal didn't work, but I believe this is what they had to keep giving me to make me throw up. That, and internal irrigation through a catheter.

The red-haired ambulance guy seemed to have inside information about me, because I noted what he said to me, to encourage me to fight to live. I did my best to stay conscious and actually didn't fall unconscious the entire time.

Once at the hospital, they hooked me up to a number of things. I was given so much charcoal and whatever else they gave me, that I aspirin was coming out of almost every orrifice. It was painful and it went on for several hours as other things were added to my IV because my basic electrolytes and other things were so off. I don't really need to go into details here. Maybe someday I will. At one point, I was so agitated and out of it, I was trying to leave. I tried to get up and they wouldn't let me. I watched until everyone was out of the room and was going to pull out my wires and make a run for the exit. I got as far as pulling out my wires and sitting up and they knew. I remember being very upset about that, as they put the monitors and connections back. I didn't have the internal catheter, down my throat, the whole time but for when we were actively purging. It was coming out in very small flakes and pieces. Hours and hours, and they kept asking how much I'd taken, and that they couldn't believe there was more. They didn't know for sure how much I'd taken until it was over and out, because of the volume.

I guess someone believed me for once. Maybe it still took tangible evidence though.

Then I was in critical care for awhile, because my electrolytes and blood stuff kept going haywire. Really low on one thing, and then the other. It was constant monitoring. I was warned that now that I'd lived, the main concern was damage done to the internal organs, bleeding mainly.

So they monitored bleeding and said in the future I could have problems. The other thing which eventually resolved was my hearing. I couldn't hear anything very well and it sounded like everything was in a tunnel...very muffled.

I spoke with my family over the phone and asked my parents if they would come visit and they said no, that they had work to do.

My aunt and uncle Avila, who now watch my son temporarily, and a couple of their kids, were the only ones to visit from family. I didn't want any friends or other people to know. When the mental health guy arrived, I spoke with him and he felt assured I was going to be fine, and I knew I was as well. It had been a one-time thing, and I knew then, with as much certainty as I have now, that I wouldn't try it again. I even told my family, if in the future, anything happened to me, not to believe it was suicide if it ever looked that way, because I would never do that or try it again.

They released me and I was fine, if slightly sobered up and a little bit sad. I went back to the cabin I was staying at, with workers in the orchard. I didn't have anywhere else to go at the time. I had quit college, and hadn't felt well enough to work because of the constant dizziness and bronchitis and severity of my untreated migraines. I sort of do wonder if it was toxic black mold at the last apartment in Oregon, because bronchitis is listed as a main symptom and the other symptoms match as well.

So, I went back to the cabin, and told no one where I had been, and everyone there treated me more like family than my own family. They made Mexican soups for me, and carne asade and papino con chili y limon. It must have very shortly after this, that I conceived my son. I would say, he had to have been conceived 2 weeks to 1 month later as I believe I missed my next period or the one right after.

I later had my midwife try to suggest once that I'd done this suicide attempt over my son which is a hideous accusation. I wasn't pregnant then, and it would have been impossible. Even my ultrasounds confirmed the date, and I had one done so early, it is very precise.

What happened, is that I tried to take my own life, and in return, my life was saved and another one, more beautiful than mine, was given to me as well.