Liver and Cherry

[Sundae]

Okay, so a bit of catch up on some of the weirdness.
I had The Worst Detox I've ever had when I went into St James's in December. St Anne's staff and denizens told me that every lapse/ relapse gets worse, and therefore so does every detox, but this was a jump of warp speed standards.

The hallucinations were a bitch.
I didn't get insects, I got fur throws, feathers, glitter, sparkle and silver paint.
No, I'm not being facetious, that really was my experience. It did get weary after a while, when you can't actually open either of your eyes, have significant sight loss, no glasses and are trying to spit toothpaste into the sink, it's tiring to see it coated in silver paint and not be able to work out whether you have left it clean for the next person.

There were pools of blood on the floor and tendrils coming down from the ceiling, but in general it was soft furnishings.

But one of the weirdest parts was the day I spent believing I was in an observation unit. I thought I'd been taken onto another ward, awaiting an appointment. I figured out that we were being kept waiting so they could observe us, and that the person in the bed opposite was a member of staff. I waited and waited, at one point forgetting I was in Leeds, thinking I was back in Cambridge waiting for my liver biopsy. Anyway, it got to the point where I'd been patient (!) enough, thank you. No one seemed to have been called in for ages and I was going to miss tea on the Ward if I wasn't seen soon. So for the only time I was in hospital I rang the call button. It was 16.45 and tea is served at 17.00.

I asked the nurse who came whether I was going to be fed in the waiting area, or if they would be holding my tea on the ward for me, because I'd been waiting all day.
No, she said, I was ON the ward. I'd had my tea. It was the middle of the night, did I need anything?

Even now I don't know if I'd been asleep and dreaming, or genuinely lying there deluded and waiting. I hope it was the former. But I doubt I'll ever forget the sense of the whole world I was living in slowly reforming into a different picture.

Another was the night my landlord came onto the ward to take me back to the flat and clean it up. He came with two bailiffs at about 02.00. They were there to serve me papers, he was there for revenge. The nurses were very calm about it and refused to let him question me as I was under sedation. The bailiffs said that at the very least I had to accompany them back to the flat, but the nurses called in extra support staff to make sure I wasn't taken off the ward.

That was the night of the screaming nightmare. Even when there are big burly men just out of sight with a wheelchair ready to take you away, you still can't help drifting off sometimes. I did, and woke up the ward. It will sound silly, but what set off the screaming (and it is almost unknown for me to scream - usually I am unable to manage in dreams and just make noises) was when I realised my landlord was wearing my hat, and pulled it down over his face.

As I was shaken awake by one of the staff I heard the other one say, "She must have heard, she must have known he was here." So although I knew the dream was a dream, I also knew that the bailiff visit was real. Funny no-one ever referred to it...

I also had a visit from a squaddie collecting for The Dog's Trust.
He sat on the end of my bed for ages, waiting to talk to me.
I had to pretend to be asleep, as I knew he wanted money - which I didn't have, and for dogs - when I'd just lost my precious cat - and he'd had colleagues die and suffer because the charity couldn't afford sniffer dogs in Afghanistan.
I lay rigid for so long in the end my calf muscles cramped up.
Luckily a staff member stopped by and I signalled to her minutely that I was being bothered. But it turned out he'd gone after all. Then she disappeared and I wasn't sure she'd been there at all.

I've always been so scared of going mad.
How did I ever get so bad I couldn't even recognise myself?