In 2021 I either lived in a hospital, hotel or skilled nursing facility for more than three months. The following story takes place during one of my hospital stays. It proved to be one of the most psychologically challenging events I have ever experienced. This is an excerpt from the diary I kept during my stay.
All the opioids I’m on have given me constipation. My bowels have not produced a movement in at least a week. Even the overdose of softeners and fiber supplements being shoveled into me daily have had no effect. Since I am unable to expel the meds, they have continued to accumulate in my body. Their continued presence in my system has been the source of a growing concern for my safety. I am literally starting to lose my grip on reality. It’s a weird thing to be unsure if I’m dreaming or awake. There doesn’t appear to be a line between the two for me at the moment.
The medicinally induced movement will be coming along within the next day or so, but right now I need consistent sleep. Last night, my trauma team decided to chemically turn me off for a night so that I could allow my mind to rest. At the top of their list was Trazodone. It’s primary focus is to treat depression, but it has a ton of secondary uses. As with most medications, the list of side effects is as long and scary as some of the illnesses they treat. My body has always been resilient when it comes to resisting side effects, but I had so many other meds in my system, I had no idea what would happen at the time, but I damn sure do now.
First, and most important lesson I now understand about Trazodone. I doesn’t give a fuck about about my comfort, anxiety, or emotional state. When it said “lights out”, all I could do was wake up in whatever position it left me in. I went from wide awake to black-out unconsciousness in an instant.
Next up was the fact that I was awakened in the middle of the night by doctors who I knew were not there. I had full conversations with total hallucinations. What I also had was an erection that would not go away.
Do you know how fucking bizarre it is to have an erection that won’t go away while doctors and nurses who do not really exist come into the room all throughout the night and say random and strange things to you? I do now.
If that wasn’t enough, every time I woke up, I had to pee. Since I was unable to get out of bed, I had to use a small portable urinal. Where that became an issue was that I still had raging wood. For those of you without a penis, I’ll explain. Bending it down when fully erect is like bending a water hose in half. Nothing makes it through. Since I was stuck in bed, I could only set up straight and try to angle things downward while also trying not to spill whizz all over myself and the bed. There was no right method, so I just did the best I could.
Now let’s reintroduce the knockout punch of the Trazodone. I peed in the container, but then blacked out again. When I awoke, I noticed that I still had my junk inside the urinal, which meant I was at risk for spilling it all over myself. I went to remove it… and that’s when I woke up yet again and realized I still had not removed the urinal from the previous time I observed its location. I spent most of the night resting in my own pee, while hiding my wood from doctors and nurses who didn’t exist… Just to wake up with a foul taste in my mouth and a level of grogginess that made me feel like I was one step above a vegetable.
The next morning, I barely mentioned my experiences when they all told me that although rare, my hallucinations and prolonged erection were potential side effects.
Making memories I suppose.
Off The Rails 