Josh suffered well into the night. As a family, we decided on day one that we would take turns spending the night with Josh. After I spent a few more hours with Josh, I went to my new room at the Fisher House (a residence home on post for family members who would serve as daily caregivers) and let Josh’s dad and stepmother have their turn. All night long Josh cried and begged for help from the pain. Josh became hopeless. Nothing was providing even the smallest amount of relief. He cried and begged and fought until he looked at his father and stepmother and said, “I just want to die.” Finally, Kristie and Patrick called Cathi and me around 6:00 a.m. and asked us to come to the hospital. The room was swelling with an intensity similar to childbirth—the patient in inconceivable pain, the doctors giving urgent and intense orders to the nurses, and the family clutching one another because there was nothing they could do. The begging and pleading turned into crying and screaming until finally the doctors ordered a bolus of painkillers for Josh’s IV. I stood wide-eyed with my hand over my mouth as I watched the nurses empty the syringes one by one into his PICC line for a total of six different narcotics, each chased with saline solution. I was stunned, and I wondered whether his body could handle the now irretrievable amount of drugs. But, for the first time, Josh’s body finally relaxed. His chest loosened up, his eyelids softened, and his limbs seemed to melt into the bed. His monitors reflected calm breathing and a slower heart rate. The mission had changed. From now on, the goal was to keep Josh comfortable.
Josh lay in the bed like a pile of Jell-O, the IV bolus having done its job. I was able to finally sit down and gather my thoughts. Once we felt like Josh had calmed down, we allowed his sisters and brother to come in the room. I prayed silently that God would just let him rest for a few hours so we can figure out what the big issues are.
Suddenly, Josh made very strange eye contact with me from his hospital bed. Oh no, I thought. What now?
“Pssssssttt… Paige come here!” Josh thought he was whispering, but he had actually gotten the attention of the whole room. I dismissed everyone’s gaze with an awkward smile and an “It’s okay” wave. I walked over and bent down to him with a very confused look on my face. “What?”
“They’ve paralyzed me.”
“Um… honey, you are not paralyzed. You were just really struggling with pain so they gave you a lot of medication at once.”
“But I can’t even move my fingers. I’m paralyzed!”
“Josh you are not para—”
“Ssshhhhh!” he said, spitting everywhere. “They’ll hear us!”
“Babe, just close your eyes and relax, okay?” I said, wiping saliva off my face.
“You’ll keep first watch?”
“Yes,” I said, eyes rolling. “I will keep first watch.”
By his third day at Walter Reed, Josh had an IV PICC line that was supplying two antibiotics to fight infections, ketamine (a horse tranquilizer), and a patient-controlled pump of Dilaudid. He also had an epidural in his back to numb his lower half. Due to being in and out of fevers, Josh was regularly administered a fever reducer and had at least five ice packs on him at all times. His overheating issues weren’t helped by the huge foam wedges used to keep his fists pointed to the sky. His dressing was too thick for him to even scratch his face. To control bleeding, Josh was also hooked up to five wound vacs, devices that vacuum out fluids from open wounds. Antimicrobial sponges were cut into the shapes of Josh’s open lacerations. The sponges were laid on top of the bleeding area and then covered with cellophane. When the wound vac was turned on, it provided suction to the sponge, sinking it into all the crevices of the wound and pulling out fluid around the clock. Josh also couldn’t eat or drink anything. The minute he checked into Walter Reed, he was on the surgery rotation. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday he would be in the operating room for nine or more hours. We were only allowed to swab his mouth with a sponge attached to a popsicle stick. Josh would hot flash for about twenty minutes, and then a white ring of dehydration would form around his lips. More than once I went to swab his mouth and it was so dry that I had to use my finger to pry his tongue off the roof of his mouth. To top it all off, Josh was naked 24/7. The constant sweating, swelling in his legs, and the possibility of being whisked away to surgery at moment’s notice made clothing unnecessary. So, if the loincloth pillowcase gave him a hot flash, visitors who didn’t already know him got to know him well.
Despite the constant work, we were slowly getting the hang of taking care of Josh physically. Mentally and emotionally, he was still struggling. He complained constantly about legitimate things, but then the complaints got weird. He said he could hear circus music playing, so much so that he couldn’t hear the voices of the people in the room. Almost irritated, I said “Josh, there is no circus music playing. Please don’t get worked up right now. Just close your eyes.”
“I can’t!” he said, while crying.
“Why?”
Wide-eyed and breathing heavily, Josh said, “I… I just can’t close my eyes.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“The Ninja Turtles…”
Oh God, he’s hallucinating.
“The Ninja Turtles are coming after me!” Tears were rolling down his face. “Why would they
