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the good, the bad, the ugly - i spent 5 days in icu and survived to tell the tale
avoid hospitals at all cost
Even while writing my last post, I knew something was wrong with my health. I’d not been feeling up to par for several weeks and the issues were increasing. Around 5 in the afternoon I went out to do chores and just as I got to the gate to the goats I had a sudden need to vomit - 15 times over the next 15 minutes. Never in my life had I ever experienced anything like that.
For several years I’ve had a host of symptoms that were only alleviated by drinking water. Lots of water. Prior to vomiting I had downed a total of 5 gallons that day. My normal in the years and months prior had increased from 2 to 3 for some months, then to 3.5 for several months, then to 4 for several months, then 4.5 for some time, then 5 the day before and that day.
The symptoms were unsteadiness on my feet, tinnitus, mental fog, patterns in my vision, minor nosebleeds and numerous other issues. All could be alleviated by drinking ever more water. My sleep was not good due to the need to drain my bladder quite often during the night. The first symptoms began to show up after the installation of a 4G antennae on an existing tower near my house, maybe 4 years ago. The symptoms worsened with the construction of the new 5G tower described in this earlier post, which turned out to be somewhat prophetic.
After that vomiting scenario I knew I was in trouble and needed help. As regular readers know and as I’ve made clear in many of my posts, I’m not a fan of the medical industrial complex. The cavalier attitude most doctors take towards their Hippocratic oath adds to why I feel they do more harm than good. This goes doubly for the medical industrial complex as a whole. I’ve highlighted a number of reasons for this over the past 3 years of posting about health and freedom issues here on Substack.
Over that same time span I’ve also pointed out several times that when it comes to treating trauma and emergency health issues that I believe modern medical care can perform miracles in the ER and ICU. I’ve always said that if I’m in a car wreck or I have medical emergency, by all means, take me to the ER at the nearest hospital. For all of its failings the medical system is at its best when it comes to treating trauma.
So immediately after that vomiting event I got in my truck and drove to a neighbors house and asked if they could take me to the ER at Kino Hospital, which is an hour away on the south side of Tucson, the nearest hospital to my farm. Casey got me there as soon as he could break away (thanks Casey).
I checked in and we waited in the lobby. There were maybe 4 or 5 people ahead of me. We had only been there a few minutes when I turned to Casey and said, I’m going to throw up. Like the previous time 1.5 hours earlier, there was no warming, just a sudden urge to purge. I had no sooner stood up to make my way to the bathroom when I began to throw up across the lobby floor and down the hallway as I made my way to the bathroom. Then four more times in the bathroom for a total of 11 times. I cleaned myself up and went back to my seat. Apparently, throwing up all over the lobby floor gets the attention of the doctors in the ER because I was soon called in to an examination room.
I explained what had happened over the past several months and years, about the installation of the 4G and 5G antennas that led to my symptoms and how drinking more water helped alleviate the symptoms. Surprisingly, they didn’t seem at all troubled by my comments about the radiation from the antennas A series of blood draws were taken and I waited on a gurney for the results.
One thing stood out. My sodium was depleted to 104, a dangerously low level - 135 is the norm. Drinking lots of water had leached my sodium and I had not been taking sufficient salt to replace the leaching effect. The negative effects of the 4 and 5G antennas had taken a toll.
The thing about low sodium is, it can’t be replaced quickly. An overly quick replacement can result in a brain embolism - a stroke. It was going to take days of very close monitoring and carefully calculated sodium increases to get me back to normal. Translated, that meant I was going to be in the ICU for some unknown amount of days. Casey was called in and I told him they were going to admit me and that I was going to be in for some unknown amount of days and could he or one of his kids please do chores for me. Being the exceptional person he is, he of course said yes.
Before I accepted admission I asked if I would be required to take any kind of vaccine. They assured me I would not, so I gave my permission. I was wheeled down several long hallways to ICU and put in a small room with no bathroom. Just an open toilet next to my bed with a tiny sink in the corner.
Kino is an older hospital that once belonged to Pima county. It was a financial burden for the county for many years so they got the University of Arizona medical school to take it over. The U of A turned it into their South Campus. Over the next decade or so taxpayer money paid for several new additions and the overall facility is now of a very high caliber, as such institutions like to proclaim.
Then in 2016 the U of A Health Network merged with Banner Health, a non-profit health care service. Here is how Wikipedia describes the merger.
In June 2014, the University of Arizona Health Network (UAHN)and Banner Health launched a merger, pending Arizona Board of Regents approval to combine operations[14] The merger finally took place in 2016. The new Banner division, Banner - University Medicine and its employed physician group, Banner - University Medical Group (BUMG) brought Banner Health into the forefront of academic medicine. As part of the deal, the former University of Arizona Medical Center and University of Arizona Medical Center - South Campus, in Tucson, AZ, were renamed Banner – University Medical Center Tucson and Banner – University Medical Center South, respectively. Banner Good Samaritan hospital in Phoenix was also renamed, to Banner – University Medical Center Phoenix, to reflect its new designation as the primary teaching hospital of the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix. To upgrade the aging infrastructure of all of these facilities, Banner Health pledged nearly US$1.5 billion to several major construction projects in Phoenix and Tucson.[15]
Banner is able to turn a profit by cutting corners and trimming margins.
I was in the old, original hospital building where the rooms are small and somewhat outdated.
There was the obligatory TV and a set of windows with blinds over them that looked into the next room, which was empty. However, this room was soon to be briefly occupied with a patient who, unfortunately sacrificed their life to provide a prime example of what’s wrong with modern healthcare. This event proved to be an emotional experience for me. I’ll get to that shortly.
I was hooked up to a monitor with a finger lead that read my temperature, a set of 5 chest leads that read my breathing and heart rate, and a blood pressure wrap on one arm that would automatically inflate every hour to take my blood pressure. All of this was fed to a large monitor next to my bed that had 4 live graphs depicting the information as well as set of numbers that were constantly updated to show heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate, temperature and several other numbers that seemed less significant. I have to admit, I became fascinated by watching my vitals being displayed on this screen and spent a lot of time trying to see how much control I could exert over my vitals. I was surprised to see that my heart rate varied from the high 50’s to the mid 80’s. Apparently this is normal.
I also had an IV put into my right arm which they used to administer a drip of saline solution the first two days.
To monitor my sodium levels they began taking blood draws very four hours, round the clock, and would do so for the next 4.5 days.
I hadn’t eaten since 7:30 that morning and they told me I would not be fed for a day or two, to make sure I would not vomit.
I was left to spend the rest of the night alone. I slept terribly and had dreams of dystopian scenarios - not uncommon for me. This was, of course, interrupted every four hours by one of many phlebotomists I attempted to get to know. One of these fellows was so adept at his job that I scarcely woke when he came in to take my blood. Unfortunately, I never got to talk to that guy.
The next day was a barrage of visits from nurses and doctors and of course, the ever present phlebotomist. There was a lead doctor who came in several times that first day. He was always accompanied with at least one resident, one intern and one student. I’m a people person so I found all of them interesting to talk to.
The doctors first order of business was to clear up some questions about my health insurance. Then he wanted to make sure I understood the gravity of the situation and that I was clear on the dangers of trying to raise sodium levels too quickly. I told them I understood and that I greatly appreciated their ability to diagnose the problem and provide treatment. I felt it was important to be upfront and honest with these people so I told him that although I have some reservations about the medical industrial complex and the pharmaceutical model, I always held ER and some forms of ICU treatment in high regard.
He wanted me to tell him the story of how I had come to be in this situation. So I began with the installation of the 4G tower about four years earlier and how some of my symptoms began to manifest at that time. I then explained that a new 5G tower has been constructed in September of last year and that my symptoms had become much worse after that tower become operational. Again, I expected some blowback on this topic but there was none. Either these people have encountered this before or they have done their own research… or they are very practiced at keeping a neutral face. He wanted me to zero in on as many of the symptoms as I could describe so I gave him a lengthy list. The medical student in the back was nodding his head in agreement with my list as they pertained to 4G and 5G.
Problems began with his next visit later that first day. He wanted me to give the hospital permission to use CPR to revive me in the event of a heart attack. He was basing his concern on the fact that my cholesterol was 300. He also recommended that I begin taking a statin to lower my cholesterol. I thought to myself, and so it begins. Lurking beneath the facade of every modern doctor is a drug pusher for the pharmaceutical industry and this one was going to try and sell me on statins.
I told him that my mom had a cholesterol of 300 all her life and lived to be 93, that I had an aunt who with a cholesterol of 350 who lived to be 105 and neither ever had a heart attack. I told him that I thought the idea that cholesterol had anything to do with heart issues was an antiquated idea that had long since been debunked. I told him I was completely at ease with a cholesterol of 300. Nevertheless, he resorted to the old paradigm of asking me if I was willing to take the risk of having a heart attack or a stroke just because of my opinion - he being a doctor and all. Give me a break.
Apart from the current sodium problem, I’m in good health and I have no concerns about heart issues, and because I plan to live a while longer, I gave my consent for CPR, and to put him at ease.
Then he wanted me to give consent to be intubated in the event I had respiratory failure. This one really took me by surprise. As with heart failure, the possibility of this happening was essentially nonexistent, but I decided I was glad he asked. My research on the excessive rise in the use of intubation (ventilators) during covid told me that this was one of the leading reasons why “covid” took so many lives - up to 80% of patients put on ventilators died, a statistic I had written about in several posts over the course of 2021. This was one of my primary concerns going into the ICU - that they would find an excuse to put me on a ventilator against my wishes. I did have a mild but very sporadic cough, so I did have reason to be concerned (it has completely cleared up since I’ve been home). They killed a good friend of mine who was dragged to the ER at the VA against his wishes by his girlfriend where he was given remdesivir, put on a ventilator and died two days after arriving at the hospital.
I told him about the 80% ventilator death rate and told him the answer was definitely no. He put on his ‘I am a doctor and you are nothing’ demeanor and tried to change my mind. It was pathetic. I got upset with him, looked him in the eye and said, NO!
For the most part, the nurses that attended me are better informed. Of course all of them had to take the covid jabs to keep their jobs and I didn’t talk to any of them that were ok with this situation. They all knew the jabs were causing large amounts of the population to get sick with various things and they all knew people who had become sick or died after getting jabbed. After all, they and their colleagues administered many of the jabs and they saw first hand the horrifying results.
I had some very heart felt conversations with some of my nurses and all of the respect I had developed for nurses when I wrote the following posts was fully reinforced. This was, after all, a Banner hospital, which had born the brunt of the large protests that occurred in Tucson during the August of 2021 when Pima County and Banner implemented covid vaccine mandates for all health care staff positions. By then the nurses had already seen the carnage from the covid jabs and they were not having any of it. So they helped organize the protests. I participated in them and wrote about them here.
My second morning brought no breakfast. It had now been 72 hours since I had eaten and I reminded my nurse of this and asked when I was going to be fed. She said she would find out, but I never heard back from her.
The rooms all had windows looking out to the vast nurse station with all of its monitors, computers and other modern hospital paraphernalia. It was apparent that the nurses were inundated with work requirements, especially the day shift nurses. They could only come in and chat with me when they were caught up on their work load.
This ICU unit had a 12 bed capacity but only four beds were occupied most of the time I was there. Its hard for me to fathom how they would be able to cope with their work load when they have 10 or all 12 beds occupied.
That second day was relatively uneventful. Just some good news that my sodium levels were increasing, although painfully slowly.
the iv
Then my sodium levels began to decline again and I was informed I needed some sort of drug administered. I was asked to give my permission and I balked. It was an IV and I know many IV’s are now tainted with nanotech. I refused. The doctor soon came into my room with a full head of steam about why I needed to take this drug. I told him why I had misgivings and he reassured me this was clean drug with a very short half life in the human body, that it was cleared out of the body in 6 hours. He said it was essential that I take it to correct the sodium decline. I relented. They gave me two bags.
The next day I had terrible lower back pain. I had taken it upon myself to try and stand up everyday and move around as much as I could with all of the equipment attached to me. Trying to stand up from bed that morning was excruciating and took several minutes. The pain was to last for the rest of my time in the hospital and can still bother me to this day.
They took me off of the IV the next day and put me on sodium chloride tablets. One thing became apparent - taking the sodium tablets helped alleviate the lower back pain.
I didn’t make the connection of the back pain to those two bags of IV medicine until my last day in the hospital. I failed to bring it up with anyone.
food
That third day saw no food. By 7:30 the next morning it was going to be 3 full days of no food. I reminded my nurse that had not eaten since 7:30 Saturday morning at my house and asked once again when I was going to get to eat. She was shocked. You haven’t eaten!? No, I said. She said she would look into it (different nurse than the first time). She did and informed me I would be fed beginning with breakfast the next morning.
This is a prime example of how mismanaged various responsibilities are. Clearly the responsibility for food lies outside the jurisdiction of those providing the care, the nurses and doctors. And just as clearly the medical staff have separated themselves from giving diet and nutrition any consideration as a form of treatment for the patient. The focus is 100% on the equipment and the pharmaceuticals and food plays no role whatsoever in their version of what it means to achieve good health or practice modern medicine.
So here I am, looking at a 3 day fast, which I haven’t done in decades. Because I have done 3 day fasts in the past I know that what you eat to break the fast is critical to insuring that your bowels will be able to function again after having essentially shut down due to lack of use. I wasn’t holding my breath that the hospital kitchen would have any sort of high fiber meal that would be ideal for breaking this fast. All of my concerns were justified. It was a terrible meal - boneless, skinless chicken breast from a factory farm, probably loaded with glyphosate from having been fed genetically modified corn and soy all of its tortured life. There was a side vegetable, maybe carrots and some soy rice. The soy sauce was probably made from genetically modified soy beans so it was also likely tainted with glyphosate.
There was also a slice of white bread with a package of margarine to speed on it. (This was my only fat option with all the meals.) Ya know, the kind of margarine you would get from a vending machine. MARGARINE! I didn’t even know margarine still existed. I thought it had been banned everywhere. We’re talking transfats and polymers that amount to a slow kill formulation. It’s not even a food! And it’s being served to me in my bed in a hospital ICU! Unbelievable!
I’m gluten intolerant so I asked if I could get a non gluten substitute. That came with all the rest of the meals.
There was also a juice with every meal that also came in a vending machine style package. Most were only 15 or 20% juice with a host of other unpronounceable ingredients. I didn’t eat any of them. I told the nurse about that and she came back later with a package of 100% prune juice from the break room for the nurses. Yes! Something with some soluble fiber! I soon had all of the nurses trained to bring me one of those with every meal.
Because the food was so bad I considered trying to go the rest of my time without eating but I knew that wasn’t going to be possible.
Slight variations on this theme made up all of the meals I had for my remaining time in the ICU.
water
From day one I was put on a strict regime of no more than two liters of water per-day. I got very good at doling that water out over the course of each day. In the context of lying flat on my back in the air-conditioned ICU, this was entirely doable. However, I knew as soon as soon as I got home to my not-air-conditioned home and began working outside that that regime was not going to be realistic. Nevertheless, I was forced to pretend with the doctors that I could maintain that at home.
the ‘event’
Tuesday evening the lights were turned on in the next room, the one on the other side of the windows. I was told a patient was coming in. I wasn’t happy with having my room lit up by the lights next door but there was nothing I could do. I went to sleep but around 11:00 they must have brought someone in. I was sort of half asleep and half awake and I became aware that someone in the next room had an intermittent, dry, hacking, cough. I was aware that this was a woman because I had heard her talking in a commanding manner. It was clear to me she was hospital staff but it wasn’t a voice I was familiar with. The initial ruckus quieted down, I had mostly gone back to sleep and she was apparently in the room alone with the patient. Suddenly she had a rather severe coughing spell and coughed something up that shot out of her and imprinted itself on my minds eye. It was as if it had splat itself on a glass lens within my mind. Mind you, I’m half awake, half asleep. It was spread out kind of thin and I had a very good chance to look at it and study it in detail. It appeared to have fungus like filaments running randomly across and throughout its primary body and those filaments looked to be connected to spores that could break away and attach themselves to infect a new host. The thing was pulsing slightly and seemed to have an intelligence. I had the distinct feeling that this thing was not wholly biological and not wholly synthetic. It was definitely parasitic and its host had just shed it into the neighboring room. What I got was an energetic pulse delivered to my subconscious state of mind. I got the distinct impression that it wanted me to see it and study it and learn about it. I knew it wasn’t going to last so I made sure to study it as much as I could before this energetic communication dissipated.
I’m not a complete stranger to this kind of thing. I had a few visions as a child and once, while in the midst of a shamanic journey (to drumming) about 20 years ago, I was able to see the aftermath of the attacks on the world trade center two weeks before it occurred - in the presence of 14 witnesses who were stunned to see my vision come true two weeks later.
From here this weird story gets even more weird. Shortly after that event the patient apparently nearly stopped breathing. That coughing doctor had told one of the nurses at the station to call code blue, which he did. Soon there was a lot of commotion and noises that sounded like some things were being pulled out of boxes for the first time and something was being constructed. I heard someone calling out various parts of the device and came to the conclusion that a new ventilator was being unpackaged for use on this patient.
The extra staff that had answered the code blue soon left and things calmed down.
My curiosity got the better of me and I got out of bed and walked over to the window and separated one of the blinds to take a peak at what was going on. The patient had a large bag of some sort laying across his body with one end connected to a mask that was on his face. The coughing woman was seated nearby.
Then a very strange thing happened. Someone came into my room and asked if I was ready for my X-ray. I said they must have the wrong room. She said, no they had already put a tube my chest and that I was ready to be X-rayed. I told her no one had put any tubes in me and she was not going to X-ray me. She said, oh, you just don’t remember them putting the tube in you as she drug the huge X-ray machine into my room, plugged it in and set it up over my chest. I had beeped for help and was on the verge of yelling at her that she had the wrong patient when my night nurse burst into the room and told her she had the wrong room, that she was to be in the next room and they were wondering where she was. Yeah, I know, crazy. This is the modern health care system hard at work killing people.
When the X-ray technician left she left the door partly open. I went back to bed and as I laid there the coughing person came out and told the guy at the station to call code 15. I got a chance to get a good look at her. He did so and people once again came running in. Things calmed down for a while and then she came out again and told the person at the station to call code blue again. Everyone came running again but soon the steam seemed to go out of everyone as they shuffled back to their posts. I was a falling back asleep as I concluded that the patient had died.
The next morning I was informed by the nurse that the patient had died and indeed, they had tried to intubate the patient with what was apparently some sort of new fangled ventilator.
I concluded that the coughing woman had somehow subconsciously chosen me to receive the information. I enlisted the help of my day shift nurse to help me find out who it was. While telling her what happened I, unexpectedly, began to cry. I guess I had not realized the emotional effect the event had on me. Anyhow, that convinced the nurse that I was sincere and she spent much of the day trying to track down who that was. I felt I needed to tell this woman about the message I had received from her. Late in the day the nurse finally came in and said she had determined it was one of the doctors from the ER who had accompanied the patient to the room.
blood draws
I always looked forward to the latest blood test results from my latest blood draw and that Wednesday morning saw my sodium levels approaching normal. There was talk of moving me out of the ICU, upstairs to general quarters where the rooms had full bathrooms with a shower! I had asked several time if there was any way to get a shower and was told no, there was none. No-one offered to bath me or wash my hair. Apparently, that was not a part of their job description.
intubation
The doctor and crew came in for rounds that morning and once again asked for me to give permission for intubation. I was stunned. After what had happened in the room next door last night this guy had the huevos stupidos to ask me to give him permission to intubate me. I told him what had happened in the room next door last night, that the patient had come in at 11, was intubated around midnight and was pronounced dead around 1. The student, who had long hair and who I decided I liked, was nodding his head yes. I said my answer was still a resounding NO! The doctor didn’t say a word. He just got up and left. I was left with the distinct impression he didn’t enjoy having his credibility brought into question in front of his trainees.
Wednesday afternoon I was told I was going to be sent upstairs to regular care rooms (with a full bathroom and shower!) because my sodium levels had recovered to a point of stability. Wednesday came and went and I never went upstairs. Then I was told I would go upstairs Thursday morning. By Thursday 10 a.m. my sodium levels were so good they decided to release me at noon. I called Casey to come pick me up. My nurse came in at 11 and said there was no reason to keep me any longer, that she could release me now. I said let’s do it. I was out by shortly after 11.
Although I had now been eating for several days, my bowels had yet to budge. With the exception of some low quality prune juice, I’d had no fiber and my bowels were suffering the consequences. The clear separation of food and nutrition from the health care model of Banner Health Service makes it abundantly clear that they do not have the best interests of their patients at heart. Theirs is a profit driven model based on the erroneous idea that pharmaceuticals and medical equipment can provide all the health care needed. While I was essentially cured of my low sodium levels, I was sent home with a severe case of constipation. In short, I had traded one illness for another.
Once I got home I found I was ravenous. I could not stop eating. My body was screaming for some real nutrition and especially for lots of fiber. I was eating prunes and mangoes, melons and watermelons, lots of vegetables, fish and cream and butter and coconut oil and taking it all in with plenty of salt.
While a friend had come by and watered my garden once (thanks Ari), it had become overgrown and was in need of a lot of attention. As were the goats and chickens. I was afraid to turn on the computer because I knew there would likely be several thousand emails waiting for me. So I didn’t turn the computer on for two days. Instead I spent those two days doing what I most love doing, working in the garden and spending time tending the goats.
I got home just in time to harvest the first cucumbers from the garden - they are divine. There will be honeydew melons in another week or two and butternut squash soon after that. Then watermelon.
After two days at home I finally had a bowel moment - one big, hard lump of the 3 days worth of hospital crappola “food”. Then all the fiber I had been eating kicked in and I’m now happily back to normal.
Yes, I grew up in a family where we talked openly, in a very healthy way about our bowels. If you are offended by my bowel comments, perhaps you should review your habits. Sweeping those concerns under a rug does nothing to encourage conscious awareness about the importance of bowel movements.
Have I filled you in on all the gory details of my time in the ICU? No. There is more. But this was a long tale so it ends here.
https://ko-fi.com/thesecularheretic
Medical Industrial Complex, everyone must avoid them. Please stay healthy.
The nutritionally void and often toxic hospital food, which I have also endured, is all the proof anyone should need that healing the patient is not a priority. This article does an excellent job of illustrating the actual incentives of the hospital and its employees.