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Resurrection: Movie to Medical Madness Spring 2004-Spring 2006

Overview

In the fall of 2004, I was writing and directing my first feature film, 'Resurrection' about a doctor who falls in love with a patient dying of the 1918 flu virus, with the help and dedication of numerous people in rural Michigan.

While in production on the movie, I was bit by a tick then developed Lyme Disease. By the time I started treatment in the fall of 2005, the disease had hit my brain and my heart, rendering me clinging to life gasping to IV antibiotic drip poles for years.

In a strange mirror of fiction and reality, many of the characters I once imagined inside my mind came to life in the fall of 2005, right when I needed them the most.

I would not be alive today without the small army who supported me along the way, many of whom are paid tribute in this book.

It is not a perfect book and it's not a perfect story but ultimately this memoir is a story of love and passion...and sacrifice.

Every day we're surrounded by faith, hope and love; I wish everyone is lucky enough to experience the hurricane of emotional magic that once saved my life.

This is our story.

Chapter Titles

CHAPTER TITLES

--Part One--

1. "Your script sucks."

Mardik Martin -- Professor

Classroom at USC Cinema-Television. Los Angeles, California

2. "It says San Francisco but you should come to Michigan."

Amy Reedy -- Ebay Seller

Phone

3. "You look absolutely nothing like the doctor in my mind."

To Mark -- Actor

Outside of the Blanchard House in Ionia, Michigan

4. "Action!"

To the cast and crew of Resurrection

Ext Dr. Fletcher's House in Hastings, Michigan

5. "'You think you can save me?'"

Jane Ann Sweeny as Madeline dying of the 1918 flu virus in Resurrection

Inside the church in Sidney, Michigan

6. "Omg so gross"

Ionia Cemetery, to Mark when I discovered the engorged tick on the back of my neck.

7. "I'm having a hard time carrying the camera through the snow."

Mark and I at the Sidney Church.

8. "Do you mind giving me the name of your doctor? Something isn't right."

Joe and I inside his office.

Hollywood, California

9. "I can't cancel the shoot this summer. Too many people have taken off of work, bought plane tickets, I just can't cancel it."

Me talking with Mark who was concerned about my declining health.

Valley Village, California

10. "When did you get that facial twitch??"

Dr. Marc Abrams

Inside examining room, Sherman Oaks, California.

11. "This is shaping up to be one of the largest hurricanes to ever hit U.S. soil."

Newscaster commenting on the approach of Hurricane Katrina, visiting Joe on the set of "Homecoming".

Sutton Place Hotel. Vancouver, Canada

--Part Two--

12. "She's a fucking bitch!"

The Elevator.

13. "They're trying to commit you against your will--you've got to get out of there!"

Draped in a patient gown, listening on my cell phone as I walked the outside of my hospital room.

14. "Nothing lasts forever."

Dr. C. Andrew Schroeder

15. "Holy shit I've never seen anything like that before!"

Dr. C. Andrew Schroeder

Phone. Inside my hospital room at St. Joseph's Hospital. Sepsis.

16. "How often do you guys talk on the phone? I don't like it. You're very sick Tara."

Catherine Winteringham, RN

Hanging IV medications inside my bedroom.

Valley Village, California

17. "Please stop calling me so much."

Dr. C. Andrew Schroeder

Phone. Laying next to the I.V. drip pole at home.

18. "Um, sure I'll help you until this gets resolved."

Dr. Jeffrey Sherman

Inside Dr. Sherman's office. 3rd Street Medical Towers

19."You're not going to get better eating that garbage."

Dr. Steven Harris

Lyme Literate Physician, Malibu, California

20. "I had to know if you were crazy or if you were right."

Mark and I in the backyard.

Valley Village, California

21. "When you feel better, you should finish the movie. What you have so far is good."

Joe and I in his office.

Hollywood, California

22. "It's going to be a long time."

Dr. C. Andrew Schroeder

Cedars-Sinai Medical Plaza.

Excerpt: Chapter 1 "Your script sucks."

--Part One--

CHAPTER 1: “Your script sucks."

‘It’s a wrap!’

As dawn danced over the New York City skyline, I drank a few beers shivering at the prop truck. It was January 1998 and “The Astronaut’s Wife” was wrapping its New York leg of production: I was officially finished with my first Hollywood job.

Standing at the prop truck thinking about my plan to crash the set of “Rounders” in order to meet Matt Damon was making me nervous. ”Good Will Hunting“ was in movie theaters nationwide and Radioman told me hours earlier that ”Rounders” was shooting close by; standing outside in the midnight cold it came to me to that Mr. Damon would be a great person to ask how to sell a script in Hollywood since he had co-written “Good Will Hunting“ (in addition to starring in it). He obviously knows how to do it.

I don’t even like beer but needed the dreaminess while I contemplated the plan. More like two or three. Unsure if this was really a good move to make, I discussed my Hollywood adventure strategy with my early morning comrades at the back of the prop truck: 1) walk over to the “Rounders” set (which was shooting a few blocks away from us) 2) find Chris Goode (he was friends with one of my friends on set) 3) plead my case to Goode, then if he liked me he would introduce me to Mr. Damon so I could ask him how to sell a script in Hollywood.

“Oh my god, YEAH, you should ABSOLUTELY GO!” one woman said.

The prop master threw back another beer. He’d heard it all before and was thinking about gearing up for his next job.

“Just go for it.”

After a brief discussion which Irish pubs were open in the early morning Wall Street area of NYC, I set off on my adventure.

What’s the worst thing that could happen?

I reached the trailers parked on the street and found the trailer with a small taped scrawl “Goode”.

Knock knock.

No answer.

Knock again.

No answer.

I turned around and looked up and down the street. There were clearly production people going in and out of an unmarked door.

Maybe Goode’s on set.

90% of crashing a party is acting like you belong; the other 10% is the stupidity to do it. Three weeks working on “The Astronaut’s Wife” provided all the training I needed on how to act like a set PA.

I entered the unmarked door and walked up the narrow flight of wooden stairs.

At the top of the stairs was an open room that looked like it might once have been a dance room that had turned into a production location to build a set. To the left was ‘Video Village’, the area on set with TV monitors where the producers and other key personnel sit to watch what’s happening behind the lens of the camera.

Sometimes the DP and Director are parked at Video Village, sometimes they’re standing next to the camera (and sometimes the DP is behind the camera). Allen Daviau didn’t like to sit behind the camera on “The Astronaut’s Wife”, but some DPs prefer to be their own camera operators.

Video Village was the most likely place to find a producer on a set, so I walked over there and stood next to the chairs.

My eyes circled the room and caught a glace from a detailed oriented PA.

Who are you?

I turned back to Video Village trying to act relaxed, like I belonged.

SLAM!

A door slammed loudly from the other side of the space. That area of the set was hidden behind some dark drapes.

“CUT! Let’s go again RIGHT AWAY.”

I turned back to the video monitors trying to hide my nervousness.

SLAM AGAIN!

“CUUUUTTT!! LET’S GO AGAIN RIGHT AWAY.”

Frustrated movement on set.

An inquisitively nice lady sitting in one of the chairs turned to me sweetly,

“Who are you here to see my dear?”

I shifted in place not really sure what to say. The eagle eyed PA was watching me closely and I started to feel in over my head.

It was time to commit to the role: “I’m here to see Matt Damon.”

‘Oh’, the lady nodded in response. Maybe Mr. Damon had a lot of visitors? She kindly patted one of the empty chairs.

“Why don’t you have a seat.”

The alcohol was rapidly wearing off and reality was blazing in. ‘I don’t have a lot of experience sitting in these foldy chairs and these foldy chairs don’t look too stable, but if I don’t sit in this chair then it’s gonna be really obvious I don’t belong.’

I sat in the chair.

SLAM SLAM SLAM

Finally a frustrated voice pierced the room “and that’s a CUT! Let’s take fifteen.”

Running behind? People scurried quickly.

Mr. Damon dashed across the room (to go to his trailer?)

“MATT!”

I bolted across the room. I didn’t want to waste his time, so I moved quickly.

He instantly turned towards the sound of his name,

And at one quick glance it was very apparent to everyone in the room that Matt Damon had no f*#&ing clue who I was.

[A public service announcements to young people: if you’re gonna do something bold, have a plan for what you’re gonna do if you actually succeed.]

I’d been so convinced I was gonna get stopped or busted (or that Goode would decide I wasn’t qualified enough to meet Mr. Damon), in the moment Mr. Damon looked at me I realized I hadn’t prepared what I was gonna say if I did get a chance to talk with him.

I'd seen “Good Will Hunting”, I liked it, but I wasn’t particularly attracted to Matt Damon. I thought he was handsome of course, but ‘not my type’. If anything I was attracted to his friend, Ben Affleck.

But ‘Stars’ are “STARS” for a reason, and when people talk about Stars having the “it” factor, well it’s true. Mr. Damon definitely has “IT”, and I was totally unprepared for those beautiful blue eyes to be gazing down on me.

So the blubbering started…

“I have a script” [which at the time I didn’t] “I’m not from Hollywood I live in Virginia” [true but not really relevant] “I want to learn…how…to sell a script…M. Johnson, that’s how I got this job..crew…Astronaut’s Wife…”.

Back in the production office, I told M. Johnson about my plan to meet Matt Damon, and asked him if it was okay to use his name if it was an emergency. I didn’t want Mr. Damon to think I was a crazy fan, and the total trip up over my words sirened an emergency flaring up. I needed a bail out.

Mr. Damon tilted his head at the mention of M. Johnson.

“You know Mark Johnson?”

I nodded. In the pre-internet area, I didn’t realize what a big name I was dropping.

By this point the PAs were descending like vultures. Did I get a glimpse of security?

Mr. Damon added kindly, “Then you should talk with Mark Johnson about selling your script. He's the right person to talk to.”

I went red as a tomato. In my Hollywood naivete, of course a Producer is a more relevant person to have this conversation with than an Actor.

Time was ticking. Sensing my genuine mistake and increasing embarrassment, Mr. Damon added patiently, “why don’t you talk to my assistant, give her a call, then she can schedule a time for you to come by at a better time and we can talk”. Now clearly wasn’t the right time.

I nodded, I understood, then just as quickly he continued on way.

By this point half the crew was ready to kick me out; at first I wandered back to Video Village to find his assistant, who with some hesitation gave me her phone number (or a phone number).

With the number in hand, I escorted myself out.

But I needed to actually write the script first.

Excerpt: Chapter 12 "She's a Fucking Bitch!"

---Part Two---

CHAPTER 12: “She’s a fucking bitch!”

I stood on the sidewalk in front of the two medical towers on 3rd street, desperately clutching the papers in my hand. It was Friday, September 16, 2005 and the Los Angeles weather did not disappoint; the morning air was warm with a light breeze.

Holding the papers close to my chest, where should I go? I clutched the seven pages documenting my medical journey over the previous few months, pages I prayed would inspire a path to recovery.

As my health disintegrated further and further, I started to loose my ability to talk so I spent the previous few days painstakingly typing this document in preparation for the appointment…it’s hard to explain, but as the disease ravaged my body it was increasingly difficult to express myself verbally, so I outlined what I was going through with written words instead…I was hoping the document would help the doctor understand how ill I was, how desperate I was for help, stone etchings so nothing was forgotten.

As I stared at the twin towers, I had never been so nervous for a doctor’s appointment in my entire life.

‘These buildings look exactly the same’, I marveled, trying to confirm which one was the correct building.

8631

...8…6….3…1…

The building on the right.

Dizzy and weak, I stepped carefully in order to avoid falling to the ground. Or forgetting where I was. Or what I was doing.

I walked towards the East Tower, entering Cedars-Sinai soil for the first time in my life. Living in the Valley, working at Warner Bros, then going to graduate school at University of Southern-California, I never had a reason to run by 3rdstreet west of La Cienega.

Cedars-Sinai was new territory.

***

I really see the patient/doctor relationship as a collaboration—I know there’s a problem, and doctors are the ones who help you get rid of it. Armed with this information, I hope you have any kind of insight/suggestions in what needs to happen next. I really appreciate your time, and please feel free to call me at any hour—and I mean any hour—if you have any questions.

***

The last paragraph of my seven page document: a desperate cry for help.

The lobby of the medical tower was beautiful, black granite, not like the stuffy white walls of a hospital.

Elegant, tasteful.

I took the elevator up to the 11th floor.

Friday morning clustering meant I stopped at a number of floors on the way up, in particular a bunch of people got inside the elevator on the 3rdfloor. What’s on this floor?

I entered the doctors suite, nervously clutching my papers.

“I have an appointment…I have an appointment with Dr. Bazer**…”

The secretary typed something into the computer. “Hmmm…looks like you’re seeing Dr. Bazner* instead.

“What is your insurance?”

I shook my head. “I don’t have insurance…”

“Do you know the appointment is going to be $350?”

Yes, they told me when I made the appointment. Thankfully Joe had given me the money for the visit and any medical tests I might need.

The secretary handed me a clipboard with forms to fill out, and I sat down in the crowded waiting room.

A popular office.

I put my name on the patient intake forms and not much else. I figured that’s why I had the document. I didn’t have to struggle to put information down on forms when I had a nicely typed document in my hands.

***

HEALTH OVERVIEW FROM MARCH 2005-PRESENT

September 15, 2005

It would be impossible for me to recollect all of the details that have occurred, mostly because I spent a lot of time hoping that I would be getting better soon (so there never felt like a need to keep track). Hindsight being 20-20, I wish I had kept better logs, but as I did not, between checking e-mails sent to friends and remembrances of more severe moments, I’m hoping this provides a basis from which we can use to find a diagnosis, leading to proper treatment (though at this point, I would take the treatment over the diagnosis).

Before this began, I was a very healthy and active woman thirty-year old woman. Admittedly, a “Type A” personality, but since I love what I do, I just saw it as diving into life passionately. The hardest part of this journey (being sick) is how it has taken me away from what I love to do and as well as those that I love, and the last five weeks, this disease has now consumed me (with symptoms intensifying/changing [due to various medicines], lack of energy in general) to do anything—even to write this document is difficult—right now, I am lucky if I can make a handle two or three phone calls and send an email or two in a given day, let alone physically go out in the world for very long). I may not even finish this document.

As I feel myself becoming more and more sick as the day progresses, all I feel I can do is write his document. People’s stories are very different, one being ‘normal’ for one person and ‘normal’ is different for someone else, so I all I can feel I can do is write the truth of what has happened to me (in as much as I can write tonight), over these last few months.

***

I attached the document to the clipboard and handed it back to the secretary.

Noticing that I hadn’t filled out the forms, she looked at me a little inquisitively then sent me back to sit down.

“It’s only going to be a few more minutes.”

I tried to stay focused, but it was difficult to hold any train of thought.

After minutes later I was back in a small examining room, bright white walls with a little sink. I hopped on the examining bed, nervous I might fall over, I sat still.

A young doctor walked in, a bright young woman who looked curious and concerned. She held the clipboard with my document and unfilled out forms.

She took the forms out from the clipboard, noticing they weren’t filled out.

Strike Number One.

“Um…”

She wasn’t sure where to begin, so I decided to help her.

“Thank you very much for seeing me today. I am very very sick, it’s been getting worse over the last few months. I’ve learned antibiotics are relieving my symptoms but I need a stronger antibiotic.”

She nodded, listening carefully to what I was saying. Delicately, “why don’t we start at the beginning…when did your symptoms begin?”

I shook my head. “Please read the paper I wrote, it is very difficult for me to talk verbally..so I drafted this document for you to review.”

Dr. Bazner had no idea how difficult that statement was for me to say.

She looked down at my seven page manifesto, not sure what to make of the document. Or me.

“I understand what you’re saying, but I prefer to listen to what my patients have to tell me first, then review any notes or records.”

“No no, I need you to read my document first.”

Strike Number Two.

“This?” She pointed to the typed ramblings on the clipboard in front of her. Concerned, she said kindly, “I promise I will look at it, but first I would like to hear you tell me what has been happening with you.”

I shook my head defiantly. There was no way I could explain verbally what I had spent days writing down on paper.

“I really need you to read these papers.”

Strike Three.

She snapped up.

“I don’t think I’m the right doctor for you.”

WHAT?

“I will make sure that someone else in the office takes care of you, but it will not be me. There won’t be any charge for today.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

I burst into tears.

With that, she looked at me again with concern and annoyance, then left the room.

I tried to get my sobbing under control, but I couldn’t. Sobbing uncontrollably, I went back into the waiting room and sat in the chair I had just optimistically left a few moments before.

GOD – ARE YOU LISTENING? CAN YOU HEAR ME? I’M BEGGING YOU TO SEND ME SOMEONE TO HELP ME. I AM BEGGING YOU.

I didn’t want to walk out in public crying, so I sat in the chair bawling.

A tsunami wave.

I AM SORRY TO BE A HYPROCRITE AND TO CALL ON YOU NOW BUT I AM DESPERATE AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO. MY SON IS ONLY TWO YEARS OLD. I AM BEGGING YOU FOR HELP.

A man come over to me while I was crying and touched my knee. I slapped his hand away. I didn’t need pity from other patients in the waiting room. I needed action.

In spite of my slap, he came back to me a second time with tissues.

I snatched them out of his hand.

After ten, twenty, thirty (?) minutes of sobbing in the waiting room, eventually I accepted I wasn’t going to be able to stop crying and needed to pick myself up and leave.

Because the disease had hit my brain, I had little control over my emotions. It was frustrating and annoying and frightening for a young woman from a ‘good’ background who knew never to share her emotions publicly and now I couldn’t even stop myself from crying to ride an elevator back down.

I pulled myself out of the seat and sobbed my way to the elevator.

I kept staring at the ground, I was so embarrassed I couldn’t stop crying, I just wanted to melt away.

“Are you okay?”

I heard this voice coming from somewhere. Was it inside my mind?

“DOES IT LOOK LIKE I’ M OKAY??”

My mind couldn’t function very well, but that was a really stupid question. Clearly I was NOT okay.

“THIS DOCTOR…THIS DOCTOR…JUST THREW ME OUT..”

He took a few steps closer.

“Which doctor?”

“DR….DR. BAZNER”

“Dr. Bazner is a good doctor.”

“SHE’S A FUCKING BITCH!"

Maybe she was a great doctor, maybe she wasn’t, I really didn’t know. I just knew in that moment I was deathly ill with few options in front of me.

In between sobs I looked up at the voice in the hallway, and saw a young man about my age wearing a lab coat starring intensely at me.

Why is he so worried when I’m the one who is fucked? Who is this person?

“WHERE’S MY PIECE OF PAPER?” Whoever this voice was, he seemed more interested than the doctor I had just left. Maybe he would look at the document I wrote.

I took a few steps towards the voice to try and look at his lab coat.

“What kind of doctor are you?”

“Pulmonary.”

“What kind is that?”

“Lung.”

FUCK. I threw my hands into the air and spun away from him. I finally found what might be a nice doctor and he’s fucking the wrong kind.

My sobs became hysterical.

Ding.

The elevator opened.

We stepped inside the empty elevator.

I didn’t even know where I was going or what I was doing. I continued to sob.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do…I am very sick…” I was muttering words more than sentences.

As I stood next to man in the hallway,

A strange sensation started to wash over me…slowly at first, then more and more intensely as we travelled down the floors, crowding the elevator as we descended.

This feeling…I had never felt anything like this feeling before…

A waterfall of serenity.

Like World War 3 could break out and I was going to be safe because I was in the presence of this person.

I wanted to be mad at the doctor who threw me out—I was pissed—I was really really pissed—

And this feeling of peace was invading my anger.

I wanted to be mad, I was scared, I had no idea what I was going to do the moment I stepped out of the elevator,

But I was becoming entrenched in this magnetic wonderland.

The elevator beeped for the 3rd floor.

The man in the hallway and I stepped out of it. I’m not sure why I left the elevator on the 3rd floor, I was following him by default.

We stood outside of the elevator for a moment, holding the moment.

I JUST CAN’T FUCKING DEAL WITH THIS RIGHT NOW.

And I snapped around to walk away.

What the fuck was that feeling.

At 30 years old, you think you’ve been through it all, and I had just felt something I had never felt before and I was not in any shape or state of mind to process it.

It was confusing…and even annoying…pure peace when I’m deathly ill…

Whatever that was, now was not the right time. I need to save my life. That’s all I have time and energy for;

I need to figure out how I’m going to save my life.

Then one day I’ll go back to the 11th floor of the East Tower and find the man in the hallway. He must have an office up there.

One day when I’m better I’ll find him.

Little did I know stepping out of the elevator on the morning of Friday, September 16th, but thankfully he would find me again soon.

Excerpt: Chapter 14 "Nothing Lasts Forever"

CHAPTER 14: "Nothing Lasts Forever"

September 30, 2005

There won’t be any drinks if I’m dead.

My text to Dr. Schroeder the night before echoed in my mind.

I sat in a chair against the wall in the examining room of his office frazzled from my near escape from the hospital. Only an hour earlier, I found energy I didn’t know I could find to pull myself out of Cedars-Sinai. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me, but I knew I needed to get back on that antibiotic drip.

The examining room was dull…greyish color, no artwork, no personality. Granted we don’t go to the doctors for the living experience, but a little color never hurts.

Click click click. Beep beep beep.

Sounded like I was still in the hospital.

The door opened.

“What are you doing here??”

I motioned towards the desk I had just passed,

“I called your secretary and made an appointment—"

“Tara, I’m married!”

My head snapped against the back wall.

Oh, the ring...in my drowning in sickness I didn’t notice a ring…in fact I hadn’t even looked for one. In the world of Hollywood, being 30ish, single, without kids, isn’t uncommon…I’d forgotten I’d crossed over to another species.

In the ugly overhead fluorescent lighting, there it was, glistening, like a firework display…t.h.e. r.i.n.g.

Tears streamed down my face…the five days in the hospital on an antibiotic drip took a little edge off my symptoms, but it still wasn’t enough to gain control over my emotions.

Tears flooded everywhere.

Dr. Schroeder stood there awkwardly, not sure what to do. He looked at me inquisitively up and down, it was the first time we were really seeing each other. I was so embarrassed, I couldn’t look at him, I was doing everything I could to get the stream to stop…sobbing like a baby over a dream that hadn’t had a chance to begin wasn’t my style.

The tears continued.

Dr. Schroeder didn’t say anything while I cried…awkwardly shifting in place, with a hand on the doorknob…

Then against his better judgement,

He slid into a chair next to the door.

“Okay, ummm...”

He shuffled a clipboard around.

Then took out a pen.

I wasn’t sure where to start…“This place is so not you…the energy, the feel here, nothing about this office seems to reflect you—"

He looked up from the clipboard, gazed at me knowingly,

And smiled,

“Nothing lasts forever.”

I smiled back.

The tears were finally slowing down.

Maybe there was hope.

“Okay so, why don’t we start at the beginning.”

I really didn’t want to deal with the doctor business.

Let’s cut to the chase.

“I really need to get back on this antibiotic drip. I remember it began with a C, it was a long word. I’ll look it up. It’s got to be written down somewhere.”

While in the hospital, I could barely make it out of bed to use the bathroom, let alone think to write something down. I’ll just have to figure out what it was.

To explain the urgency,

“I’m in the middle of making a movie, I need to get back to the editing room….I just need to get back on this antibiotic drip, I think I’m gonna need it for a month, then I should be fine.”

He stiffened up. I didn’t understand why certain doctors would do certain things and wouldn’t do other things, but his stiffening told me he wasn’t gonna whip out his prescription pad and order it for me.

Dr. Schroeder looked into my face and saw that I meant every word I was saying. I was serious. I needed this antibiotic drip. I didn’t understand why I needed it, but the why wasn’t important to me as the fact that the antibiotic drip was alleviating my symptoms and therefore I needed it to continue. That’s what was important.

He shifted the clipboard a little,

then took a deep breath,

“What is your height?”

5’6

“What is your weight?”

“105. Which is extremely below what I’m supposed to be – this is what I’ve been trying to tell people, I’ve been losing weight against my control.”

He wrote something down.

“So..what about alcohol or drug use?”

I squirmed a little…not sure I wanted to talk about this…

He leaned towards me,

“this is entirely confidential, it’s just between us—”

I twitched in my chair…

“Yes alcohol, a couple times a week, and…um…I did crystal meth…once…”

He chuckled.

“Once?”

I don’t know if I was embarrassed or relieved.

He wrote something down.

“Smoking?”

He already saw me smoking on the Cedar-Sinai plaza, so there was no getting around this one.

“Ya..um…not as much since I’ve gotten sick, but…

“How many years?

Hmmm…dabbling since 12, but 18 to 30 full time…

“12 years.”

“Packs?”

“At least two…”

That raised an eyebrow.

“You know this is when I need to remind you of the importance of quitting smoking.”

We are in a lung doctor’s office after all.

Excerpt: Chapter 15 "Holy shit!"

CHAPTER 15: “Holy shit I’ve never seen anything like that before!"

I lay in the hospital bed at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Burbank listening to the sounds of the machines. The sounds of steps down the hallway. The sounds of cries from the room across the hall. There’s always sounds inside the walls of a hospital.

Sounds straight from a horror film.

Having just been diagnosed with C-Diff, the new antibiotics I started in the hospital were starting to work and my bowels were slowing returning to normal.

A few weeks earlier when I was dosing myself up with handfuls of amoxicillin tablets I knew I was gonna pay a price, and C-Diff was the price. As much as a C-diff infection presented an entirely new set of problems, I didn’t once regret the mounds of mouthfuls of amoxicillin I took leading up to my first hospitalization at Cedars-Sinai from September 17th-30th, 2005.

That amoxicillin kept me alive.

As I lay in the darkness pondering my new stew of misery, the door creaked open.

“Sorry I’m so late.”

It was Dr. Hanberg. I liked late night visits. I’m usually up all night when I’m at the hospital. (And at home too.)

“No problem, thanks for coming by.”

I meant it.

“I’ve just spent the last few hours reviewing your case and—”

Normally I would think a doctor was full of sh*t if they said they had just spent a few hours reviewing my case, but I believed her. She sounded determined to find a way out of this medical maze of hell I was living in. I appreciated that more than I could express.

“after going over your records…the turbulent last few weeks…and I spoke with Dr. Schroeder by the way...”

Hearing his name made me happy.

I sat up a little.

“—and I like him—”

I hope not in the way that I like him.

I watched Dr. Hanberg swirl my case around in her mind…like someone close to putting their finger on something that that they can’t quite reach.

“Your case is complex, there’s a lot of things going on…autoimmune, infectious…”

She looks at me closely, like she’s taking a fresh look to see if there was something she might have missed.

She paused, after careful deliberation she was sure we should take this turn together.

“Have you heard of IVIG?”

Hmm…I’d never heard of IVIG.

“IVIG is immunoglobulin, it’s effective in helping patients with immune disorders, both infectious and autoimmune disorders…I think it could help you. Would you be interested in trying it?”

While I wasn’t convinced I had multiple sclerosis – in fact I thought the MS diagnosis was a big distraction from the issues truly plaguing me – but if IVIG could work for both infections and autoimmune problems, then maybe I could make the people who think I have MS happy while I also help myself recover from the infections truly retching my soul by trying this IVIG.

“Yes, sure, I’ll try it.”

She nodded, I’d heard her. I could tell she hadn’t come to the decision to order IVIG lightly, she'd put a lot of thought into it. I was grateful that she understood how bad my infections were, in spite of the fact I didn’t ‘look sick’.

Dr. Francine Hanberg was listening.

The Odyssey Begins: Brain MRI @ Cedars-Sinai

Collapsing into Psychosis

September 16, 2005 is the first time I set foot on Cedars-Sinai soil.

When I was pregnant with my son, many people at Warner Bros. recommended Cedars-Sinai Medical Center but I was also still a student at USC School of Cinema-Television (where I had health insurance) so I went to Good Samaritan in downtown Los Angeles instead.

When I stepped frazzled into the hallway of the East Medical Tower on September 16, 2005, little did I know I was about to spend the majority of my adult life chained to the hospital like an oxygen tank to breathe.

September 16th was the first day of my journey at Cedars-Sinai,

but September 17th, 2005 was the first action.

Hours after this MRI, I headed to the Emergency Room to be admitted directly into the hospital for my first inpatient experience;

A screaming train wreck in motion.

Brain MRI Radiology Report from Cedars-Sinai. Dated September 17, 2005

Tara Leigh Kittle Brain MRI report September 17, 2005