photo by Laura Mary
This is one of my alcoholism stories. It shows how alcoholism can kill in so many different ways and most of them are not direct (i.e. alcohol poisoning).
Jane had a mini binge about 2 weeks ago. It lasted 4 days. As usual she became sick when she came off the vodka. She became extremely anxious as usual and her stomach was highly irritated as it would be after pouring neat vodka into it without any food to help soak it up. She called a doctor at about 10 pm who as far as I can tell refused to come out. She called an ambulance, which came about an hour after being called. She was taken to a local hospital.
She called me at 5:45 am the next morning to say that she had been diagnosed with appendicitis. I was surprised as there was no sign or symptoms of this beforehand. She had an operation shortly afterwards. I did some research on the appendicitis and found out that one symptom is sickness and another is abdominal pain both of which Jane had after a binge.
Anyway normally you get out of hospital quickly after this operation which as it happened had proved unnecessary as a person at the hospital told me on the phone that her appendix was fine (after they had removed it). Anyway not only did the hospital remove a good appendix they cut an artery at the same time. This caused Jane a lot of pain and loss of blood that took the hospital 4 days to figure out.
They had to operate twice more in intensive care and Jane is left with a massive scar on her belly. I feel that at one time there was a chance that she could have died. So, she stayed in hospital for about 2 weeks; she is still there and should be home tomorrow.
When you go to hospital you go to a potentially dangerous place and some (about 30,000 in the UK) don't come out alive when they should. Moral: try and avoid it and in Jane's case she could and should have taken a Valium (diazepam - to calm her) and a Molitium (anti-sickness pill). This would have avoided hospital and a potential journey to the grave.
Alcoholism Stories to My Alcoholic Partner
My sister is a chronic alcoholic. She always binge drinks. When she would get really bad her husband will call me to come and help and talk to her. She drinks vodka usually - she will start out mixing the vodka with coke and then when shes had a few she will start drinking it straight. Sometimes she will start out with beer and then when shes pretty drunk she will start on the vodka. I have heard of her drinking a whole fifth of the stuff. After her binge is usually when I get called to come out and see her. She will shake everywhere and tells me that her stomach hurts and burns terribly. She also dry heaves into a container. I'm not sure why she does this though. Usually though she will start another binge pretty quickly because of the pain she says she feels. She never eats either and will gag if she tries to. When she gets really into the dts she will go to a rehab place and they give her a bunch of drugs to get her off the alcohol and she will be sober for a few weeks but she always goes back to it. Her husband stays with her because he fears that if he's not there to monitor her that she will end up dead - she will drink until she passes out if left to her own devices. They also have children and thats also why he stays with her. It disturbs me so much to see her like that. I can't understand why she wont stay off it. She looks like a monster when shes on a binge. Her husband will make her stay in her room so the kids dont see. Well thank you for writing about your experiences it does help people that have to care for an alcoholic.
ReplyDeleteYour description applies pretty well exactly to Jane only Jane drinks more, about a bottle of Vodka per day. No wonder he stomach hurts. It's madness and very sad. Good luck and thanks for sharing.
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