David Ball

I woke to severe pain in June 2000. I’m a chronic pain patient and figured I was just dealing with more back pain. But it was really bad. I called an ambulance to take me to the ER. When I got there, I was glanced over by a doctor who was paying a lot more attention to the nurse working with him. Constipation, was his diagnosis, fleet enema was his solution. Wrong!

Like a good patient I did what I was told. Might have worked, if I didn’t have a 13 cm hole in my large intestine.

Two days later, I took an ambulance back to Kaiser ER. I passed out on the way.

Next thing I knew, it was 39 days later. I had a scar that was the length of my body. I missed my birthday. I was in an induced coma. The most vivid night terrors I ever had. So real, so scary and I remember it all.

I now had a colostomy. Wake up with one of those and see how long you keep your sanity.

I got lucky. Really lucky.

When I was released from hospital, I bought copies of all my nursing reports, then I realized how lucky I was.

Errors abounded. I’m 6 ft 2, a chronic back pain patient. How did they move me up in my bed, shoving my feet, compressing my spine to no end? There were notes how I was run into a doorjamb and knocked a PIC line out of me. Nurses changed my colostomy only to spill it on my wound. My doctors assumed this had something to do with cocaine, which was all over these notes. I was a smoker and had bad withdrawals.

The nightmares were the worst. I never remember my dreams but I remember every bit of hallucinations.