In the Belly of the Beast
Quiescent Benevolence
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Preface
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter   1
Chapter   2
Chapter   3
Chapter   4
Afterword


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That would be the final bite. These days my only interaction with the Medical Industry is an annual checkup with a doctor known to my family, so there is little danger. If I ever find myself in a hospital again they will know not only to not let me be sent to that hellhole but to watch me closely wherever I am. One can not be too vigilant.

I was free and alive, but that was nowhere close to the end of the ordeal. I remained, if not ill, extremely weak and my mental condition had improved little. I was able to interact in a normal fashion with the few people I was in contact with, close family only. But I remained in a state that is best described as zombie-like.

I didn't know the reason, and wouldn't for quite a while. With the exception of excercise several times daily I was in bed, too physically weak to do much else and not mentally inclined to. Two or three times a day I walked around outside the house, using a walker and always accompaied by a caregiver, a distance of perhaps two to three hundred yards.

I had asked for a pair of dumbells and used them several times daily while lying in bed. They were the smallest available, 2.5 pounds. I could lift one with relative ease with my right arm, but was barely able to lift one slightly with the left arm.

(My left arm remains weak two years later. I suspect it was injured during an incident at the hospital. I was incognizant at the time, a visitor told me she had entered my room to find me totally nude and uncovered, tied hand and foot to the bed as I have described. My left arm was twisted into an unnatural position and I was though unconscious vocalizing expression of severe pain. A likely suspect would the the large employee I mentioned. He certainly had the physical strength and mental attitude to have inflicted an injury. When my visitor demanded to know the reason the nurse replied "we can't keep a diaper on him" and was reluctant to reposition my arm. )

I eventually recovered sufficient physical strength to assist my caregivers in managing my affairs. I was able to go to banks and other businesses and sign papers (scrawl something that passed for a signature - handwriting is another skill I have yet to recover) and oversee moving my property from the home I would have to sell as it was too far away for me to continue living there.

I still could not drive, and it would be some months before I could. My vehicles (one had been parked at the office for four months) were retrieved and brought to my new (temporary) home. The family member I was staying with lives on a large estate which contains large fenced lot of a dozen acres or so. I eventually began to drive one of my vehicles there, learning again how to drive. It would be several weeks before I felt confident of being able to venture onto public roads.

My physical condition was improving, with improved diet and exercise and most importantly the removal of the drugs. I continued to have bowel incontinence for quite some time, but it did eventually cease. During that time I had to wear adult incontinence underwear.

That condition eventually ended, a great relief to me as I feared it being a permament condition. What caused it? No doubt the abuse at the hospital - bad diet, months of immobility, two dozen or more drugs (most of them unnecessary) simultaneously administered - was the cause.