It took 10 male nurses to restrain my husband and tie him to his bed like a scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. There was blood everywhere.

Two nights ago my husband looked at me wild-eyed. It was day 7 of being in the hospital which has no neurologist, no neurosurgeon and no neurology floor yet my husband with neurological problems was unable to be transferred to the right hospital. His neurologist had literally walked away from us 6 days previously, he had been living on morphine and sugar water and tied to his bed via I.V. with a foley attached as well.

It is Sunday and all afternoon he has regaled me with news of his upcoming death. How he will see his younger brother again, how we never saw this coming. How you have to die sometime. He begs my visiting friend to take care of me, I'll need her in the next two weeks. I have alternately sobbed, been stoic and prayed, in random rotation. We are being held hostage in a hospital that has no idea what to do with him but will not release him and he is incapacitated anyway.

Friday night I had called his beloved son and told him flat out: Your father is fighting for his life. He shrugged me off and then didn't even call the next day to find out how his dad was doing. My sister-in-law who flew in from Minnesota & I were literally keeping him alive day to day. I handed off the step-children to her - his daughter had called the day before and airily asked if her father was still in the hospital. I pull the phone away and look at it. Are they insane or am I?

My sister-in-law calls his son to impress upon him how serious this is. He coldly thanks her and hangs up. We shrug and give up, not important anyway. And then my husband plots his escape in his dilaudid haze, sleep deprivation and agony of pain. I'm alone with him in the hospital room, he tells me to grab his stuff we're making a break for it. His male nurse tries to give him his xanax, my husband puts it down, telling us we're trying to kill him. Uh-oh. The nurse and I make eye contact, I psychically tell him to go and get help FAST. He's not a good mind-reader and still attempts to reason with Ken even as Ken starts to rise up and puff his chest out all the while telling me: "Let's go! Let's go! Let's get out of this hotel!"

Oh God.

I go to the door and turn to him, he starts pulling out his I.V. lines. Blood spurts everywhere. "I need help!" I call to the nearest nurse. She comes in and is aghast at what she sees. The male nurse runs up with one other man but it's way too late. Ken pushes past them and almost makes it to the elevator screaming at me "Dial 911! Dial 911!" I am huddled by the nurse station, telling him I am, telling the nearest nurse to shoot him full of sedatives NOW! Over the hospital intercom is the ominous CODE GREY, CODE GREY and gives my husbands room number. Patient out of control. It takes 10 male orderlies to surround him and get him into a wheelchair. Ken is screaming they are trying to kill him and that I am too. I shiver and shake and weep, furiously calling my sister-in-law who is on her way.

The mass of men move him back into his bedroom and restrain him to his bed, put a vest on him so he can't pull off his telemetry pads. They give him a shot of Haldol to calm him down. I am slumped at the nurses station; my sister in law arrives and goes in to see him. "Get my phone, Lori. Get my wallet. Get me out of here!" She has to walk away and leave him as he tells her I am trying to kill him along with everybody else. We weep together.

An hour earlier his son had called me and screamed at me that we were exaggerating Kens condition in order to persuade him to fly over and sit by his bed so that me and my sister-in-law could go shopping, or lolly gag or whatever he envisions stupid, bovine women do. I hung up on him in mid-scream. The staff had violated HIPPA rules and told his sister over the phone that Ken's "vital signs" were good. So he kept saying over and over "His vital signs are good! His vital signs are good!" Shit, everybody's vital signs are good...until they die. Asshole.

So world war three started with Kens kids throwing accusations and names at my sister-in-law and I as we sat hollow-eyed and sleep deprived next to Ken. I was seeing a pattern. At every juncture in this fight for his life, we had betrayals. His neurologist left him, the hospital couldn't help him. My own sister wouldn't help us, his 2 children accused us of lying to them. His new neurologist promised to show up Monday and then Tuesday and did not. Betrayal at every turn, just another Judas experience. We will all experience betrayals, it's hardwired into the human experience.

Tuesday we wait for his new neurologist to show up all day. He promised after he didn't come the day before. They took Ken off all dilaudid so the neurologist could get a clear neuro exam of Ken when he arrived. We prayed he'd transfer Ken to his hospital, the one with the neurological ward. Ken told us all day he would die if he spent one more night here. He had to be transferred. He had to be.

Then the nurse glibly tells us the neurologist will not be coming. He was called off-island for an emergency. My sister in law and I look at each other and for a moment we think: Ken will die. The hospitalist is gone off rotation. There is literally no Dr. at this moment taking care of my husband. I take a deep breath. I think. I call the director of Risk Management and tell her: "This is a 911. Ken will kill himself if he spends one more night here, so he either needs to be transferred to the right hospital or pull his foley and his I.V. now and we're taking him home. He has a neurosurgeon appt. in 48 hours; we'll take care of him until then."

Risk Manager calls the nurse who pages the floor manager who consults with all of the Big Heads who hear my ultimatum and they finally decide this. We will let you take him home. We'll send you home with meds and sedatives to hold you over for 48 hours. And if anything happens, drive him the ER of the right hospital. Sorry we couldn't help you.

We tell Ken: "We're breaking you out of here buddy. We're taking you home."

I look at my sister in law and manage to say: "You can't make this shit up."