MIA
Those
that follow my blog may have noticed my absence at an odd time in this election
cycle. Well, I have spent a few days in
the hospital at different times. My wife
and I do try and find the humor even in dark or challenging times. So, I’m going to share some of my lighthearted
adventures in the medical field.
(11.5 minute read.)
Background
After a
couple of gallbladder attacks I was finally able to get cleared for surgery to
have it removed. My cardiologist had to
approve pulling me off of the blood thinners that I’ve been on since having a
stent put in a few months back. It seems
that my bad eating habits caught up with me and clogged up some veins that
really need not to be clogged. I have
the eating habits of a small child with bad eating habits. It’s a little late in the game for me to make
much of a difference at my age.
I’m going
to spend a couple of weeks healing.
Doctor’s orders. A couple of doctors. Fortunately my wife will be waiting on me
hand and foot. (Odd expression that.) She’s a good woman. It must be love. I say that because I know me personally. I spent the first day kicked back in our
leather recliner catching up on some reading and doing some writing.
I have a 10-pound weight limit so my
wife will have to keep the plates of food that she’s bringing me kind of
light. Thank goodness a family size bag
of Cheetos weighs less than 10 pounds.
I’ve really missed Cheetos. My
usual diet suffered because I had to avoid foods that were triggering my
gallbladder attacks.
For some
reason I got zero sleep the night after surgery. Didn’t have a lot of pain, just enough to
keep me awake. My wife picked up the
necessary pain meds. She also took with
her my list of wants and needs. Like ice
cream. I needed ice cream.
Real bad.
Pre-op fun
My wife and
I always try to have some fun in pre-op.
Okay, it’s me. I’ve had a lot of
time to practice and hone my shtick with over 20 times on an operating
table. Admittedly some of the times have
been more fun than others.
I have always felt that it’s real
important to get on the good side of all those that have something to do with
working on or removing one’s body parts.
I think of it as a working relationship.
Since they keep asking me what part it is that they’re supposed to be
working on I tend to think of myself as a part of the team even though I’ll be
fast asleep and the people that will be awake are the ones that need to know.
It’s probably a good thing that
they don’t feel the need to write more instructions other than using an “X” and
saying operate here. Sentences saying
use a sharp scalpel or cut along this line might be a little off putting to the
operatee. Although there was an
operation once where they did in fact wake me up about halfway through to ask
me some questions before putting me back under.
I digress. Digressing happens a
lot with me. I’m going to start calling
it the weave. < snort >
Anyway, the nurse always starts off
taking me into a little room where we go over my wardrobe for the
procedure. It does vary a little from
time to time but the open back gown and socks with anti-skid strips for fast
cornering during an escape are always mandatory. They used to be tan but they have moved to a
flashier yellow now. This time they
provided me with a spit mask. I do think
that was totally unnecessary and a tad rude.
Okay it wasn’t actually a spit mask.
It was a hairnet that I was able to pull down over my entire face. Since my hair started deserting me long ago
there wasn’t much in the way of volume to take up space. My wife took a picture later on. She always comes through in a pinch.
When the
nurse started jacking the bed higher with her foot pump I started bopping
around in the bed. Told her it was a
nice beat. She laughed and got into it
as well with a little bopping of her own.
They brought my wife in and we settled in for the wait.
We also
told the doc that we thought it would be real funny if he walked into his pre
surgery visit sharpening a carving knife on a sharpening steel and tell people
that he was going to be doing a different kind of surgery that day. We laughed a lot more than he or the nurses
about that. He did laugh though. In my various operations I have noted that as
a generalization surgeons don’t usually have a well-developed sense of humor.
After he
left a nurse came by around an hour later to tell us that he was finishing up
and I would be next. I asked her if he
was covered in blood. She looked a bit
perplexed and said, “No.” Then I said,
“Well that’s a good sign!” Another nurse
had got the drift of our warped senses of humor and chimed in something about,
“No he’s waiting to be covered in … drum roll …
YOUR blood!”
Cutting time
They
wheeled me into the operating room and while they were getting me prepped I did
my usual jabbering. Now I did tell them
ahead of time that my wife had told me that I wasn’t as funny as I thought I
was and that they should believe her. So
it isn’t like I didn’t give the team a heads up.
I told them about being awake for
my stent procedure and being able to talk to them the whole time. I told one of the people masked that I
jabbered when I was nervous. She told me
that she did that too. Then I told her
that this wasn’t me being nervous, just normal.
Right about then one of the nurses put an oxygen mask on me and then
commented that it wouldn’t stay on.
Probably had something to do with me talking continuously.
Anyway, I got to the part that
during the stent procedure one of nurses came up by my head and said, “Why
don’t you just relax and take it easy” and mentioned that she probably wanted
to say something along the lines of “Please for the love of God shut up!” That’s the last thing that I remember because
it was LIGHTS OUT! I’m guessing the
oxygen mask stayed on better.
I was
operated on by Robbie the Robot. The good-looking
bearded doc had told us about that in pre-op.
I asked him then if it would be the machine in the corner and if it had
lights. He thought a bit and said yes
and that the lights were green. I said,
“Well that’s a good sign. Red lights
might lead one to think that it’s a killer robot getting ready to run amuck.” Then we talked briefly about killer
robots. Personally I think right about
then he was glad to leave the room.
Digressing yet
again.
Post-op
Waking up
in post-op from anesthesia is just flat out strange. They actually called me by the name I go
by. Not Bob, Bobby, Robert, Robby, Bobbo
or any other name that could be made up.
I told them that Bob would not answer them and they would get unnecessarily
concerned. That happened during one of
my first operations.
They kept asking Bob to wake up and
Bob just wasn’t doing it. Bob should
have been awake. They were getting
concerned about Bob. Crap! I was getting concerned about Bob. Mainly because I was getting tired of hearing
his name. It finally occurred to me that
I was in fact the Bob they were talking to and answered them. We were all relieved to have it come to an
end.
Anyway, I
did ask the post-op nurse when I was first waking up if she was an angel? She said, “No” and then laughed. I started to say that was a good sign that I
made it through the operation but then I considered that she may have laughed
for another reason so I stopped that line of questioning lest she started
talking about how hot it was.
Then I
prepared myself for the dance of ‘was I in pain questions’ and my quest to get
as much pain medication as I could out of them.
First they had to pump some anti-nausea drugs in me because I wanted to
throw up real bad and that sounded like that would be a bad thing to do.
Then the
dance started. Are you in pain? Yes, I just got operated on and I’m quite
certain that they could hear me moaning and saying ow. What level?
Whatever level gets me some pain killers. What kind of pain medication do you
want? I said, “I suppose heroin is off
the table.” It was. Then she brought in another nurse for backup
and they both stared at me intently as they gave a list of what they could give
me. When they got to dilaudid I said,
“That’s the one! That’s
niiiiccceee.” I probably put a tad too
much emphasis on the word nice but she gave me some anyway. Later she asked how I was doing and I told
nothing happened. For real. She gave me another dose. At least she said she did. Still nothing. For real.
Then she
told me that it was probably from the gas that they pumped in me for the doc
and Robbie to be able to do their work. (Robbie’s’
real name is DaVinci.) She said that
experience has taught her that when patients get pain meds and the pain doesn’t
go away, it’s gas. We looked it up later
and the gas gravitates upward and can cause high chest and shoulder pain until
it finally works its way out.
I realized
then that I had lost the battle and told her the story about one of my first
pain medication interactions, about how I got higher than a kite and my wife
had to stay with me an extra half hour because they had given me so much
stuff. The last hit they gave me way
back then was oxycontin mashed up in some grape jelly so I would get the whole
hit at once. The post-op nurse was
aghast.
The nurse
also said that they were keeping my wife apprised of my condition. I told her that should be sure and tell her
that I was NOT scamming for more pain meds.
She laughed. Probably because I
had been scamming for more pain meds.
The pain
med was actually kicking in then. They
were kicking in real niiiiicccee! I told
her that she had a pretty watch. I told
the nurse that her nails were pretty.
Then I told another nurse that her hat was pretty. I told a guy walking by that his shoes were
pretty. There were just lots of pretty
things and people. It was right about
then that I asked if my wife could come and see me. Nope.
I had to go to Recovery in order for to see her so I said, “Well let’s
get going!” I did ask the nurse if I
could have another hit of dilaudid before we left. Nope!
I also tried to get her to race down the hall so we could see how well
she could take the corners. Nope there
too.
Tough room.
Recovery
They at
last got me to the responsible adult.
Went through a lot of stuff with the authority there. Important stuff. Blah, blah, yes I’m paying attention. Then the recovery room nurse said that I
couldn’t leave until I peed because they had to know if that part was working.
Tried to pee. Couldn’t pee.
Good thing too because I wasn’t in the bathroom yet. Just kidding.
We had been
through this whole pee thing before in my prior surgeries. I think that I have been under 25 times
now. After one of my knee operations it
was really bad. They had pushed ungodly
amounts of fluids in me plus I was drinking water. It was getting painful. Finally they stood me up, me holding the pee
bottle, my wife on one side, nurse on the other and there was another nurse in
the room too. Probably didn’t want to
miss the show. Then the nurse started
singing full throated “Let it go” from “Frozen” with expansive arm
gestures. We all started laughing and I
started peeing.
Now, we
related that story to the nurse and asked if she would sing the song while I
tried to pee. Nope. Wasn’t having it. So my wife looked up the song on my phone and
the nurse walked me down to the bathroom.
(I still had my IV in.) No
luck. Back to the room. I drank apple juice. Drank cranberry juice. Drank a Coke.
Drank some coffee. Things were
getting painful again.
So it was
off to the bathroom again. I took my
phone with me. This time I laid the
phone on top of the toilet paper dispenser so I could be … fully engaged. Then I hit the music and Queen Elsa came
through right on cue. Let it go. The nurse heard me laughing and came to check
and see if I was okay. I told her we had
success!
The rest is
history.
