MIA

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.