Recovery

April 28, 2019 

“Try Meditation”

No, no, don’t get up. Everybody keep your seats. I’m well on the road to recovery and require no assistance. I’ll just stand here until one of you jake-legs gets up and lets me have the recliner.

            Ah, that’s better. Now, about last week’s article. Who can remember? I sure can’t. I intended to write about being in the hospital after having an appendectomy and a physical inspection of a 20-foot length of wet rope called “my small intestines.” The surgeon saw a couple of things attached to my intestines that didn’t belong, so removed ‘em, right after yanking my appendix. If I hadn’t been asleep at the time, I would’ve fought that man tooth and nail.

            Because of the surgeon’s discovery, I had to visit an oncologist this afternoon. Until a few years ago, I thought an oncologist was a person who played a particular wind instrument in an orchestra. I’ve learned so much over the years. Anyway, in a few weeks, the doctor is going to fill me with a bunch of dye, and then shoot me with a bazillion protons that will light up any cancerous areas. I asked him if my brain would be part of the area tested. He said it wouldn’t, and then asked why I asked.

            I came up with a couple of sarcastic comebacks. – “I wanted to know if it would be a waste of time for me to learn to play the guitar.” or “I was hoping you could tie into the part of my brain that remembers where all of our lost spoons ended up. However, while I’ve seen several good comedians that came out of India, I thought it a bad time to test the good doctor’s fondness for levity. So, I told him I was concerned about Alzheimer's… even though I’m not.

            Well, actually, I am a little concerned. I just don’t want to know if I’ve got it. If I were told I was in the first stage of Alzheimer’s, I would immediately skip through to phase eight. If the doctor informed me a week later that his diagnosis was in error, he would discover that I had already fulfilled his diagnosis. I once got a kidney stone after hearing a guy describe his kidney stone experience. My body is so easily influenced.

            After I mentioned Alzheimer’s, the doctor told me that there are ways to curtail Alzheimer’s. Eat more vegetables and less meat. -- He sounded like the owner of a Chinese buffet. -- He suggested I tax my brain with puzzles and the like, and get plenty of rest. -- I mean exercise. I always get those two mixed up.

            Then the doctor recommended meditation. Seek the place in your mind that produces mental clarity and emotional comfort. If the doctor had the time, I would’ve told him about what all my brain uncovered while I was in the hospital.

             

            I didn’t care about reading, writing or watching TV. I wasn’t even a big fan of answering questions. -- “Mr. Hayter, would you care to sit in the chair by the window?” – I had no idea. There was no comfort to be found anywhere in my room. But in my brain? Oh, yeah, there’s plenty of stuff in there.

            I’m fairly sure the meds had something to do with the mental images that often appeared when I shut my eyes. On several occasions,  I saw the smiling faces of people I didn’t even know. They just stared for a moment, and then disappeared, only to be replaced by another charming soul.

            The same thing happened with scenes of various landscapes, some familiar, most not so much. I could scan an entire panorama with my eyes shut. Normally, when my mind displays a scene, I never get to focus on individual objects. If I try, the scene disappears right before my closed eyes. However, while in the hospital, the scenes allowed me to look around.

            The best of all moments occurred while I was sleeping. I think they’re called dreams, but these were super special dreams. As I’ve mentioned more than once, my dreams stink on ice. The worst-case scenario occurs in every one of my dreams. Whether I’m teaching, driving, shopping, or at church, something horrible happens. Each time when I wake up, I’m so relieved to find it only a dream.

            However, while in the hospital, each dream was a peach. I kid you not, my mind was creating some fascinating stories. During the happenings, I tried to make mental notes about everything. Each dream was a novel or movie yet to be created. And the dialog was exceptional. Of course, upon awakening, I had lost a great deal of each story. I thought about creating a montage of the occurrences, but I’m not a fan of the montage. I don’t even like the word montage. So, what say we quit repeating it?

While the drug-induced meditation and dreams were a good side effect of my hospital visit, I’ve come to grips with the thought that everything about my stay was helpful. Poet Maya Angelou once wrote, “You are the sum total of everything you've ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot - it's all there.”

So, had my health issue not occurred, I’d be less of a person. As is, I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain. But I didn’t see any lonely times when I could not find a friend. That’s one of the lessons learned from pain. I don’t know what I did to deserve all of the cards, visits, prayers, and well wishes, but each is now a part of the sum total of me. Blessed is what I am. 

       

end

You can contact Mark  hayter.mark@gmail.com

Perk yourself up

April 21, 2019

“Perk yourself up. Plan a trip and don't take it."

 

            Kay was talking to me during a commercial, and as usual, I was hanging onto her every word. However, I did manage to hear a voice from the TV say, “Tell your doctor that you are ready to--” I couldn’t make out the end. 

            What caught my attention was the part where I “tell” my doctor something. Usually, it’s recommended that I “ask” my doctor for something. Have you noticed how pharmaceuticals assume doctors don’t have a clue? 

            Since the pharmaceutical person sounded so urgent, I begged Kay’s pardon and hurried to my computer to find out what to tell my doctor. What I found was a list of a few dozen things I would never share with my doctor or my wife. I keep secrets from Kay because I’m afraid she’ll tell our doctor. We have the same GP. I have no idea what she’s been telling him about me. He always gives me a questioning look when he enters the room. I notice stuff like that.

            I was ready to exit the drug website and start playing solitaire when something caught my eye. What my eye landed on was the address of a site that offered 70 things to make me feel better about myself. I figured if even three of ‘em were any good it’d be worth the read.

            So, I went to the site and immediately discovered that a psychologist was recommending some really impossible stuff. Like, “Try listening to someone. Really listening.” -- Yeah, like that’s going to perk me right up. Two minutes into someone’s rant, I automatically experience an out of body experience. I consider it a gift from God.

            “Do something spontaneous,” was another recommendation. – Right now, I can envision many of you spontaneously turning to another section of the paper. – Here’s an idea that sounds much better: “Learn something new today.” Okay, let me Google a weird fact for us. – Whoa, get this. “All major league baseball umpires must wear black underwear while on the job in case their pants split.” Well, that little factoid has completely changed the game for me. 

            Besides, I doubt that’s true, so let me find something else I didn’t know. “It is physically impossible for you to lick your elbow.” Okay, I never thought of that, mainly because I don’t care. But, speaking of licking stuff, did you know that the imprint of your tongue is as unique as a fingerprint. I don’t know what that does for you, but it tells me to keep my mouth shut when committing a crime. 

            Here is something else I could do to make myself psychologically healthy: “Take a risk.” I must admit that risk-taking would go contrary to my usual behavior. I’m not crazy about risks. The closest I might come is loudly singing the theme song from the TV series “Jim Bowie,” while waiting at the grocery checkout. -- “He roamed the wilderness unafraid from Natchez to Rio Grande. With all the might of his gleaming blade, he fought for the rights of men. Jim Bowie, Jim Bowie!” --  I would sing the song from Gilligan’s Island, but I’m fairly sure the people around me would join in. Then they’d start telling me everything they know about the series, and I would have an out of the body experience right there in the store. 

            “Drive to a place you frequent, but take a different route.” – In other words – Get lost! Hey, I don’t have the brain capacity to come up with two directions to the same place. I’m getting depressed just thinking about it.

            “Go to the children’s section of the library and read aloud a “pretend” book about a lost walrus.” I made that one up, but I like the sound of it. Here’s a ripe one. – “Apologize to someone you may have offended.” – Good grief! I apologize for stuff every day. Anything I haven’t apologized for has been hidden from me. Depending on where I happen to be, I’ve been known to apologize at the sound of my name. And, I must say, it doesn’t have that much of a calming effect.

            “Do something to put a smile on someone’s face.” – For this one, I may pull up next to a guy in traffic, roll down my window and yell, “Forget world peace! Visualize using your turn signal!” (That’s not original. I borrowed it from someone’s bumper sticker.) If I were to say something like that to anyone, I would immediately apologize.

            Finally. “Plan a trip, but don’t take one.” Planning a trip is supposed to boost your happiness for up to eight weeks. Like you, I have no idea how someone figured this one out, nor why he or she made a distinction of “eight weeks” instead of “two months.” The thought is that when someone returns from a trip, his or her happiness immediately falls back to the baseline. I have no idea the level of my happiness baseline. I imagine it’s way up there.

            However, I happen to know enough about myself to realize that I would receive no happy vibes whatsoever from planning a trip that I’m not going to take. I believe that’s called the fourth stage of madness. You see, it makes me happier to think of all the bad stuff I don’t have to do than it does to anticipate something fun that I’m not going to do. -- And it is that thought that makes me think that I may be more mentally stable than at least one psychologist.

end

You can contact Mark  hayter.mark@gmail.com

Appendix attack

April 14, 2019

Appendix surgery and so much more

            Gas is good. It’s why most of this world is a better place than all the other worlds that don’t have any gas. But, if you have gas, it’s bad. It can be the worst thing you’ve ever experienced. A number of you have gone to the doctor for kidney stones, gallstones, appendicitis and gunshot wounds, only to find out you had gas.

            How silly did you feel? On a scale of 1 to 10, how silly? Well, I’m here to tell you that I’m in the hospital, I’ve got gas, and if anyone asks again “On a scale of 1 to ten, how do you feel?” I will light up. Fortunately, unlike some of you, I didn’t go to the hospital and find out what I had was gas. I went to the hospital to learn that to cure what I had would result in me getting gas. 

            It hit me on a Friday and my heart stood still. A do run, run, run . (I’m on some serious meds here.) Friday morning, the 12^th of April,  I woke up with a pain in my right side. Since it only hurt when I moved or touched my side, I didn’t take it all that seriously.

            It was when nausea set in Saturday morning that Kay decided to take me to the emergency room. There were a lot of sick people in the emergency room that morning and they each had their own story.

            That was five days ago, and I’m still here. What happened was I was wheeled out of the emergency room to pre-op, where a doctor told me I needed an emergency appendectomy. Normal procedures. Hundreds, maybe billions of ‘em done each day, just not all by him. It will take him maybe 90 minutes. I saw about 5 other doctors and 12 qualified nursing staff. I don’t know how many other people got signed on while I was unconscious.

           

             I woke up in post-op about five hours later. Post-op looked so much like the pre-op that I thought it was the same place. I was going to share my discovery, but I didn’t get a chance before  Kay and the doctor came through the door. I had never seen a doctor that quickly after a procedure. Bottom line: the appendix got removed, but when looking through his scope at an area away from my appendix the doc spied a place on my small intestine that shouldn’t have been there.

            What he did after that was cut from my navel to the netherworld, reached in, and started pulling until he had felt every inch of my small intestines. He located two areas that he removed and sent to the lab. The results came in a few minutes ago, and one area was benign and the other was a nonaggressive, low-grade cancer. Next week I get a PET scan to make sure there’s nothing else happening.

            Now my only problem is to get my waste delivery system to deliver. I’m not allowed to eat anything of substance. I can have beef, vegetable, or chicken broth, Jello, or a popsicle. Other than that, I can eat all the ice I want. So, my job is to prove that my intestines can digest real food without me actually eating any food. It’s looking like I may spend the remainder of my near-sane life in this hospital.

            I didn’t think I’d need any help the first night I was here, so I sent Kay home. I was pretty drugged, so I figured I’d sleep all night. – You’re not going to believe this next part, but it’s true. – Time stands still in this hospital. I can put water in my CPAP sleeping machine, turn it on, put my mask on and lay there for three hours. Then wake up to find that only four minutes have passed.

            Jill will back me up on this. My kid sister stayed with me the second night. Even saved my life a couple of times. I was just getting things mixed up. You know, tugging on the wrong wire. It’s all about wires here. Which wire to attach to which arm. Which wire goes with which bag. And everything has a buzzer on it

            Big Al was with me for the last two nights. Al is more efficient than any of the nurses. He doesn’t know as much as they do, but he’s more efficient. He anticipates everything. When I make a move, he immediately sees what it’s going to lead to, so he stops me. “No, Mark. The big device strapped around your neck does not operate the TV. Nobody knows what that piece of equipment does. So, take this device. Don’t push the button with the nurse's picture on it, or you’ll get the nurse. It’s the one under the nurse to the left. By the way, it’s time to walk, so get ready to be manhandled out of bed. And, don’t touch anything.”

            Tonight I’m staying by myself again. I have a mission. I am going to do everything I can to make sure I go to the bathroom… short of eating food. I don’t know where that’s going to take me or if I’m going to like what I find. But, something is going to be true that’s not true now. If not, then there’s every indication that I’m in the Hotel California.

 

end

You can contact Mark  hayter.mark@gmail.com

Contest judging

April 7, 2019

“Judging the Judges of Project Runway..."

            Oh, howdy. I’m sorry to make you wait. Just as I was about to start writing, Kay yelled at me to come watch the finals of “Project Runway” with her. I’ve occasionally gotten myself trapped into watching one of her dog shows or dog-cooking shows, so she hoped to get me interested in dress design. One might think I’m being controlled.

            You know why she did that, don’t you? It’s because of the time when she suckered me into watching a hair-styling competition. It was a contest to determine which of about a dozen beauticians was the best. Fascinating. At least it was up until the episode where each contestant was asked to groom a dog. I missed the next couple of episodes because I was so upset. I sure wouldn’t go to a barber who placed first in a dog grooming contest. One of the contestants let it be known that he was insulted by the challenge. He did it anyway, but his heart wasn’t in it. Neither was the dog’s. Dogs can pick up on a person’s vibe. So can flies. They act like everyone is out to get ‘em.     

            Apparently, Kay told my three brothers about me watching a series on hair-styling. Larry said, “I am sure glad that mother didn’t live long enough to find this out.” After that humiliating experience, I began watching macho competitions. Boxing, weightlifting, who-can-throw-the-telephone-pole-the-farthest… that kind of stuff. The stuff I do not enjoy watching. However, I hung in there for a few weeks, because I knew if one of my brothers kicked off, the first thing they’d do when they got to heaven is tell Dad about my interest in hairstyling. There are a few people I would be a little leery of, even in heaven. I fear that attitude might just prevent my entrance.

            I eventually started watching “Forged in Fire,” the series where four guys compete to design and forge the best sword.  In each challenge, they’re given a particular type of sword to make. You know, a Samari or saber or cutlass. They’re graded on stuff like the sharpness of the weapon, the strength of the blade, the feel of the handle, and the design of the guard. – Beg your pardon, Maxine? Right. That sticky-out part that keeps the swordsman from losing his hand is called a “hilt,” not a guard. As in, “I am taxed to the hilt.” – Property taxes. Don’t get me started.

            Where was I? Oh, I enjoyed the first few episodes of “Forged in Fire.” The task of sword-making is a humdinger. As if I need to watch more programming about stuff I’m incapable of doing. To be honest – and I have great respect for honesty – I have yet to find any competitive event at which I would not embarrass myself. And, what’s crazy—You wanna know what’s crazy? I really believe that I’d be a good judge of almost any competitive event… except for soccer, hockey, basketball, sculling, volleyball, cat-grooming, and polka dancing. I’m good with all the rest.

            Even with no training, I have been chosen to judge BBQ brisket, cakes, ice cream, honey, chili, and stuff “that deep down, you don’t talk about at parties. You want me on that wall! You need me on that wall!” – Sorry about that. I utilize any opportunity I can find to deliver those lines. Point is, I’m a good judge of stuff… except for honey. There were at least a dozen entries too many.

            I’m telling you all that to tell you this, I would be a good judge on “Project Runway.” Those, so called, “EXPERTS” are apparently looking for the best clown suits. If you want to win that competition, you need to make a piece of clothing that no one would be caught dead in. One designer created a dress that looked like a giant bursting balloon that still managed to maintain its shape. The judges were all over it. “It’s genius!” -- “So much better than anything we saw last week!” – Unless you’ve got an invitation to the premiere of “Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland” you could not possibly find a place to wear it.

             “Runway” had pretty much the same format as the hair-cutting show, just not as much dog grooming.  In the finals, each of the four remaining clothing designers had four days to design and make six different outfits, with a cohesive theme. One guy made six outfits with a reptilian theme. He got fourth place.

            A Polish designer got second place. The gentleman got so choked up before the revealing of his collection that he was unable to relate the theme of his outfits. I defy anyone to identify the theme without making up a load of crabcakes. The judges went nuts. Each of the emaciated models had her hair made up to look as if a two-inch rod was coming out of the top of her head.

            Again, the judges went all gaga over what they saw. The East European guy was even more complimentary of himself than the judges. When it was announced that he got second place, he said that the lady who won did not deserve the title. That her designs “didn’t come close to looking as exquisite as his.” Had he been given fourth place, I fear he might’ve stabbed a judge with one of his models.

            Let’s face it, any contest the outcome of which is determined by someone’s opinion is ripe for argument. That’s why I prefer to be one of three to five judges in any food competition. That way I can say I voted for whoever it is that’s upset. Of course, I don’t want that shared with anyone in my family. God may forgive me, but my brothers will still tell Mom and Dad. Oh, yes they will.

           

end

You can contact Mark  hayter.mark@gmail.com