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 12th 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
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