The E.R., really?

So I get the phone call to report to the ER, I still can't believe it. Laura meets me there at about 10pm. We have to sit in the waiting room for about an hour and this over weight twenty-something woman comes out of the exam room and exclaims "stupid f-ing doctor!" then she continues in her uneducated rant that the stupid doctor had told her that the reason for her cough is that she smokes! Laura could sense that I was going to tell her to shut up and told me to relax, and then incredibly, the other twenty-something woman in the room chimes in and says, "I know, they think smoking is the worst, but I smoked during both of my pregnancies and my kids turned ok."

Oh Lord, please lead these two to knowledge.

I know that I am not racist, but I also know that I am predjudiced about stupid people. I couldn't wait to get out of that waiting room.

So I get called in and get the normal, "why are you here, you look fine?" but after getting some secret news from someplace, the doc orders another large quantity blood test. Then they throw me into the real ER area where just a thin curtain hides me from at least six women who seem to be in serious pain. Well, I thought, I'll only be here for a couple of hours with an IV...

I've never had an IV before, and was doing my best not to freak out. They put it in my right hand and I accidentally pulled it out while reaching into my pocket to get my iPod so I could drown out the moaning and screaming. So they came and stuck it in my left hand. After about three hours of this and now about 3am, I am wondering when they will release me. The doctor then comes in and says that they are going to admit me, "Wait, what?" They are going to get me a room, well on the bright side, I won't have to hear anymore emergency room noises... At 7am, I'm still laying in the ER, they have a shift change at 730 so I'm told that I'll be in a room shortly...I'm still in my street clothes, I'm happy that I was able to shower up at the Redlands YMCA... It's noon, I'm told that it should be soon... I'm asked to give another urine sample and when I enter the restroom, there on the table, where I was told to leave it, is my previous sample from 7am...nice. I'm hungry, and others are taking a break from moaning as they are being served lunch, but not me, because I have this IV going. At 230pm they finally wheel me into a room, AFTER about 14hours of ER, oh yeah, and this was on the day that some said the earth would end. I know the Lord says that we won't know when he will return, and I knew this wasn't how I was going to spend my last hours. (spoiler alert: turns out I was right!)

They started doing some tests. The bacteria in my blood is sometimes associated my heart valve disease, so they ordered an electrocardiogram and the injected me with radioactive dye and then looked at my heart. No problem there. Now let's try a chest xray- nothing. MRI, nothing, CAT scan - maybe something, colonoscopy - bingo!

Let's talk about a colonoscopy, it doesn't sound fun, and I was happy that I didn't really have time to think about, most of the time for the first THREE days I was in the hospital they were wheeling me to some different room where machines, that looked somewhat like the interrogation droids from Starwars, were waiting for me, all with an evil grin. I'm sure I missed this day in school, but the colon is just basically another name for your large intestine... So I'm told that for the colonoscopy I will be put into twilight sleep, which I think means that I'll be awake, but can't really feel anything. I'm wheeled into the room where there are two very nice, kind of cute, and funny nurses. That kind of makes it worse in my mind as I know they will soon know me intimately, they next thing I remember is being wheeled out of the room. No one told me to count or said anything like "here we go" I had been completely out. I'm told that I was having complete conversations with people who came to visit me and then after looking away would look at them and say something like, "hey, when'd you get here?" and people would laugh. I still really don't know who all were there. Hopefully I didn't up for a timeshare or term life insurance or something, because I have no idea what i talked about. Anyway, the point is that the colonoscopy was an easy process. If you know your family history you need to have one at 50. As it turns out, if you are adopted and/or don't know your family history - get it done at 40. If I had known and done this then, it wouldn't be so difficult now. So if you have someone in your life who needs this have them talk to me!

The result of the colonoscopy was that they found a rather large tumor that had been hiding in the ascending side of my colon, under my ribs, which is why it was hard to find. They would have to operate the next day to remove it.

I was relieved that they finally found the source of my issues.

My prep for surgery was simple since I already had an IV. The only thing I really remember is waking up in the recovering with immense pain in my gut. I was screaming and at the same time apologizing to the girl and her mom in the next bed, I suddenly felt bad for hating the moaners in the ER. They gave my something in my IV that made some of the pain subside, but I had no idea that surgery could hurt so much.

They wheeled me back into my room, and for the first time I felt that I belonged there.

I had 19 hideous staples that I could see on the outside (no more wearing bikinis) and who knows how many stitches on my abdominal muscles, and they all hurt. I'm not a back sleeper. This was not going to be fun.

I watched tv all night and never really slept, which was ok, because they were coming in every other hour and doing something to me.

I had a catheter (spelling) hooked up to me that someone must have inserted while I was out. The next time I'm having a bad day at work, I will always remind myself that there are jobs that the best days are worse than my bad days. Since I've never had one of those things hooked up to me, I didn't understand how they worked, I had assumed that when I needed to go, I just went, but I had to make the effort. When a nurse came in and said she was going to change my bag I said not to bother because I had not needed to go yet... she continued to take a full bag of urine away- "what? I don't remember doing that..."

I think that the surgeon came in the next day and felt like the tumor showed signs of being cancerous, that announcement did not really register with me, I could only think of this pain I was feeling. Laura, was more focused on the news about cancer.

I think it was the next day when the doctor came in with the pathology report that the tumor was cancerous and attached to the wall of my colon and had passed through the wall into the surrounding fat. That makes it type two. Had it traveled to another organ or membrane it would have been a type three. The doctor also said that it was a miracle that no cancer was found in any if the 14 lymph nodes they extracted.

I couldn't believe that they actually sent a physical therapist to me whose job it was to get me to get up and walk. "Are you kidding me!? No way could I even sit up in bed, let alone walk!" Oh, I have go I was told. I couldn't believe that I was walking across the room, and the pain...

The next time the PT came I just wanted to send her away, but she said the sooner I would walk around, the sooner I could go home.

I should probably say here that Laura was with me every step, but she was in a wheel chair having just gone through a knee reconstruction surgery a week before I ended up in the same OR. I was supposed to home treating her like a queen.

I started to push myself and was soon walking down the hall dragging my IV pole and Laura close behind in her wheel chair. We found out later that other patients on the floor assumed that we both had been involved in some horrendous accident!

I couldn't watch anything funny on tv, it hurt to laugh. Coughing and sneezing brought almost intolerable pain. And then they asked my to cough, to clear my lungs so I didn't get pnenomia. I hate this place!!

My only goal was to get out of here, so I started walking twice as much as they had told me.

I have never felt too comfortable visiting people in the hospital, but now that I've been on the other side, I will visit people more often. It was great when friends, family and coworkers visited. For a while it was nice to focus on events outside of the hospital. I told very few people what was going on with me, but somehow people found out and tracked me down, it meant a lot to me. My pastor and friend (the same person) and his family came to visit almost everyday. My friends from baseball, Garrett, Jerry and John stopped by and my good friend Davie. A couple of teachers from Lutheran high John Rode and Jim Bretscher were a big surprise. My family of brothers and sisters in law came by often. The YMCA sent flowers and Perry, which was special since I last worked for them over six years ago! Doug, Janie and Janel from the city of Victorville stopped by and brought thoughtful gifts, and friends from church came by to pray with me. I never felt alone. I feel very blessed to be a part of this family I entered when I married Laura, my cherished friends, church members (friends as well) and co-workers (ditto).

If you ever walk by a hospital, look up and wave. Chances are someone is in there hoping to be out there where you are.

If I wasn't appreciating life enough, I do now.

There is so much more I could say about the hospital, but we'll come back to that later, for now, after 12 days (which is 11 days and 22 hours longer than I anticipated) I was going home!





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Where it began and How I got here...

Last summer (2010) we went on a vacation to Mammoth and Yosemite. We brought our mt. bikes and hit the trails in Mammoth. It seemed tougher than usual to make some of the climbs, which was a little frustrating because I had been running for the last couple of months and felt that I was in pretty good shape.

After a couple more days went visited Yosemite. For me it was the first time there as an adult, it's now one of my favorite places. We did some easy bike rides and some short hikes which was fine, but then we took off for Vernal falls and beyond. It was a paved trail, but I had to rest a couple of times and was in the back of our group, which for me was unusual. Laura and the kids went up the stairs to the top of the falls, but I just couldn't. I was tired and out of breath. So I stayed below.

Maybe I was tired from all the biking. I was disappointed in myself and planned on working out more and coming back in shape the next summer.

I next noticed that I would have one day of fever each month. I would race up to 103 then sweat it out and be fine the next day and off to work. This probably started in July, and went monthly through February. I didn't feel so well in October and stopped my three days a week running routine. I was preparing for the Disneyland 5k the next year. In addition, I had some pretty horrible leg cramps at night.  In December, it wasn't so easy to shake it off the fever and I needed a day afterward to rest. Also, during one of my weekly tennis matches, I cramped up so badly that I could not move for 20 minutes and had to forfeit the match. It was sometime around then that we called to schedule a check-up for me. But they couldn't see me until April!  The doctor did order a blood test in February. The results said that I was iron anemic. That would at least explain why I was always cold. I took another test a couple of weeks later and it was worse. So I started taking an iron supplement.

In late March, before my doctor's visit we went on a cruise.

It was great for relaxing, but I was taking naps every day. I even signed up for acupuncture because it was said to help chronic fatigue. I'm not sure if it did anything for me, but I did enjoy relaxing in the treatment room.

When I finally got to see the doctor, he thought that my symptoms were very unusual. He said that he was going to order a lot of tests, and not fun ones. He asked what my co-pay was, and I told him it was $15, and he said "Great! You qualify for a free (and  immediate) prostrate exam!" I was 47 years old and knew I had that to look forward to when I was 50, and was already freaking out about it, but instead of waiting until the next presidential administration, it was today - It had to be Obama's fault! After that I said something like I had a lot of special events coming up at work and I wanted to push the tests back a bit. He said no problem, that he could just wait until I pass out and come in by ambulance and get all the tests done while I was in the hospital. OK, now I knew it was serious.

He ordered a chest x-ray and upper GI scan in a couple of weeks. Laura thought the pace was too slow and had me see another doctor for a second opinion. I was enduring blood tests almost every week. I should probably mention that I don't do well with needles and almost pass out when I have to have blood tests. Keep this in mind. I took those tests and nothing was conclusive. He then scheduled a blood culture test. They do that to see if anything is living in my blood that shouldn't be.  I have a fast and hard rule with phlebotomists - I don't want to know what you are doing, I only want to know when you are done. The stupid guy who was going to draw from me for this test, didn't listen, or did understand, but he preceded to tell me that he had to draw four large bottles from me, about the size of Tabasco bottles and that he had to draw two from each arm, 10 minutes apart. OK, now I needed to lay down.

I visited the other doctor and he wanted to focus on the blood tests as well.

The third week in May I played in an annual baseball tournament in Palm Springs with a few friends from high school and a bunch of friends that I met when we lived in the Bay Area. I didn't feel great, but I didn't want to let down my friends and I really wanted to play. In the first inning I drew a walk and I had to run hard from first to third, and then scored. When I got to the dugout, I was out of breath and asked to sit out an inning or two. I got on base three times during the game and each time I sat out the next inning, and it's not like there are young guys around to take my place, we've got a few guys in their 60's and some with knee and or hip replacements, and I'm the one who has to sit out to rest!?

After our morning game I went to lunch with a dear friend from my YMCA days. During lunch I got a call from my doctor's nurse. She said that by blood culture results came back and that my doctor was out of town, but she showed them to another doctor and he thought that I should check into the ER today for and IV! There was a bacteria in my blood. Well, that got my attention. I thought about it for awhile and wondered if this was one of those "cover your butts" deals from the hospital, ER is for emergencies, it's right there in the title. Sure, I was a little fatigued, but it clearly wasn't an emergency. But I got zero support for my theory from my friend, Davie, and then I reluctantly called my wife, who also did not support my theory. She called her doctor friend who was familiar with my situation and she also thought going to the ER was a good idea. Was I the only sane person? I wanted to hear from our second opinion doctor, so I had to get the results and have them faxed to him. I had a banquet in Palm Spring with my baseball friends. My thought process was: I had to eat sometime; I could eat now with my friends and then go to the hospital on the outside chance that my second opinion doc thought I should check into the ER, or I could go to the ER now, and then eat by myself two or three hours later. I decided to drive from Redlands to Palm Springs. On the way I got the call from the doc. I should go to the ER. I told him I would, right after I ate.  Arrgh!