I fear constipation more than I fear pain. A metaphor for my life. – Barker Ajax
Remember the dining hall scene in the movie “Alien?” Mentioned this before. Where the monster burst out of the guy’s stomach? Seemed imminent as my supposed “benign” hernia issued more warnings.
I insisted on seeing a specialist who insisted on immediate surgery. As soon as the special equipment and the special assistant were available.
We’re talking about a ninety-minute procedure and an overnight stay.
A man goes to see the Rabbi.
“Rabbi, something terrible is happening and I have to talk to you about it.”
The Rabbi asks, “What’s wrong?”
“My wife is poisoning me,” the man replied.
The Rabbi, very surprised by this, asks, “How can that be?”
The man then pleads, “I’m telling you, I’m certain she’s poisoning me. What should I do?”
The Rabbi then offers, “Tell you what. Let me talk to her, I’ll see what I can find out and I’ll let you know.”
A week later, the Rabbi calls the man and says, “I spoke to her on the phone for three hours. You want my advice?
The man said, “Yes! Of course.”
Rabbi replies, “Take the poison.”
My wife is sitting there in the surgical waiting room. A digital reader board updates the family. Like arrivals and departures at the airport. One hour. Procedure in progress. Two hours. Procedure in progress. Three hours. Procedure in progress. Four hours. Procedure in progress. Five hours. Procedure in progress.
Finally, the surgeon shows up. He looks exhausted and says something about complications and the wrong side of expectations. “Let’s go in this room so we can talk privately.”
Sweet little honey badger tells him, “You might want to lead with ‘He’s in recovery.’”
This is what he told her had happened. Robotic assisted lysis of adhesion, small bowel resection with intracorporeal anastamosis; repair of recurrent ventral hernia with primary closure and biologic mesh reinforcement.
Actually, it’s worse than it sounds.
Twin brothers, one is mute. The mute brother becomes an accountant, the one who can talk becomes a lawyer. Lawyer always interprets for accountant.
They work for a mobster.
Mobster calls them into his office one day and says to lawyer “Tell your brother I know he’s skimming from me, more than a million bucks. If he doesn’t tell me right now where it is, I’m going to blow his brains out right here.” Pulls gun.
Lawyer signs to his brother “He knows you’re skimming, wants the million bucks or he’s going to kill you.”
Accountant signs back “It’s in a trunk in my lake cottage basement.”
Mobster says “So – what did he say?”
Lawyer says “He says you don’t have the guts.”
My guts got the full Waffle House treatment – sliced, diced, chopped and chunked. Smothered and covered.
My surgeon called me fragile and put me in a private room. Where I spent five days. Buddies sent jokes to cheer me up.
Spent twice as long in the hospital as Ryan Newman, who crashed his car at two hundred miles per hour on the final lap of the Daytona 500. My blood pressure spiked enough to draw a crowd. Numbers so high – stopped listening when I heard 198 – they brought in new machines, worrying about equipment failure. Theirs and mine.
Hospital beds are not made for sleeping. Four days without sleep. Waiting sleeplessly for the two a.m. blood draw, can’t help thinking seventy-three is where healthy people start to die. 73. I say where instead of when, because age is not a time but a location.
Late fall and the Indians on a remote reservation in North Dakota asked their new chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild?
Since he was a chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky, he couldn’t tell what the winter was going to be like. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect firewood to be prepared. But, being a practical leader, after several days, he got an idea.
He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, “Is the coming winter going to be cold?”
“It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold,” he responded.
So the chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more firewood in order to be prepared.
A week later, he called the National Weather Service again, “Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?”
“Yes,” the man at National Weather Service again replied, “it’s going to be a very cold winter.”
The chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find.
Two weeks later, the chief called the National Weather Service again. “Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?”
“Absolutely,” the man replied. “It’s looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters we’ve ever seen.”
“How can you be so sure?” the chief asked.
The weatherman replied, “The Indians are collecting a shitload of firewood.”
I’m in bed in the middle of the night, wide awake, listening to two nurses decide how much morphine to give me. One thinks twice as much as the other. I was not given a vote.
Six days without solid food. A little savvy and plenty naive, I had purposely gained five pounds. Not enough as it turns out. (Almost eighteen pounds lost in sixteen days.)
A woman goes into the Bass Pro Shop to buy a rod and reel for her grandson’s birthday.
She doesn’t know which one to get so she just grabs one and goes over to the counter.
A Bass Pro Shop associate is standing there wearing dark shades.She said, “Excuse me, sir. Can you tell me anything about this rod and reel?”
He said, “Ma’am, I’m completely blind, but if you’ll drop it on the counter,
I can tell you everything from the sound it makes.”
She doesn’t believe him but drops it on the counter anyway.
He said, “That’s a six-foot Shakespeare graphite rod with a Zebco 404 reel and a 10-LB. test line. It’s a good all-around combination and it’s on sale this week for only $20.00.”
She said, “It’s amazing you can tell all that just by the sound of it dropping on the counter. I’ll take it!”
As she opens her purse, her credit card drops on the floor.“Oh, that sounds like a Master Card,” he said, when it fell.
She bends down to pick it up and accidentally breaks wind. At first she is really embarrassed, but then realizes there is no way the blind clerk could tell it was she who tooted. Being blind, he wouldn’t know she was the only person around.
The man rings up the sale and said, “That’ll be $34.50, please.”The woman is totally confused by this and asked, “Didn’t you tell me the rod and reel was on sale for $20.00? How did you get $34.50?”
He replied, “Yes, Ma’am. The rod and reel is $20.00, but the Duck Call is $11.00 and the Bear Repellent is $3.50.”
Four o’clock on Sunday afternoon, two days after my release, the surgeon calls me at home to see how I am doing. DO NOT lift anything heavier than 10 lbs. (4.5 kg), he tells me. Which means I won’t be able to put my suitcase in the overhead bin on the flight to Eugene for the USA Olympic Trials.
Thinking I may have to travel Jack Reacher style from now on. Just a toothbrush and the clothes on my back. And a pint of beer at the Wild Duck weighs 1.04375 pounds.
About three weeks after my release, I received a card in the mail “On behalf of the 6th floor Ortho/Spine team, thank you for entrusting your care to Oak Hill Hospital.
“It is our pleasure to care for you in a compassionate, kind and competent manner during your time of need. We hope this note finds you in better health.”
Then the usual – call if you would like to share any comments about your visit.
Warmest regards.
So I called and I told them, ‘Except for the surgery and subsequent weeks-long recovery, the pain and the weight loss, I had a great time.’