MTBiker

Wednesday November 5th.

7am. Parade of doctors comes though. Some of them look familiar from yesterday. The surgeon came, told me the same story that he had told Angela. They are all curious about my lack of bladder activity, it’s not a very common side effect, but they aren’t very worried either. They think it will come back. Complained about the lack of ice and my sore throat, they said after the Upper GI test, I could have more.

I did mention my shoulder pain, and that I had been expecting it. One of the doctors told me that it is because the trapped air presses on the diaphragm, and there are nerve connections between the diaphragm and the shoulder areas. So it’s not that there is trapped air in the shoulders, but that’s where the pain signals end up for some reason.

Catheter was removed. I am fairly certain that the aforementioned balloon end was not deflated prior to the removal, and I calmly screamed this suggestion to the perky nurse happily pulling yard after yard of tubing from my nether regions. She smiled sweetly, and said “don’t fight it, we’re almost there”. We?

I sent a text message to my brothers in arms, explaining my lack of enthusiasm for the whole catheterization process.

They took me down for an Upper GI test. This will determine if fluid can pass through the band, to make sure it is in proper place and is not too restrictive. When done, I asked to see the pictures. They moved it over so I could see it, and I asked them to print it out for me. Must have been an unusual request, but they said we could request a print out from the Film department. Angela took care of that later, so I have those pictures for posterity.

Anesthesiologist came by, to ask what I thought of their involvement. I complained about their breathing tubes and how sore my throat was. She asked if the lozenges helped.

Lozenges?

LOZENGES ?!?!

I can have a damn lozenge? She said sure, you just need to ask the nurse.

“oh sure” the nurse says later, “let me get you one”. This is where my Catholic upbringing and my lack of available weaponry saved the life of my perky nurse.

Angela came in the morning. I was so glad to see her. She makes me feel better, and it’s good to have someone there to help keep track of all the things that are going on. I love her.

Little bit of jello today, and beef broth, after the Upper GI test results came back positive. I was eating slowly, and about halfway through the cup of broth, my stomach sort of cramped up, and I took that to mean I was done for now. It will take some careful attention to learn how the body deals with this. Eating caused some stomach pain, but it also generated shoulder pain. So I got some pain meds, and took a nap. They gave me pain meds via the IV, something that started with a D, like Dipotal or something. Gave me a nice immediate warm buzz, and made me sleepy.

Still trying to urinate on my own. I try to push pretty hard, but there’s no natural urges there, and I don’t want another round of the Tube from Hell. The nurse comes in to see my roommate, and takes his urinal from him. He had an impressive amount. I called out to him, “hey, how did you do that?” That got a good laugh. I told him next time to fill up mine for me.

Urologist wants me back on a catheter; I want to have nothing to do with a catheter, and politely decline. I promise to try harder. I give it another Herculean effort, and get 100ML out. Not enough to void, but enough to keep me below the threshold. They are now doing the bladder ultrasound all the time. It’s a cool tool. It beeps, and shows them a display of how many MLs is in there, and also helps them position it so they get the best reading. I now know exactly where my bladder is located.

More broth and jello for dinner. Can’t eat very much, but that’s ok. I am trying to get down cranberry juice, hoping for some bladder activity.

Angela brought the girls to see me. I was so glad to see everyone. Olivia especially was stressed with me being in the hospital, she’s my bud. It was great to chat with them all for a little while. Sarah was a big help, managing the house while Angela was with me, and skipping a class when necessary, and kept the house picked up for us. Emily helped Olivia with her homework.

Around 9pm I start to feel like I have to go! What a wonderful feeling. I hold off for a while, I want it to build to a fair sense of urgency, so I can have a good void. Finally I go into the bathroom, and it finally starts to go on its own, and I let loose like a thoroughbred race horse. I’d never been so happy so see a bottle of urine in all of my life! I went two more times like this by midnight, and finally got down to a level of 56ML left, which meant I was finally voided and wouldn’t need any more Death Tubes.

At 11pm I got an oral pain med instead of the IV. I was itchy all night, it might have been related to the pain meds, but nobody knows for sure, and they aren’t concerned. No rashes or trouble breathing, just told to take Benedryl if necessary.

Thursday November 6th.

Got a protein shake for breakfast. Tasted pretty good, and I drank it all. This may have been a mistake, but I didn’t get any signals to stop. We got all packed up, and discharged around 11am. I started to feel very full, very cramped up. When I got home I took a walk around the neighborhood trying to get loosened up. Lots of shoulder pain. Laid down on the recliner for a nap, more pain meds, another nap up in my bed, more pain meds, and finally by evening time I was feeling better, the huge bloated feeling had dissipated.

My oldest daughter Sarah invited me to go with her to see a movie after she got home from work that night. I was very appreciative that she thought of me, and I made sure I was in good shape to go out with her that night.

I slept well that night, and now I’m on the solid road to recovery.

Tuesday Nov 5th.

I couldn’t eat or drink anything on Tuesday; I had an oatmeal cookie at midnight last night, my last meal as a free man. Got to the hospital at noon, with surgery scheduled for 2pm, and made it to my pre-op room by 1:30. The cookie has long since faded away; I’m chewing my fingernails for nourishment. It’s been 14 hours since eating now. Can’t a person die from not eating 14 hours?

Nurse Nelson comes in with a smallish looking gown and some socks with little treads on them, in case I go off-road and need more traction. She said strip off everything, and put on the gown, socks, and the hair net, and I’ll be back. “Everything?” I said….”when you say everything …you don’t really mean everything…” Every stitch, she says with a twinkle in her eye.

Then a parade of surgeons, nurses, anesthesiologists, residents, doctors. One of these days I should learn the difference between interns, residents, doctors and such. Like I’m going to remember all of these people. Some I would see again, others not. It would be nice if they’d tell me then that they’d be involved in my recovery or if they were just in and out that day.

Off to surgery. I remember moving myself onto the operating room table, but I don’t remember anything past that, not even counting backwards from 100, though I’m told I did an excellent job with that.

5:15, starting to wake up in recovery, people are milling about, but it’s a large room with other patients, lots of different colored scrubs. The scrub color tells something important, like on the Starship Enterprise where they were red or blue or gold. Here they are light blue, turquoise, fuscia, and the really cool people get to wear white coats over them. I’m very groggy, trying to wake up, and I hear somebody say 5:15. I think of my poor wife sitting in a waiting room for 3 hours now, so I try to wake up better, that’s it, wake up now. Zzzzzzzzzzzz. Lost that battle, try again. While I was asleep, someone took a wire brush and scraped out the inside of my throat for me so it would be nice and dry and sore when I woke up. “ice chips”, were my first words post-op. They gave me a couple. Zzzzzzzzzzz. So groggy, like my dad was after his surgery, just not able to wake up. Not a good feeling. They moved me up to my room, and Angela got there within minutes. I was so glad to see her and her smile.

She had talked to the surgeon after surgery. He said when I was inflated, my heart slowed down, which is a frequent side effect, happens in about a third of the patients he said. They gave me some medicine which boosted the heart rate, and were able to continue. The band placement was fine, and he fixed a small hiatal hernia with a couple of stitches. I didn’t know I had it, but I guess it’s gone now.

8pm. No food, no thoughts of food, no interest in food, which is good because they aren’t giving me any. Throat is a raw open wound. They are giving me 1 ounce of ice chips every 8 hours. 1 ounce of ice chips is roughly half of a Dixie cup. You can imagine that doesn’t last very long. Lots of shoulder pain. I had heard about this on the forums, so I expected it. They weren’t kidding though, hurts like a … Ok, let’s take a walk. That should help. I made it all the way from my bed to the door of the room and back. Probably 15 steps total. Luckily I had my socks with the deep all-season tread. Didn’t do much for the shoulder pain, but made me almost pass out.

By 10pm they kicked Angela out, I was sorry to see her go, she’s such a comfort to me. Nurse came in and said I needed to urinate, since I hadn’t gone since the morning. I gave it a try…nothing. It was like they removed that whole system while they were in there poking around. No urges, no feeling full, not able to force anything out. By 11pm they are threatening me with bodily harm if I don’t produce some urine. I try some more, I still have no urinary tract. They tell me that the catheter is coming if I can’t go like a big boy all by myself. A walk! That’s what I need, so I grabbed a nurse and did a lap around the 7th floor. After returning, I tried again, pushing and straining. Thinking of Niagara Falls. Thinking of finding a tree while camping after downing 6 beers. Trying to push but not rip out my own stitches….. and got out 150 ML. Not good enough, Joe, not nearly good enough. They scanned me and said I had 893 ML, and when you get that full, the ability to go naturally declines fast, so they brought out the catheter.

The one they had for me was 3 feet long, with a special diamond-tipped drill-bit end which effectively bored a new hole through my prostate. “Don’t fight it” the nurse called cheerfully from the business end of the bed, “we’re almost there”, while I see her snaking yard after yard of tubing where tubing isn’t supposed to go. Finally, she tells me the balloon end has been inflated to keep it in place overnight. Oh joy.

Midnight, and so now its time to sleep. I have this burning feeling in my nether regions, a torso that feels achy and tender, a dry raspy throat, my roommate’s tv flickering through the curtain, nurses that need bp, temp, pulse – oxygen readings every 30 minutes, an oxygen line under my nose that is supposed to help, but is a constant irritant, and I’m supposed to sleep.

Around 4am the hospital staff completed a critical slam test of all doors and cupboards in the supply room located conveniently just outside my room.

More ice? More ice you say? You’ve had your 1 ounce of ice, you can have some more at 8am. Swallowing is no longer an option for me.