As I get older I tend to reflect on things a bit more every year. This year being the great big cluster-eff it's been is cause for much of that, hence this blog in the first place, and especially since my birthday is tomorrow I'm taking stock of things a bit more. I will be 28 tomorrow. Damn. I kind of still feel like I'm in that weird post-18 pre-25 mindset. Maybe it's because Kelley is four years my junior and that keeps me feeling younger but when I was a younger lad (late teens, early 20's) I thought "Damn, 28? Almost 30? That's old." Now look at me. There's been a lot of life lived here my friends, a lot of things that maybe would have been better not happening but hey, I've always subscribed to the notion that if you're happy with where you are right now then nothing was really bad because it all forms and informs who you are. Very much a cliché, I know.
Let's see, potentially life-threatening disease? Check. Surviving it. What else you got, universe?
The systematic dismantling of my friend network over the years either deliberately or otherwise? Double check. This is a big one that really bothers me and that will probably never change. Five years ago I had a great many folks I could count on and look to and my extended family was very extended indeed. It kind of started when I got out of the music game, I think. I just checked out from everyone and landed at the bottom of a bottle for awhile. There are only so many unreturned phone calls and messages that people can take before checking you off the list I suppose. Another point for my causing my own distress. Slowly I've begun to rebuild some of those relationships and it's occurred to me that if I reconnect with people, awesome. The ones that stay on the other side of that burned bridge will just have to hang out there for awhile longer, as much as I'd like to change that. I'm a dude that doesn't like to make waves with people, contrary to what my actions in a past life may have said.
Sometimes, even when I try I get burned. Example: when I went to jail I met this dude named Kurt and we became fast friends. Both musicians, both cooks, similar sense of humor, and enrolled in the same "don't drink and drive" anymore program. When we got back to the real world we met again unexpectedly on the streets of Dover and I soon went to work for him (he was chef at a local restaurant.) Now, I was a fairly prodigious alcoholic but THIS guy had an epic drinking problem. He'd make daily trips to the liquor store, passing my apartment on the way, to get "breakfast" at 9 or 10am and would basically be wasted all day. I'd have to wake him up to get to work some days (he lived adjacent to the restaurant) and cover for him when he took pulls off the bottles of cooking wine and such in the kitchen. Not a fun set of circumstances. Anyway, finally it got to be pretty bad and I took him to the hospital with a friend of his. This friend bailed on us and I was with him all day in the ER getting sobered up and stabilized. The dude drank two nips of vodka in the triage bathroom, that's how bad off he was. Eventually one of the nurses/social work people came in and he agreed to check into a rehab facility that day. He's been in now for about a year and I'm happy to say he's been sober since December 3rd and getting things back on track. Kelley and I ran into him at Barnes and Noble not too long ago and we chatted. He said "Oh shit, you got skinny! Working out or hospital?" We can smell our own. I told him about my pancreatitis and he just said "Yup, that'll do it."
I've been asked if I feel slighted or something because here's a guy who drank much, much more than me in a shorter amount of time and is healthier than I am. Nope. I drew the short straw and it's my lot to bear. I'm happy that my friend got himself clean and didn't have to have something terrible happen to him to get that way. I'm not one to question the "fairness" of the things that happen to us. Things just happen and we either go with it or we don't and I'm happy to say I'm not done fighting just yet. Too much to live for.
Yesterday into last night and moving to today has been kind of a trial. Not sure why but my flank drain has been giving me A LOT of pain. It took me hours to fall asleep last night because any way I laid hurt. A lot. I'm used to not sleeping at this point but not sleeping due to unyielding pain isn't something I deal with every day, at least not as often as I used to. The worst part of this pain business is that it tends to keep me inside and not out actually doing things. For awhile I couldn't really go out because I was going to the hospital so often. It really was a daily battle to see if I would have to hit the ER or not so you can imagine what that does to one's social life. Hopefully I won't have any more problems today or tomorrow. Who wants to be laid up on their birthday? I'm not even planning on doing anything but it would be nice to be able to do something if I so chose. Yup.
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Might take the day off from writing tomorrow due to the specified above birthday. Or I'll finally get around to writing about my surgery. We'll see.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Part Eleven: Blessed Burden
According to various news sources Amy Winehouse was found dead in London today. A twenty-seven year old life cut short. The police say the death is currently unexplained but given her history of addictions I don't think anyone really questions what killed her. Tragic? Yes. Unexpected? Hardly. This is the gamble you play when you have self-destructive tendencies. No one forced that woman to make the choices she did regarding her addictions and call me unsympathetic but there are more tragic losses of life to mourn and empathize with the survivors. One of my friends exemplified this in a Facebook posting today regarding the overwhelming outpouring of posts about Amy Winehouse and a severe lack of posting about the atrocities committed in Oslo, Norway yesterday. He said that it was appalling and unsettling that so many ostensibly care about the death of a young lady who (pending cause of death reports) more than likely knowingly brought this on herself and are either ignorant of or uncaring about 92+ dead innocents, many of them children, in Norway at the hands of a terrorist. (Remember kids, terrorists aren't just from a sandy part of the world.) I'm not one to pass judgement on people's priorities or level of empathy about world events but I kind of agree with him. What does this have to do with pancreatitis? Absolutely nothing. It was just the first thing I thought about when I say down at the keyboard this evening.
Know what else I'm thinking about? Purple Gatorade. It's refreshing and tasty. Also, tattoos.
I'm getting a tattoo of a pancreas at some point, hopefully sooner than later. I've never been more sure of a tattoo in my life. Since I first got tattooed (never, EVER refer to it as being "inked." I will smack you.) when I was 19 to my last tattoo this past fall I've felt strongly about everything on my body but this one takes the cake. Or the real estate on my skin required to make it happen. Immediately following my surgery, or at least when I regained consciousness and could string thoughts together coherently I thought it would be the best idea ever to get a pancreas tattoo. Not over the area where my pancreas is/was mind you, but a tattoo of a pancreas. I understand it may not be the easiest thing to picture because really, the pancreas kind of looks like a log of poo. Fleshy poo.
Kelley was the first one to say "Uh...I can't picture that looking good. It's pretty gross." But I could not be swayed. What better way to commemorate my trials by getting a symbol to remind me of what I went through and what I now deal with on a daily basis? Granted, I'm not just going to get a pancreas, it will be a bit more artfully done than that, but it will be an unmistakable testament to the organ that turned on me. I've already discussed the project with my friend and tattooist extraordinaire, Christina Sardinha-Wulfe. She's a doll. She's done most of my tattoos, currently doing a great piece on Kelley and my number one choice for body art. At this point in our relationship I would trust her implicitly to tattoo anything on me without telling me what it was first. This almost happened, actually, when we started on the project of my leg tattoo. I've got six monarch butterflies on my right leg and get comments about them constantly. Pretty manly, eh? A dude with a bunch of butterflies. How did this come to pass? Whilst hanging out at her then place of business years ago she told me that she had a dream about doing a sleeve of monarch butterflies on someone and upon waking up thought of me. Not sure if that part is true or not but when she told me this I said "Ok, I'm game" or something along those lines. Later we started work on the piece sight unseen and it's probably my favorite tattoo thus far and we're still not done with it. (On the subject of manly tattoos, I am the MANLIEST. Plenty of dudes have butterflies, hearts on their sleeve, and a little boy and little girl holding hands in a field with fireflies. Maybe I need a sweet tribal armband to right my tattoo badassery wheel. Or not.)
Getting back on track, our idea for a pancreas tattoo is getting pretty cool. She thought of doing the organ itself half dead/half vibrant for the dichotomy of what's going on inside my body and to go with my ideas of rebirth and vitality and such she gave the idea of adding Japanese maple leaves and cherry blossoms. The cherry blossoms are a symbol of impermanence and taking the most out of the moments while the Japanese maple is symbolic of going with the flow and bending rather than breaking against stress. The placement we're working with is pretty fortuitous because I have adjoining tattoos in the area already, one a pair of koi fish (a symbol of courage in Buddhism) and script that reads "We are blessed, we endure." My sleeve as a whole will be a testament to going forward. I'm stoked.
Not that I need a tattoo to commemorate the experience or remind myself of it, I'm reminded of it every day and not just with pain or discomfort. I've got scars on my abdomen and other places that will forever remind me of what I went through. I can't wait to scare kids who see me shirtless by saying my scar is from where the alien poppped out or something along those lines. I hope my scars never fade or go away. They're an important reminder and testament to the biggest change in my life and not just from a medical standpoint. Pancreatitis has made me a better person in the long run and saved me from myself. Huh. The thing that nearly killed me saved my life. Speaking of my little friend illness, he's been acting up a bit today. First with a bit of nausea and sufficient drain issues. I'm getting really tired of being in pain, let me tell you.
I know I've been a little lax with the storytelling portion of the blog these past few days but rest assured more entertaining anecdotes about hospital life are coming up soon. Chronologically I'm now onto the surgery itself and what happened afterwards which is pretty heady stuff and kind of important so I'm saving it for a rainy day. Maybe it will start pouring soon.
Know what else I'm thinking about? Purple Gatorade. It's refreshing and tasty. Also, tattoos.
I'm getting a tattoo of a pancreas at some point, hopefully sooner than later. I've never been more sure of a tattoo in my life. Since I first got tattooed (never, EVER refer to it as being "inked." I will smack you.) when I was 19 to my last tattoo this past fall I've felt strongly about everything on my body but this one takes the cake. Or the real estate on my skin required to make it happen. Immediately following my surgery, or at least when I regained consciousness and could string thoughts together coherently I thought it would be the best idea ever to get a pancreas tattoo. Not over the area where my pancreas is/was mind you, but a tattoo of a pancreas. I understand it may not be the easiest thing to picture because really, the pancreas kind of looks like a log of poo. Fleshy poo.
Kelley was the first one to say "Uh...I can't picture that looking good. It's pretty gross." But I could not be swayed. What better way to commemorate my trials by getting a symbol to remind me of what I went through and what I now deal with on a daily basis? Granted, I'm not just going to get a pancreas, it will be a bit more artfully done than that, but it will be an unmistakable testament to the organ that turned on me. I've already discussed the project with my friend and tattooist extraordinaire, Christina Sardinha-Wulfe. She's a doll. She's done most of my tattoos, currently doing a great piece on Kelley and my number one choice for body art. At this point in our relationship I would trust her implicitly to tattoo anything on me without telling me what it was first. This almost happened, actually, when we started on the project of my leg tattoo. I've got six monarch butterflies on my right leg and get comments about them constantly. Pretty manly, eh? A dude with a bunch of butterflies. How did this come to pass? Whilst hanging out at her then place of business years ago she told me that she had a dream about doing a sleeve of monarch butterflies on someone and upon waking up thought of me. Not sure if that part is true or not but when she told me this I said "Ok, I'm game" or something along those lines. Later we started work on the piece sight unseen and it's probably my favorite tattoo thus far and we're still not done with it. (On the subject of manly tattoos, I am the MANLIEST. Plenty of dudes have butterflies, hearts on their sleeve, and a little boy and little girl holding hands in a field with fireflies. Maybe I need a sweet tribal armband to right my tattoo badassery wheel. Or not.)
Getting back on track, our idea for a pancreas tattoo is getting pretty cool. She thought of doing the organ itself half dead/half vibrant for the dichotomy of what's going on inside my body and to go with my ideas of rebirth and vitality and such she gave the idea of adding Japanese maple leaves and cherry blossoms. The cherry blossoms are a symbol of impermanence and taking the most out of the moments while the Japanese maple is symbolic of going with the flow and bending rather than breaking against stress. The placement we're working with is pretty fortuitous because I have adjoining tattoos in the area already, one a pair of koi fish (a symbol of courage in Buddhism) and script that reads "We are blessed, we endure." My sleeve as a whole will be a testament to going forward. I'm stoked.
Not that I need a tattoo to commemorate the experience or remind myself of it, I'm reminded of it every day and not just with pain or discomfort. I've got scars on my abdomen and other places that will forever remind me of what I went through. I can't wait to scare kids who see me shirtless by saying my scar is from where the alien poppped out or something along those lines. I hope my scars never fade or go away. They're an important reminder and testament to the biggest change in my life and not just from a medical standpoint. Pancreatitis has made me a better person in the long run and saved me from myself. Huh. The thing that nearly killed me saved my life. Speaking of my little friend illness, he's been acting up a bit today. First with a bit of nausea and sufficient drain issues. I'm getting really tired of being in pain, let me tell you.
I know I've been a little lax with the storytelling portion of the blog these past few days but rest assured more entertaining anecdotes about hospital life are coming up soon. Chronologically I'm now onto the surgery itself and what happened afterwards which is pretty heady stuff and kind of important so I'm saving it for a rainy day. Maybe it will start pouring soon.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Part Ten: The Red White and Blues
To quote Mr. Ice Cube at his most ghetto superstar, today was a good day. I didn't even have to use my AK. False. I do not own an AK nor any other firearms though I think if there were a day where I were to use such a thing it would be more on the thrilling side, or at least noteworthy. To tell the truth, I'm fairly tired right now but I'm not sure if it's due to the very short sleep I had last night or the heat and humidity. Sure, it's gross here but I'd say I'm weathering it better than most people (pun fully intended.) Why complain if you can't do anything about it? Like most things in life someone else has things much worse off than you do so suck it up and soldier on.
Ok, sorry, ran a bit off track there. That and I'm full immersing myself in my latest audio acquisition, the fantastic EP Lost Ground from my favorite friend-driven hardcore band Defeater. If you care anything about majestically heavy and heartfelt music please buy their records or shirts or catch a show. Not only are they bloody brilliant but my old buddy Derek handles vocal duties and what can I say, the boy makes me proud. I'm glad one of us made it out alive.
Back to the story: despite the stifling heat, today went pretty well. Had a delicious scone for breakfast, watched some Dexter with Kelley, ventured out to have lunch with her parents in honor of my upcoming birthday, saw the new Harry Potter movie and picked up some very cheap t-shirts. This boy needs more clothes that fit now that I'm a bit smaller than I was six months ago. My pain level, on a scale of 1 to 10 was a solid 5 today. At times there were spikes but it was just your general consistent pain today. These drains are not very fun to live with, let me tell you. The fluid has a nice stank, my skin gets raw and torn up from having to constantly apply and remove tegaderm patches or tape, and they hurt, pinch, sting, whathaveyou. Especially the one in my back. Oy vey. This guy keeps me from sleeping properly and is a consistent pain in the back (literally! Ha!) Add to that the bonus points of kind of pulling out on its own so my JP doesn't drain properly and the fluid inside me is going nowhere. Great. Can't wait to visit the hospital again for that one. As used to being hospitalized as I am it doesn't make it any more fun. It's always the same: go to Wentworth-Douglas ER for intense pain, nausea, vomiting, infections, get treated and stabilized, get CT scanned and/or X-rayed, find out there's funny stuff going on inside, take an ambulance down to Lahey clinic to get stabilized some more and have Dr. Pomposelli ask why they transferred me or have new drains put in. As I've mentioned in an earlier entry I'm not terribly thrilled about CT scans (I'm going to have another scheduled for next week or so. Number 22 baby!) but that's what Jimmy wants me to do.
The pain is much more bearable these days than it has been and I'll tell you, I don't know how people get addicted to pain killers. Or rather, I know I would never get addicted to pain killers. At least PO/by mouth pain meds. IV meds, sure. There is definitely a certain loopy/rush/oooh feeling when you get IV pain meds, especially when they're something strong like dilaudid. In fact, one of the nurses this last time at Lahey told me about this whole series of YouTube videos about patients going to ERs or treatment facilities and requesting very specific doses of dilaudid and/or phenergan. For those who don't know, dilaudid is basically high test morphine and phenergan is a very potent nausea medication that has the added bonus of causing severe drowsiness. I have a script for it right now, actually. When you combine these two meds you have a very hearty cocktail that I'm often prescribed when I hit the ER when things get really bad. Sometimes they throw in a little ativan too. THAT will put me out. One time they gave me three rounds of that in the ER and sent me on my way. Let me tell you, I was fucked up. No other way to put it. Stumbled out of triage and everything. Mind you, I don't enjoy that feeling and try to avoid it as much as my pain will allow me to. Being in control of your faculties is a big plus in my book.
Back to my earlier point, I have the fortune of not really being affected by pain meds at home. I've had scripts for dilaudid, oxycodine, oxycodone, percocet, darvocet, etc. and not one has made me feel loopy or high. Thank GOD. That's all a recovering alcoholic needs, more ways to get messed up in the comfort of home. Maybe I just got lucky in the genetic lottery and I don't get hit by that stuff like other people do. I know folks that would step over their own mother for some oxycontin and I'm very happy I am not one of those people. Most of the time I try to deal with pain either naturally or with Tylenol or some other OTC pain reliever. Try to stay away from acetaminophen though, that stuff does a number on your liver.
Being as treated as I've been can be a big help sometimes, especially when I'm working with people who haven't seen me before or read my chart. Let me tell you, my chart is pretty hefty. I think the docs and nurses appreciate it that I'm pretty knowledgeable about what's going on in my body. It makes their job easier when a patient is an active participant in their treatment. It's true. If you're in the hospital or anything like that ask questions and listen. You'll be surprised how much help you can be because I'm sorry to burst some bubbles but most doctors aren't geniuses and they sometimes only work in best guess scenarios. Even basic simple stuff helps like knowing the all-too-common question "What would you rate your pain today on a scale of 0 to 10, 0 being no pain and 10 being the worst pain you've ever felt?" Louis C.K. has a bit about this saying why would anyone say anything but 10? Doc, I'm in pain. Give me meds. There is some truth in that but being able to pinpoint more accurately is better in the long run. Example, today I'm rocking about a 5. It's in the middle of the road in terms of my experiences with pain. Sometimes I'll tell them I'm at an 11 because I love Spinal Tap and those are times where it hurts so badly that I really think I could die. It happens less often now but for awhile that was the standard. I'd have to get 1-2 milligram doses of dilaudid every two hours just to stay functioning. Not cool, brah. There was one time at Wentworth-Douglas that was extraordinarily bad and I had pain meds every hour, PO percocet then IV dilaudid an hour later in two hour cycles. One. Two. One. Two. One. Two. Man, I don't want to relive that experience.
It's getting close to time for me to check out for the night so I think I'll do that. Kelley has the New Hampshire Tattoo Convention tomorrow with her friend Cammy and because I opted out of going I've got a whole lot of nothing to do tomorrow. Maybe laundry? Who knows. Hopefully my drains don't act up any more tomorrow. It's bad enough they're leaking and causing me much distress, I don't need any more lip from them. Thanks for your time, dear readers. Tomorrow!
Ok, sorry, ran a bit off track there. That and I'm full immersing myself in my latest audio acquisition, the fantastic EP Lost Ground from my favorite friend-driven hardcore band Defeater. If you care anything about majestically heavy and heartfelt music please buy their records or shirts or catch a show. Not only are they bloody brilliant but my old buddy Derek handles vocal duties and what can I say, the boy makes me proud. I'm glad one of us made it out alive.
Back to the story: despite the stifling heat, today went pretty well. Had a delicious scone for breakfast, watched some Dexter with Kelley, ventured out to have lunch with her parents in honor of my upcoming birthday, saw the new Harry Potter movie and picked up some very cheap t-shirts. This boy needs more clothes that fit now that I'm a bit smaller than I was six months ago. My pain level, on a scale of 1 to 10 was a solid 5 today. At times there were spikes but it was just your general consistent pain today. These drains are not very fun to live with, let me tell you. The fluid has a nice stank, my skin gets raw and torn up from having to constantly apply and remove tegaderm patches or tape, and they hurt, pinch, sting, whathaveyou. Especially the one in my back. Oy vey. This guy keeps me from sleeping properly and is a consistent pain in the back (literally! Ha!) Add to that the bonus points of kind of pulling out on its own so my JP doesn't drain properly and the fluid inside me is going nowhere. Great. Can't wait to visit the hospital again for that one. As used to being hospitalized as I am it doesn't make it any more fun. It's always the same: go to Wentworth-Douglas ER for intense pain, nausea, vomiting, infections, get treated and stabilized, get CT scanned and/or X-rayed, find out there's funny stuff going on inside, take an ambulance down to Lahey clinic to get stabilized some more and have Dr. Pomposelli ask why they transferred me or have new drains put in. As I've mentioned in an earlier entry I'm not terribly thrilled about CT scans (I'm going to have another scheduled for next week or so. Number 22 baby!) but that's what Jimmy wants me to do.
The pain is much more bearable these days than it has been and I'll tell you, I don't know how people get addicted to pain killers. Or rather, I know I would never get addicted to pain killers. At least PO/by mouth pain meds. IV meds, sure. There is definitely a certain loopy/rush/oooh feeling when you get IV pain meds, especially when they're something strong like dilaudid. In fact, one of the nurses this last time at Lahey told me about this whole series of YouTube videos about patients going to ERs or treatment facilities and requesting very specific doses of dilaudid and/or phenergan. For those who don't know, dilaudid is basically high test morphine and phenergan is a very potent nausea medication that has the added bonus of causing severe drowsiness. I have a script for it right now, actually. When you combine these two meds you have a very hearty cocktail that I'm often prescribed when I hit the ER when things get really bad. Sometimes they throw in a little ativan too. THAT will put me out. One time they gave me three rounds of that in the ER and sent me on my way. Let me tell you, I was fucked up. No other way to put it. Stumbled out of triage and everything. Mind you, I don't enjoy that feeling and try to avoid it as much as my pain will allow me to. Being in control of your faculties is a big plus in my book.
Back to my earlier point, I have the fortune of not really being affected by pain meds at home. I've had scripts for dilaudid, oxycodine, oxycodone, percocet, darvocet, etc. and not one has made me feel loopy or high. Thank GOD. That's all a recovering alcoholic needs, more ways to get messed up in the comfort of home. Maybe I just got lucky in the genetic lottery and I don't get hit by that stuff like other people do. I know folks that would step over their own mother for some oxycontin and I'm very happy I am not one of those people. Most of the time I try to deal with pain either naturally or with Tylenol or some other OTC pain reliever. Try to stay away from acetaminophen though, that stuff does a number on your liver.
Being as treated as I've been can be a big help sometimes, especially when I'm working with people who haven't seen me before or read my chart. Let me tell you, my chart is pretty hefty. I think the docs and nurses appreciate it that I'm pretty knowledgeable about what's going on in my body. It makes their job easier when a patient is an active participant in their treatment. It's true. If you're in the hospital or anything like that ask questions and listen. You'll be surprised how much help you can be because I'm sorry to burst some bubbles but most doctors aren't geniuses and they sometimes only work in best guess scenarios. Even basic simple stuff helps like knowing the all-too-common question "What would you rate your pain today on a scale of 0 to 10, 0 being no pain and 10 being the worst pain you've ever felt?" Louis C.K. has a bit about this saying why would anyone say anything but 10? Doc, I'm in pain. Give me meds. There is some truth in that but being able to pinpoint more accurately is better in the long run. Example, today I'm rocking about a 5. It's in the middle of the road in terms of my experiences with pain. Sometimes I'll tell them I'm at an 11 because I love Spinal Tap and those are times where it hurts so badly that I really think I could die. It happens less often now but for awhile that was the standard. I'd have to get 1-2 milligram doses of dilaudid every two hours just to stay functioning. Not cool, brah. There was one time at Wentworth-Douglas that was extraordinarily bad and I had pain meds every hour, PO percocet then IV dilaudid an hour later in two hour cycles. One. Two. One. Two. One. Two. Man, I don't want to relive that experience.
It's getting close to time for me to check out for the night so I think I'll do that. Kelley has the New Hampshire Tattoo Convention tomorrow with her friend Cammy and because I opted out of going I've got a whole lot of nothing to do tomorrow. Maybe laundry? Who knows. Hopefully my drains don't act up any more tomorrow. It's bad enough they're leaking and causing me much distress, I don't need any more lip from them. Thanks for your time, dear readers. Tomorrow!
 |
| Attempting to be clever with my plushy pancreas. Get it?! |
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Part Nine: Thnks Fr Th Mmrs
First off, thank you to everyone who has read and will read this little blog in the future. This isn't therapy for me and it isn't meant to make sense of what's happening in my life. I don't need to write any of this down for closure or sanity, I do it because enough people have asked about what went on when I got sick that I'm dealing with the tedium of telling the same story over and over in one fell swoop. Enough of my life this year has been interesting and or entertaining enough that maybe, just maybe it'll be a good diversion for people other than me and my family; those whom witnessed all of the awful things that went on especially during the times I can't remember. Y'know what, maybe I'm writing this for them. Yes. I'll go with that. This blog is for my family. And not just those people I share genetic ties to but those whom I love and gave me a reason to pull through and not let my disease get the best of me. My parents spent a lot of gas and money (Lahey takes in a considerable amount in parking fees you know) making the trek to Burlington day after day and it makes me feel bad. Seeing me laid out fighting to stay alive at times was not a pleasant experience for Kelley and I know it messed her up a bit to see me like that. Hell, after I posted that series of pictures the other day she came downstairs after I had taken a shower, wrapped her arms around me and balled her eyes out because she can't handle thinking about those days. I've only let myself really get upset about my situation once since I left the hospital. One of the two of us has to soldier on through all of this and if I let things get to me I won't be able to function. Her lovely parents and sister got to see me when I was pretty bad off and I'm pretty sure they've taken a shine to me so that couldn't have been fun for them to watch. My brother Seamus came to visit me but I don't remember. Sorry dude. My brothers, my gang came to see me. Twice. This is after being disconnected from them for a good long while. Still, bonds run deep and how many people can say they've had the same friends for their whole lives? Then there was Angel, who made Christmas that much more merry. That dude would do anything I'd ask of him and that's not lost on me. These people saw me at my worst and I apologize to all of them for putting them through uncomfortable situations.
Also, thanks to everyone who sent cards and well-wishes. It means a lot to have people in your corner. Extra special thanks to everyone who has helped out financially, I wouldn't be able to live without help and it's much appreciated. Family, friends, well-wishers and strangers have donated to keep me afloat and it means the world to me and to Kelley. I'm eternally grateful and indebted to all of you.
Alright, enough of this love-in. Let's get to some meat and potatoes storytelling, eh?!
C'mon, I thought it was funny.
I'm feeling a bit scatterbrained tonight so I'll leave the history and stories for the next post. I'll just leave this as a thankful post and take it easy for now. So again, thank you. Readers, well-wishers, family, friends, long-losts and never-lefts. There's more to come and hopefully people will be entertained, moved, and maybe even inspired by what goes on here. I promise some juicy bits coming up.
Also, thanks to everyone who sent cards and well-wishes. It means a lot to have people in your corner. Extra special thanks to everyone who has helped out financially, I wouldn't be able to live without help and it's much appreciated. Family, friends, well-wishers and strangers have donated to keep me afloat and it means the world to me and to Kelley. I'm eternally grateful and indebted to all of you.
Alright, enough of this love-in. Let's get to some meat and potatoes storytelling, eh?!
C'mon, I thought it was funny.
I'm feeling a bit scatterbrained tonight so I'll leave the history and stories for the next post. I'll just leave this as a thankful post and take it easy for now. So again, thank you. Readers, well-wishers, family, friends, long-losts and never-lefts. There's more to come and hopefully people will be entertained, moved, and maybe even inspired by what goes on here. I promise some juicy bits coming up.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Part Eight: What Dreams May Come vol. 1
I'm riding the wave of another sleepless night while my dearly beloved snoozes rather soundly a few feet from me. It's a bit discouraging when I do everything in my power to go to sleep and I can't make it work, or if I do sleep it's fairly restless and for not very long. At this point unfortunately I'm used to a lack of sleep but that doesn't make it any more comfortable to deal with. What to do with this extra time on my hands? I dunno dude, why not write about some of the crazy stuff you dreamed about while in your little coma? Spoon.
I forget the name of the specific drug(s) I was given but around the time of my surgery I was given a cocktail to make me sleep through the whole experience. I went into surgery on January 7th, I think, and wasn't conscious again until the week of the 21st-28th. It was a little jarring to wake up and not know what day it was or what happened. The nurses would routinely ask me what day it was and where I was and when I woke up I had no idea. Freaky stuff. I've told some of my nurses that at some point I want to undergo hypnosis to remember not only the things going on in my head at this time but to see if I can remember anything going on around me as well. Fun fact: people in comas, medically-induced or otherwise can and do hear what goes on around them. They may never recall any of it but they do register what's going on.
There are A LOT of things that I remember dreaming/I believed happened and not all of it was very pleasant. Here I attempt to recall a few things, hence the vol. 1 in the title.
My mother told me that I kept talking about "the old sailor" I was talking to that would leave through the walls. She didn't tell me anything specific I said about this sailor or anything we talked about but we've come to collectively believe I was talking to my Grandfather who passed away a few years ago and who was a Navy man. It's entirely possible, though I don't tend to put stock into ghost encounters or anything like that.
I believed I was in a Japanese hospital of the future and was being cognitively and mentally tested. Why Japanese? Who knows. Through these tests I believed my captors (yes, I was being held against my will) had malicious intent and were scheming to take over the world or something to that effect. At this realization I somehow managed to rig explosives in the hospital, which was apparently the most important building in Japan, and destroy it. I remember seeing the place fall apart around me and even though I knew it almost certainly meant my own doom I was happy for thwarting their plan. Unfortunately for me, I slept and re-awoke to find that the Japanese manipulated space-time so that I never actually blew up anything and I was back to square one in my hospital bed. None of my nurses were Japanese in this dream, oddly enough.
So sure was I that this actually happened that I convinced the real life Lahey nurses that I had in fact been to Japan and I very seriously asked my parents not to think badly on me because I blew up a building in Japan. That's right, I was out of my coma enough to grab hold of my parents and tearfully tell them I did a bad thing by blowing up this building and for them not to be mad at me. They assured me that this didn't actually happen and back to sleep I went. Sometimes I can recall telling them this but again, it was all so jumbled I don't know where dreams and reality went astray.
Piggy-backing on this gem of a drug fantasy was one of the most uncomfortable things I've ever felt and probably will ever feel. Why? I know that this was one of the times that I felt myself dying. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I looked into the void and it scared the shit out of me. There is no way to possibly describe exactly how it felt but I know it was real.
(disclaimer: This was a very FUBAR dream so my sentence structure is probably going to be terrible.)
Not sure how this particular dreamscape began but I was in Burlington, but not the actual Burlington. This Burlington was centered around a massive hill and a dense forest. There were leagues of serpentine streets and I was trying to navigate them to make it back to the hospital. I don't know how I knew it but I was being followed by people meaning to do me harm. I happened across a family of hillbilly cannibals that were tied to the people that tried to extort money from me on the ambulance ride down (as I wrote in an earlier post.) They produced these kind of CKY/ICP videos of themselves butchering and maiming and eating other people. They told me I had to join them in these pursuits and I said there was no way I could do that and tried to escape. I managed to run and make it to a stranger's house close by who hated these monsters. From there we plotted to attack them and end their reign of terror in the community. We devised a plan to bomb their house and kill their elders, thereby scattering the younger of the family. We managed to attack them under cover of darkness, set fire to their house and kill some of the family but we couldn't completely overtake them. We fled into these fields adjacent to their house and waited for the police to come and finish the job for us but that didn't happen either. When we finally found the police we were arrested for disturbing the peace and trying to destroy this family. I pleaded with the police that they were evil, butchering and eating people but the police just said it was their right and we had no business trying to destroy them. There's a lot more to this dream but I can't recall it right now. I don't remember how it ended exactly but I couldn't defeat the cannibal hillbillies.
I was going to write about one of my experiences of knowing I was going to die but to actually put it down right now it would probably take me an hour to write and take twice as long to read. So I'll leave the full story for another post but I'll give up a little bit now, uncomfortable as it is.
One of my very lengthy dreams involved living in a "virtual" computer world where you had to know the most minute detail about computer programming to exist. Example: You couldn't just walk around and interact with things, you had to know the specifics of physics and moving bodies in space to even stand up and walk. There became camps of people of varying levels of skill at programming this reality trying to build reality to what they believed it should be. For some reason I was terrible at programming and could barely do the simplest task. Kelley and her sister Liza were in this reality and they were both geniuses. Liza and her boyfriend Mike were part of a group that were trying to build reality simply and directly and more like the physical world was. They would learn to do simple things like move an object backwards and forwards in space in order to make it possible for there to be gravity and planets and stars. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense, I know. Anyway, to get to the meat of it, their camp was at ideological war with the remainder of the world who rushed into programming reality and turned everything into a big game with no thought to the mechanics of physics or how to sustain their reality. Because of this their reality was being torn apart at the seams. That's when I knew I saw death. I was standing at the edge of a cliff and just saw blackness. Endless, cold blackness. I tried to turn away but was almost being sucked in or drawn to the dark and it scared me more than I've ever felt before because I couldn't see anything in the darkness. Eventually I did fall into the void and I could feel myself being covered by this cold emptiness but I kept thinking of physics things I learned from the other programmers and started to see miniscule points of light forming shapes and acting in logical ways in terms of gravity, attraction, flow, etc. From there I realized I could use these principles to make it back to the cliff and I did. From there I manifested a way back to the Kelley/Liza/Mike's group and told them I figured out how gravity worked in empty space so we could all be saved. There's a lot more to this but I'll stop there for now.
It's a little weird writing about it and I wish I could convey how achingly empty it felt to experience that. I knew that I was going to die. This was happening in my head while I was either being operated on or post recovery. According to the doctors I nearly died on the operating table and due to complications from my surgery almost died in SICU. I 100% believe this particular dream was my brain knowing it was going to die and fighting against it. It gives me the shakes just thinking about it. More on that later.
I'm done for the night. Maybe more later kiddos.
I forget the name of the specific drug(s) I was given but around the time of my surgery I was given a cocktail to make me sleep through the whole experience. I went into surgery on January 7th, I think, and wasn't conscious again until the week of the 21st-28th. It was a little jarring to wake up and not know what day it was or what happened. The nurses would routinely ask me what day it was and where I was and when I woke up I had no idea. Freaky stuff. I've told some of my nurses that at some point I want to undergo hypnosis to remember not only the things going on in my head at this time but to see if I can remember anything going on around me as well. Fun fact: people in comas, medically-induced or otherwise can and do hear what goes on around them. They may never recall any of it but they do register what's going on.
There are A LOT of things that I remember dreaming/I believed happened and not all of it was very pleasant. Here I attempt to recall a few things, hence the vol. 1 in the title.
My mother told me that I kept talking about "the old sailor" I was talking to that would leave through the walls. She didn't tell me anything specific I said about this sailor or anything we talked about but we've come to collectively believe I was talking to my Grandfather who passed away a few years ago and who was a Navy man. It's entirely possible, though I don't tend to put stock into ghost encounters or anything like that.
I believed I was in a Japanese hospital of the future and was being cognitively and mentally tested. Why Japanese? Who knows. Through these tests I believed my captors (yes, I was being held against my will) had malicious intent and were scheming to take over the world or something to that effect. At this realization I somehow managed to rig explosives in the hospital, which was apparently the most important building in Japan, and destroy it. I remember seeing the place fall apart around me and even though I knew it almost certainly meant my own doom I was happy for thwarting their plan. Unfortunately for me, I slept and re-awoke to find that the Japanese manipulated space-time so that I never actually blew up anything and I was back to square one in my hospital bed. None of my nurses were Japanese in this dream, oddly enough.
So sure was I that this actually happened that I convinced the real life Lahey nurses that I had in fact been to Japan and I very seriously asked my parents not to think badly on me because I blew up a building in Japan. That's right, I was out of my coma enough to grab hold of my parents and tearfully tell them I did a bad thing by blowing up this building and for them not to be mad at me. They assured me that this didn't actually happen and back to sleep I went. Sometimes I can recall telling them this but again, it was all so jumbled I don't know where dreams and reality went astray.
Piggy-backing on this gem of a drug fantasy was one of the most uncomfortable things I've ever felt and probably will ever feel. Why? I know that this was one of the times that I felt myself dying. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I looked into the void and it scared the shit out of me. There is no way to possibly describe exactly how it felt but I know it was real.
(disclaimer: This was a very FUBAR dream so my sentence structure is probably going to be terrible.)
Not sure how this particular dreamscape began but I was in Burlington, but not the actual Burlington. This Burlington was centered around a massive hill and a dense forest. There were leagues of serpentine streets and I was trying to navigate them to make it back to the hospital. I don't know how I knew it but I was being followed by people meaning to do me harm. I happened across a family of hillbilly cannibals that were tied to the people that tried to extort money from me on the ambulance ride down (as I wrote in an earlier post.) They produced these kind of CKY/ICP videos of themselves butchering and maiming and eating other people. They told me I had to join them in these pursuits and I said there was no way I could do that and tried to escape. I managed to run and make it to a stranger's house close by who hated these monsters. From there we plotted to attack them and end their reign of terror in the community. We devised a plan to bomb their house and kill their elders, thereby scattering the younger of the family. We managed to attack them under cover of darkness, set fire to their house and kill some of the family but we couldn't completely overtake them. We fled into these fields adjacent to their house and waited for the police to come and finish the job for us but that didn't happen either. When we finally found the police we were arrested for disturbing the peace and trying to destroy this family. I pleaded with the police that they were evil, butchering and eating people but the police just said it was their right and we had no business trying to destroy them. There's a lot more to this dream but I can't recall it right now. I don't remember how it ended exactly but I couldn't defeat the cannibal hillbillies.
I was going to write about one of my experiences of knowing I was going to die but to actually put it down right now it would probably take me an hour to write and take twice as long to read. So I'll leave the full story for another post but I'll give up a little bit now, uncomfortable as it is.
One of my very lengthy dreams involved living in a "virtual" computer world where you had to know the most minute detail about computer programming to exist. Example: You couldn't just walk around and interact with things, you had to know the specifics of physics and moving bodies in space to even stand up and walk. There became camps of people of varying levels of skill at programming this reality trying to build reality to what they believed it should be. For some reason I was terrible at programming and could barely do the simplest task. Kelley and her sister Liza were in this reality and they were both geniuses. Liza and her boyfriend Mike were part of a group that were trying to build reality simply and directly and more like the physical world was. They would learn to do simple things like move an object backwards and forwards in space in order to make it possible for there to be gravity and planets and stars. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense, I know. Anyway, to get to the meat of it, their camp was at ideological war with the remainder of the world who rushed into programming reality and turned everything into a big game with no thought to the mechanics of physics or how to sustain their reality. Because of this their reality was being torn apart at the seams. That's when I knew I saw death. I was standing at the edge of a cliff and just saw blackness. Endless, cold blackness. I tried to turn away but was almost being sucked in or drawn to the dark and it scared me more than I've ever felt before because I couldn't see anything in the darkness. Eventually I did fall into the void and I could feel myself being covered by this cold emptiness but I kept thinking of physics things I learned from the other programmers and started to see miniscule points of light forming shapes and acting in logical ways in terms of gravity, attraction, flow, etc. From there I realized I could use these principles to make it back to the cliff and I did. From there I manifested a way back to the Kelley/Liza/Mike's group and told them I figured out how gravity worked in empty space so we could all be saved. There's a lot more to this but I'll stop there for now.
It's a little weird writing about it and I wish I could convey how achingly empty it felt to experience that. I knew that I was going to die. This was happening in my head while I was either being operated on or post recovery. According to the doctors I nearly died on the operating table and due to complications from my surgery almost died in SICU. I 100% believe this particular dream was my brain knowing it was going to die and fighting against it. It gives me the shakes just thinking about it. More on that later.
I'm done for the night. Maybe more later kiddos.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Part Seven: A Thousand Words
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| Asleep at Wentworth-Douglas |
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| Kelley visiting me, I'm totally not attractive. |
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| Tuck me in. I HATED that breathing tube. |
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| Kelley helping me rest. |
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| Merry hospital Christmas. |
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| Vitals at Lahey? |
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| Post-op SICU. I think. |
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| Some of the nasty stuff they sucked out of me in SICU. |
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| Part man, part machine. Couldn't even breathe on my own. |
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| They needed to shave me. Jerks. Very uncomfortable conditions. |
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| More SICU vitals. |
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| Sing me to sleep. |
These are some pictures that my father took during my initial hospital stay(s). I don't remember any of these pictures being taken, especially those from Lahey SICU. I remember a bit of my Wentworth-Douglas stay but almost none of my Lahey stay; or at least I'm not sure what memories actually happened or what I dreamt. It makes me sad that I don't remember when Kelley or my parents were there but as the doctors say it's probably best that I don't remember, especially around my surgery. For awhile I thought I was going to be in the hospital for a very, very long time. I was completely helpless and dependent on these machines to supply me with air, food, and getting rid of the junk inside of me. That picture of the canisters with the fluid doesn't really capture how nasty it was to have tubes in my abdomen, back, neck, and sides sucking out this awful gunk out of me. If memory serves it was this dark, necrotic, almost sandy consistency but thankfully didn't really smell. I was lucky compared to some folks with pancreatitis because my fluid was largely trapped in abscesses in my body; some patients have the fluid creep up into their lungs, around their heart, putting pressure on all of their organs. I did end up with respiratory failure and I believe pneumonia that almost killed me.
That's something I take from these pictures and my experiences in general: I almost died. Not just once, but a few times. If the folks at Lahey and Wentworth-Douglas dropped the ball I wouldn't be here. It's not a pleasant thing to think about but it's something that crosses my mind every day. My choices nearly killed me. That's a lot of weight to carry and isn't lost on me at all. 99% of the time I laugh it off and make light of the whole experience but there are those rare times where the reality sets in and I can't handle it. That's one of the many reasons why I feel blessed and fortunate to have had and still have Kelley in my life. She keeps me sane and I don't think I would have made it without her. Apparently when I was under I kept talking about her to my nurses so when she'd visit she'd get told that I spoke very highly of her. Wish I remembered that stuff.
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And one good thing I've gleaned from this experience was the rapid weight loss. I was HUGE back then. Damn. Because of the experience of undergoing surgery, being NPO (that's "nothing by mouth" i.e. no food or water) for weeks and weeks on end and stress I lost about 70 pounds in three months. Craziness.
Part Six: For Me This Is Heaven
Yesterday marked my umpteenth visit to Lahey Clinic for followups with Dr. Pomposelli in Transplant and Dr. Piessens (pronounced Pee-sehns, not Pie-sense) in Infectious Disease. Why do I have to see a specialist in infectious disease you ask? One of the fun things about pancreatitis, not the most fun, mind you, is that my pancreas keeps leeching out this necrotic fluid into my abdominal cavity as well as other premium destinations. Sometimes, not every time, this fluid is infected with all sorts of lovely bacteria and things that make me very, very sick. You can tell it's infected because when I empty my JP drains there is quite the strong and awful odor that wafts out. The best I can describe the smell as would be rotting bandages and vinegar. Not the yummiest cocktail I can think of. I think Kelley would be in agreement with me since she has to help me change my dressings at least once a day and sometimes the smell is enough to make one gag and have to leave the room after the futility of trying to hold one's breath. Disgusting? Sure. I'm just telling it like it is, kiddos.
Anyhway, I met with Dr. Piessens first and she is a very pleasant woman who doesn't treat me like an idiot. I've got a thing against health care providers that don't talk to me like I know what I'm talking about. I've lived with this disease, they haven't so it behooves me to stay abreast of what's going on in my own body. She was asking about how I was dealing with the antibiotics I'm on to deal with my infected fluid, Cipro and Flagyl, and I told her things were pretty ok, feeling better than I was when I was last admitted. Flagyl can cause fevers, nausea, vomiting, and general crappiness. Can't say I've had much of that, doc. The only side effect I've been concerned with is the two little toes on my left foot do this weird not quite numb, not quite tingly thing sometimes. She assured me it's not the meds, if it was both of my feet would feel that way, not just wee bits. However, she did say it's more than likely nerve damage caused by my lengthy initial hospital stay but the nerves should reconnect themselves in time so it will eventually go away. My first thought was I was getting blood clots again. Huzzah! Don't have to worry about that for awhile.
Fun fact: If you've had blood clots at all, ever, you are 80%+ more likely to get them again than the average person. So kids, if you've had a blood clot don't stay in bed for longer than 72 hours at a time or else you may be in trouble.
After my brief meeting with Dr. Piessens I went down a few floors (Lahey clinic is a big ass hospital) to Transplant to see my old pal Dr. Pomposelli. It's still odd to me that I have to see the Transplant department when they didn't transplant anything, just cut away a large section of my pancreas. Actually, what they told my parents was they "power washed" my insides. A fitting description because when I was pre-surgery and in surgery I was FULL of fluid. Tubes everywhere in and out of me. There's a picture or two floating around that I'll post. It should make me uncomfortable to see how bad off I was but it's pretty interesting. Back to the story at hand: Dr. Pomposelli and I sat down for a chat, as we do every two or three weeks when I have drains in and I say
"Jimmy" as I tend to call him, not to his face.
"Jimmy," I say, "what's going down, brotherman?"
"Well Paddy, you're still draining, right?"
"Yup, 40-50 CCs or so in the back one and 20-30 in the front twice a day or so."
"Hehe, well I guess we keep them in for awhile longer then. Do you mind getting a CT scan next time?"
"Ugh. Fuck. Do I have to?"
"Well it's the best way to see what's going on in there so we can figure out what to do with these drains."
"Shit sandwich. Alright, if you think it's the best course. Can I do it in NH and just bring the disk?"
"Oh yeah, just don't trust those monkeys to send me the disk. Grab it yourself."
"Mmk, see you you in three weeks."
No lie, this is basically how we talk. Jimmy is a very frank doctor and doesn't bullshit or gloss over anything with me. It's very refreshing. Oh, and my apprehension to having a CT scan isn't unwarranted; as of this writing, since December 15th I have undergone 21 CT scans. If you have never had one or don't know much about them, CT scans are pretty innocuous things unless you consider one pass of a CT machine is the radiological equivalent of 1,000 chest X-rays. Every time I have a scan I get at least two or three passes. Sometimes over my genitals. That's an average of 62 passes or 62,000 X-rays in seven months. My body oozes barium now. That's another thing, that contrast material they make you drink/take through IV never leaves your body. I'm a walking Radioactive Man. Or Fallout Boy. Not Fall Out Boy. Makes me feel bad for those poor kids with cancer they get this stuff every day. Damn. Now, I'm not an alarmist and I'm a pretty trusting person when it comes to my doctors and nurses but it's a little disconcerting when the things they do to help me now could riddle me with cancer down the road. Let's just hope I can jump the shark again.
As a final note so I can get off here and Kelley can play her Zombie Lane game, Jimmy more or less told me that because my pancreas will eventually seal up and my liver and kidneys are surprisingly in great shape I could probably drink again if I wanted to. I really, really, wish he didn't tell me that. Not that it means I could go on benders and get wasted but if I were to have A drink socially it would be ok for my body. Ehhhh that doesn't sit well with me. I like thinking that if I drink again I will die because that's what they told my parents then me after I regained consciousness post-surgery (medically-induced comas RULE except they don't.) The finality of that ultimatum keeps me sane and sober and I very much love living sober. I'll never go back to my old life again, even for one drink because that's a person I let die on the operating table and the person that got up and is typing this now is WAY better. The only good telling me that it's ok to have a drink does is says I can take NyQuil or have food with alcohol in it and not die in the process. Close the door, thank you very much, that's all I want to glean from this. I've stared death in the face. Literally. You know what I learned? What I have now is far better than the alternative. Sorry Jimmy, no hooch for me but I will enjoy some delicious green tea and cranberry juice now that I'm off of Coumadin.
Anyhway, I met with Dr. Piessens first and she is a very pleasant woman who doesn't treat me like an idiot. I've got a thing against health care providers that don't talk to me like I know what I'm talking about. I've lived with this disease, they haven't so it behooves me to stay abreast of what's going on in my own body. She was asking about how I was dealing with the antibiotics I'm on to deal with my infected fluid, Cipro and Flagyl, and I told her things were pretty ok, feeling better than I was when I was last admitted. Flagyl can cause fevers, nausea, vomiting, and general crappiness. Can't say I've had much of that, doc. The only side effect I've been concerned with is the two little toes on my left foot do this weird not quite numb, not quite tingly thing sometimes. She assured me it's not the meds, if it was both of my feet would feel that way, not just wee bits. However, she did say it's more than likely nerve damage caused by my lengthy initial hospital stay but the nerves should reconnect themselves in time so it will eventually go away. My first thought was I was getting blood clots again. Huzzah! Don't have to worry about that for awhile.
Fun fact: If you've had blood clots at all, ever, you are 80%+ more likely to get them again than the average person. So kids, if you've had a blood clot don't stay in bed for longer than 72 hours at a time or else you may be in trouble.
After my brief meeting with Dr. Piessens I went down a few floors (Lahey clinic is a big ass hospital) to Transplant to see my old pal Dr. Pomposelli. It's still odd to me that I have to see the Transplant department when they didn't transplant anything, just cut away a large section of my pancreas. Actually, what they told my parents was they "power washed" my insides. A fitting description because when I was pre-surgery and in surgery I was FULL of fluid. Tubes everywhere in and out of me. There's a picture or two floating around that I'll post. It should make me uncomfortable to see how bad off I was but it's pretty interesting. Back to the story at hand: Dr. Pomposelli and I sat down for a chat, as we do every two or three weeks when I have drains in and I say
"Jimmy" as I tend to call him, not to his face.
"Jimmy," I say, "what's going down, brotherman?"
"Well Paddy, you're still draining, right?"
"Yup, 40-50 CCs or so in the back one and 20-30 in the front twice a day or so."
"Hehe, well I guess we keep them in for awhile longer then. Do you mind getting a CT scan next time?"
"Ugh. Fuck. Do I have to?"
"Well it's the best way to see what's going on in there so we can figure out what to do with these drains."
"Shit sandwich. Alright, if you think it's the best course. Can I do it in NH and just bring the disk?"
"Oh yeah, just don't trust those monkeys to send me the disk. Grab it yourself."
"Mmk, see you you in three weeks."
No lie, this is basically how we talk. Jimmy is a very frank doctor and doesn't bullshit or gloss over anything with me. It's very refreshing. Oh, and my apprehension to having a CT scan isn't unwarranted; as of this writing, since December 15th I have undergone 21 CT scans. If you have never had one or don't know much about them, CT scans are pretty innocuous things unless you consider one pass of a CT machine is the radiological equivalent of 1,000 chest X-rays. Every time I have a scan I get at least two or three passes. Sometimes over my genitals. That's an average of 62 passes or 62,000 X-rays in seven months. My body oozes barium now. That's another thing, that contrast material they make you drink/take through IV never leaves your body. I'm a walking Radioactive Man. Or Fallout Boy. Not Fall Out Boy. Makes me feel bad for those poor kids with cancer they get this stuff every day. Damn. Now, I'm not an alarmist and I'm a pretty trusting person when it comes to my doctors and nurses but it's a little disconcerting when the things they do to help me now could riddle me with cancer down the road. Let's just hope I can jump the shark again.
As a final note so I can get off here and Kelley can play her Zombie Lane game, Jimmy more or less told me that because my pancreas will eventually seal up and my liver and kidneys are surprisingly in great shape I could probably drink again if I wanted to. I really, really, wish he didn't tell me that. Not that it means I could go on benders and get wasted but if I were to have A drink socially it would be ok for my body. Ehhhh that doesn't sit well with me. I like thinking that if I drink again I will die because that's what they told my parents then me after I regained consciousness post-surgery (medically-induced comas RULE except they don't.) The finality of that ultimatum keeps me sane and sober and I very much love living sober. I'll never go back to my old life again, even for one drink because that's a person I let die on the operating table and the person that got up and is typing this now is WAY better. The only good telling me that it's ok to have a drink does is says I can take NyQuil or have food with alcohol in it and not die in the process. Close the door, thank you very much, that's all I want to glean from this. I've stared death in the face. Literally. You know what I learned? What I have now is far better than the alternative. Sorry Jimmy, no hooch for me but I will enjoy some delicious green tea and cranberry juice now that I'm off of Coumadin.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Part Five: Building A Better Robot.
As most people that know me are aware I've spent the whole of my adult life embroiled in the art, craft, and job of creating music. I was a proud member of some fantastic bands, all of which I left prematurely because of my own foolishness and shortsightedness. For some reason I was never happy where I was no matter how fun or successful it was; always looking ahead for something more, a bit impatiently. There was only one instance where I was asked to leave and it was because of my foolish choices and how I chose to carry myself. Possibly one of the biggest mistakes of my life and it directly led to some of my problems that landed me in the hospital in the first place. I'll leave that story for another time. Back to the business of creation and art, all the while I was playing in bands with other folks I always wrote songs for myself and did a number of solo performances especially at The Sad Cafe in Plaistow, NH. Linda, the owner, was and probably still is a big fan of what I was up to and maybe I'll play there again at some point. I forget the initial genesis of the name but I started calling my solo ventures Building A Better Robot because I've got that pretentious art-ass streak that stops me from just performing under my own moniker. Really though, I like the idea of writing songs and if friends want to help out from time to time, awesome. Kind of a band that isn't a band. The name Building A Better Robot has taken on new meaning especially post-surgery/hospitalization because it literally gave me a chance to rebuild myself. Why a robot? Maybe it's my commentary on the nature of playing music, especially in a particular "scene" or whathaveyou in that as performers we sometimes take on the role of automatons, going through the motions and rituals of playing in front of people. Anyone who's been on tour and plays the same setlist every night can see some truth in that, no matter how many different idiosyncrasies creep up every night it's still the same songs. Hell, practicing itself is a robotic act because it's rote memorization and repeating the same lines, phrases, melodies over and over again.
Or it could be I just like robots.
One fun heartwarming sidenote to this name business comes from my tenure with The Minus Scale. I joined them in 2005(?) and it was like being called up into the big leagues. I had been a fan of theirs and played with them so when I left my band at the time and they asked me to join I was ecstatic. We had a lot of fun the years we played together and I love those dudes. Our de facto leader AJ and I lived together for a spell, spent a lot of time on the road together (as bands do) and he was always sort of the industry maestro for us with his finger firmly on the pulse of our music scene. As far as I recall the only time he ever really gave me a compliment about my own music ventures was when he told me that Building A Better Robot was a great name. Maybe I hang onto that moniker because it got the AJ seal of approval. Who knows? Getting approval and validation from people who I believe are more talented or have a better ear than me has always been high on my list. One good byproduct of all of my hospital time is it's given me fodder for writing and I'm pursuing my music the most aggressively I have since I left my last band in 2009. Or was it 2008?
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My winter was looking to be spent entirely indoors and in a hospital bed. Christmas and New Year's were lost in the halls of Wentworth-Douglas and it was a pretty big bummer. I love Christmas. I'm not really into gifts but I love the feelings of Christmas, the songs, and hot cocoa with cinnamon. For real, if you asked me to describe Christmas as simply as possible I'd say it tastes like hot cocoa with cinnamon. Anyway, at this point in my hospital life I had seen my family a bit, Kelley of course, her family and my good buddy Angel came to visit with his daughter. We had worked together previously and became fast friends. He coached me through some of the bullshit when they thought I was going to be diabetic (he's lived with diabetes for years) and is a genuine friend. Around this time things were progressing not entirely well and the doctors were figuring out where to transfer me for surgery as W-D isn't equipped to handle pancreatic surgery, at least not the kind I needed.
This is all pretty significant because there are only three doctors/hospitals in New England that will do the kind of surgery I required. Three. My doctors got into contact with all three and only one agreed to help me, Dr. James Pomposelli and the staff of Lahey Clinic in Burlington, MA. The reality of that didn't hit me until long after my surgery: if they had said no to treating an unemployed, uninsured very sick dude I would be dead now. I was very, very sick. Whatever higher power is looking out for me saw fit to get me the help I needed in Massachusetts so off I went. My transfer was being handled by ambulance which was a bit weird for me because I had only been in an ambulance once before years ago after a car accident. This was when I was still a little out of my mind because one of the oddest things happened on the way down. I was (and am still a little) convinced the next turn of events actually happened though hearing from Kelley and my family about my mental state at the time casts a pallor on my story. On the way down to Lahey the EMT in the back with me handed me a piece of paper basically saying we know where you live/have your info and are going to extort money from you and your girlfriend. Thousands of dollars which I nor Kelley had. It said if I didn't pay them they'd come to our apartment and kill our pets, harm or even kill us, etc. It also said that no one would believe me if I said anything because I was heavily medicated and not in my right mind. I never spoke a word of it and never heard from them again. Do I really believe this happened? No. However, I think it's plausible that something like that could happen somewhere. A helpless victim strapped to a gurney in an inclosed space could easily be shaken down by scumbags and profiteers. Stranger things have happened. Anyway, we made it to Lahey without incident and I came to my new home for the next month.
I arrived at Lahey Clinic in early January, the 3rd, I believe and spent my first few days on the sixth floor before being prepped and shipped down to the OR. According to my parents' accounts I was still a little combative at this point but I don't remember any of it. Hopefully writing things down will help jog my memory because having long stretches of your life be blank is really uncomfortable. It's not unlike being blackout drunk. I know some fools who think it's funny or a sign of how badass they are drinking and blacking out but it's never been comfortable for me. I'm a guy that likes to know what happens to him and recall events and things. Later I found out that they gave me drugs so I wouldn't remember anything involving and around my surgery but that's for another day. I still didn't grasp that I was close to death at this point. My insides were turning against me and were primed to kill me if we didn't intervene. Thank God we did.
Or it could be I just like robots.
One fun heartwarming sidenote to this name business comes from my tenure with The Minus Scale. I joined them in 2005(?) and it was like being called up into the big leagues. I had been a fan of theirs and played with them so when I left my band at the time and they asked me to join I was ecstatic. We had a lot of fun the years we played together and I love those dudes. Our de facto leader AJ and I lived together for a spell, spent a lot of time on the road together (as bands do) and he was always sort of the industry maestro for us with his finger firmly on the pulse of our music scene. As far as I recall the only time he ever really gave me a compliment about my own music ventures was when he told me that Building A Better Robot was a great name. Maybe I hang onto that moniker because it got the AJ seal of approval. Who knows? Getting approval and validation from people who I believe are more talented or have a better ear than me has always been high on my list. One good byproduct of all of my hospital time is it's given me fodder for writing and I'm pursuing my music the most aggressively I have since I left my last band in 2009. Or was it 2008?
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My winter was looking to be spent entirely indoors and in a hospital bed. Christmas and New Year's were lost in the halls of Wentworth-Douglas and it was a pretty big bummer. I love Christmas. I'm not really into gifts but I love the feelings of Christmas, the songs, and hot cocoa with cinnamon. For real, if you asked me to describe Christmas as simply as possible I'd say it tastes like hot cocoa with cinnamon. Anyway, at this point in my hospital life I had seen my family a bit, Kelley of course, her family and my good buddy Angel came to visit with his daughter. We had worked together previously and became fast friends. He coached me through some of the bullshit when they thought I was going to be diabetic (he's lived with diabetes for years) and is a genuine friend. Around this time things were progressing not entirely well and the doctors were figuring out where to transfer me for surgery as W-D isn't equipped to handle pancreatic surgery, at least not the kind I needed.
This is all pretty significant because there are only three doctors/hospitals in New England that will do the kind of surgery I required. Three. My doctors got into contact with all three and only one agreed to help me, Dr. James Pomposelli and the staff of Lahey Clinic in Burlington, MA. The reality of that didn't hit me until long after my surgery: if they had said no to treating an unemployed, uninsured very sick dude I would be dead now. I was very, very sick. Whatever higher power is looking out for me saw fit to get me the help I needed in Massachusetts so off I went. My transfer was being handled by ambulance which was a bit weird for me because I had only been in an ambulance once before years ago after a car accident. This was when I was still a little out of my mind because one of the oddest things happened on the way down. I was (and am still a little) convinced the next turn of events actually happened though hearing from Kelley and my family about my mental state at the time casts a pallor on my story. On the way down to Lahey the EMT in the back with me handed me a piece of paper basically saying we know where you live/have your info and are going to extort money from you and your girlfriend. Thousands of dollars which I nor Kelley had. It said if I didn't pay them they'd come to our apartment and kill our pets, harm or even kill us, etc. It also said that no one would believe me if I said anything because I was heavily medicated and not in my right mind. I never spoke a word of it and never heard from them again. Do I really believe this happened? No. However, I think it's plausible that something like that could happen somewhere. A helpless victim strapped to a gurney in an inclosed space could easily be shaken down by scumbags and profiteers. Stranger things have happened. Anyway, we made it to Lahey without incident and I came to my new home for the next month.
I arrived at Lahey Clinic in early January, the 3rd, I believe and spent my first few days on the sixth floor before being prepped and shipped down to the OR. According to my parents' accounts I was still a little combative at this point but I don't remember any of it. Hopefully writing things down will help jog my memory because having long stretches of your life be blank is really uncomfortable. It's not unlike being blackout drunk. I know some fools who think it's funny or a sign of how badass they are drinking and blacking out but it's never been comfortable for me. I'm a guy that likes to know what happens to him and recall events and things. Later I found out that they gave me drugs so I wouldn't remember anything involving and around my surgery but that's for another day. I still didn't grasp that I was close to death at this point. My insides were turning against me and were primed to kill me if we didn't intervene. Thank God we did.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Part Four: Let It Snow, Baby...Let It Reindeer.
I was told by the nurses at Wentworth-Douglas that I would be placed in the Intensive Care Unit so I could be more closely monitored because of my recent diagnosis of having pancreatitis. When they told me I got really scared because I didn't know if that meant I was really in dire straits or what was going on. Imagine being told you're possibly terminally sick while medicated enough that your brain can't really process what's going on. Scary. When I arrived at the ICU the transport guy put me in my new bed and my nurse was very helpful and attentive. She hooked me up to all kinds of monitors and things and told me I would have to be monitored 24/7, no matter what because if they lost signal they'd think I was dead or something. Great, I can't have a bowel movement without assistance or they'll think I was really in trouble. At this point I really thought this was how life was going to be from now on. After trying in vain for a bit to get comfortable enough to sleep I started to take in my surroundings and for some reason kept thinking about Lost. When they first wheeled me in to the ICU I thought it looked like an octagon which made me think of the Dharma Initiative logos and so I associated this place with Lost. Anyway, I think I managed to sleep a little and was later visited by my parents as well as Kelley and her family. Her sister Liza was home for the holidays and I felt sorry for all of them having to be there in the ICU with me around Christmas time. I remember Kelley fighting back tears and that made me feel really awful too. Seeing her cry is far from the top of my awesome list. One good point about this point was it was the first time our parents had met. Sick people: bringing families together since the dawn of time. They hung out for a bit and left. Later that night my Lost fixation proved to get me kicked out of the ICU when I was having this bizarre series of dreams about being locked in some Dharma station. I kept hearing the beep from the Swan computer and thought I heard the Others and all of this crazy stuff. The fact that I kept having the same dream over and over proved to be too much because I finally woke up and just said "fuck this" and took all of the IV's out of my arms, I believe I had four in at the time. Needless to say my nurse rushed in and was not happy to see her patient a raving bloody mess. I kept telling her I had to prove that I was awake and not crazy so that's why I did it. She and another nurse cleaned and bandaged me up and had to look all over for enough supplies to get me re-IV-ed. I don't remember how much longer I was in that room but it wasn't very long until I was placed back in a gen-pop hospital room. This would not be the end to my craziness, unfortunately. While I was back in the normal rooms I truly, truly believed I was being held prisoner by my new nurses and tried to escape. Not sure if that was real or not but it freaked me out enough that I was being very combative with the nurses and may or may not have had hospital security restrain me from actually trying to leave.
As a quick sidenote, let's call this a public service announcement. When I was initially hospitalized I was still drunk (lesson, kids: it takes as long as you've been drinking to get alcohol out of your system so if you've been drinking for four hours at a bar it'll take you at least that long to fully sober up. And no, eating food or drinking water/tea/coffee will not make you any more sober.) for a bit and THEN detoxed so add very strong painkillers to that cocktail and I was very messed up for a good amount of time. I will never, ever tell someone they shouldn't drink or anything like that but at least in my case what starts out normal, social and innocent can quickly steamroll into something you don't want. True story.
As I said before this was around Christmas and I felt like an asshole for missing out on the holiday and being away from Kelley and our families. My parents brought me some cool Christmas stuff like a Lego castle and sticker book (grown men can still play with Lego's, ok?!) and the Official Lost Encyclopedia. This was an epic win for me because it's as close to the Lost bible as a civilian can get and very few people know how far my Lost geekdom truly stretches. Unfortunately the book weighs about twenty pounds so it was a little tough to try and read in my current state. Actually, ha! Hell, I should send Darlton a letter and tell them how much of their stuff ended up in my medical emergency. I'll have to remember to do that. Also, and this is important to mention, my parents brought me my own Charlie Brown tree for my room. That tree kept me company and was the subject of endless questions from nursing staff. I'm sorry, Wentworth-Douglas nurses, you may be great at health care but how do you not know what a Charlie Brown tree is?! Do you live in caves? This tree was important because I was transferred to a different room and they somehow lost my tree. Gone. Kaput. Someone at that hospital walked off with my sad little tree. Thanks, bros. I think at this point I had been in the hospital for two weeks and lived in four or five different rooms, mostly on the third floor. I still have to send them flowers and cookies because those poor people dealt with a lot of bullshit from me and did it with smiles on their faces. God bless you fine folks.
Ok, that about does it for now. Next we get to how I got to spend New Year's in a hospital bed, other visitations, further crazy stories that may or may not have actually happened and transfer to the fateful Lahey Clinic.
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Oh, and as for those pictures at the top, I'm figuring out how to add photos to my entries and not make it look awkward. As for the pictures themselves, I realized not everyone will know what I'm talking about when I mention specific medical bits so those are current pictures of my Jackson Pratt drains. (Notice the sweet scar on my belly courtesy of Dr. James Pomposelli, the man who effectively saved my tookus.) As of this writing I have had seven seperate JP's in my abdomen/flank/back. They're fun.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Part Three: You've Got So Far To Go
I'm going to try a different approach for a bit and see if it sticks: split posts between how today is going along with hospital stories. Sound good? Good. Let's see where this takes us.
Today wasn't so bad in terms of how I was feeling. Pain was controllable and I had a good bit of strength. Walked to the transportation center to take the bus and meet Kelley at work so I could go to her tattoo appointment with her which took a bit out of me but it was bearable. It's good to push myself while I get my strength back. This recent bit of pain/weakness comes from a two-week stint at Lahey again. I initially went in to the ER at Wentworth-Douglas with abdominal pain/aftercare for staph infection, was CT scanned and saw I developed a fistula in my left flank to my groin. Basically that means a pocket of fluid that shouldn't be there. One of the things about pancreatitis is my pancreas secretes necrotic enzymes into my abdomen which can and does cause all sorts of problems. Generally the fluid is confined to abscesses and doesn't spread too much but it still needs to be drained. Upon discovery of this fistula the folks at W-D shipped me back to Lahey (they did my surgery, they tend to take care of the specific pancreas issues) where I was taken care of for eleven days and released. I was home for about fifteen hours then went back to the W-D ER due to extreme vomiting and abdominal pain and the folks at W-D, after stabilizing me, sent me back to Lahey where I was treated for a few more days and then I was released this past Sunday. Did I just come home with my lovely self? Of course not. I am the proud bearer, once again, of two Jackson-Pratt drains to take care of the fluid situation as well as an antibiotic treatment to help clean me out. What are Jackson-Pratt drains, you may ask? They're tubes that are running from my insides to these suction bulbs that pull out the fluid from my abscesses. I think I have some pictures. They aren't too big of a deal except kind of irritating to wear clothes over, can and do cause a bit of pain and discomfort, and emptying the bulbs can be gross especially when the fluid is infected and can smell...off.
That was now, this is then:
My December turned from pretty lackluster and normal to me experiencing hospital life for the first time. I had spent some time in ER's before this but I had never really had to deal with being in a hospital before. It was a bit jarring, to say the least especially when I didn't really comprehend what was going on. The nurses and doctors were trying to treat me as best they could and I thought they were doing a pretty decent job. Remember, I wasn't exactly myself at this point so my memories can be a bit fuzzy. I did manage to have a few firsts around this time, though they weren't terribly pleasant. For instance, I had my first MRI around this time, and it freaked me out. They wanted/needed me to be in the machine for twenty minutes. I lasted sixteen. They tried to make it more pleasant by giving me music to listen to (I chose The Used) but I freaked the hell out at sixteen minutes. Before this/a reason for this MRI was they wanted to see fluid movement or something in my abdomen and groin. See, before this MRI had another first: first catheter. Now, if you've never had the discomfort of a catheter consider yourself very, very lucky. Granted, it's convenient to be able to pee whenever the urge strikes but the process of having a tube inserted into your penis and left to hang out there for awhile is a bit jarring and entirely unpleasant. This would unfortunately prove to be my first of other experiences with said catheter.
This was also around the time of my first time in ICU but I'll leave that story for tomorrow.
Today wasn't so bad in terms of how I was feeling. Pain was controllable and I had a good bit of strength. Walked to the transportation center to take the bus and meet Kelley at work so I could go to her tattoo appointment with her which took a bit out of me but it was bearable. It's good to push myself while I get my strength back. This recent bit of pain/weakness comes from a two-week stint at Lahey again. I initially went in to the ER at Wentworth-Douglas with abdominal pain/aftercare for staph infection, was CT scanned and saw I developed a fistula in my left flank to my groin. Basically that means a pocket of fluid that shouldn't be there. One of the things about pancreatitis is my pancreas secretes necrotic enzymes into my abdomen which can and does cause all sorts of problems. Generally the fluid is confined to abscesses and doesn't spread too much but it still needs to be drained. Upon discovery of this fistula the folks at W-D shipped me back to Lahey (they did my surgery, they tend to take care of the specific pancreas issues) where I was taken care of for eleven days and released. I was home for about fifteen hours then went back to the W-D ER due to extreme vomiting and abdominal pain and the folks at W-D, after stabilizing me, sent me back to Lahey where I was treated for a few more days and then I was released this past Sunday. Did I just come home with my lovely self? Of course not. I am the proud bearer, once again, of two Jackson-Pratt drains to take care of the fluid situation as well as an antibiotic treatment to help clean me out. What are Jackson-Pratt drains, you may ask? They're tubes that are running from my insides to these suction bulbs that pull out the fluid from my abscesses. I think I have some pictures. They aren't too big of a deal except kind of irritating to wear clothes over, can and do cause a bit of pain and discomfort, and emptying the bulbs can be gross especially when the fluid is infected and can smell...off.
That was now, this is then:
My December turned from pretty lackluster and normal to me experiencing hospital life for the first time. I had spent some time in ER's before this but I had never really had to deal with being in a hospital before. It was a bit jarring, to say the least especially when I didn't really comprehend what was going on. The nurses and doctors were trying to treat me as best they could and I thought they were doing a pretty decent job. Remember, I wasn't exactly myself at this point so my memories can be a bit fuzzy. I did manage to have a few firsts around this time, though they weren't terribly pleasant. For instance, I had my first MRI around this time, and it freaked me out. They wanted/needed me to be in the machine for twenty minutes. I lasted sixteen. They tried to make it more pleasant by giving me music to listen to (I chose The Used) but I freaked the hell out at sixteen minutes. Before this/a reason for this MRI was they wanted to see fluid movement or something in my abdomen and groin. See, before this MRI had another first: first catheter. Now, if you've never had the discomfort of a catheter consider yourself very, very lucky. Granted, it's convenient to be able to pee whenever the urge strikes but the process of having a tube inserted into your penis and left to hang out there for awhile is a bit jarring and entirely unpleasant. This would unfortunately prove to be my first of other experiences with said catheter.
This was also around the time of my first time in ICU but I'll leave that story for tomorrow.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Part Two: Patients say the darnedest things! vol. 1
This is a quick mid-day post to put down some of the fun things I said/talked about while detoxing and under heavy medication. Apparently when I'm on many, many milligrams of dilaudid, morphine, and phenergan I say some pretty out there stuff (and have lots of crazy batshit dreams but we'll get into those later.) Here are some of my favorites that come to mind:
"I am Harry Potter!" - according to Kelley and my parents when I was first being treated at Wentworth Douglas and in and out of consciousness it occurred to me that I was in fact Harry Potter. Which leads to my next lovable quote...
"I can apparate!" - Post-surgery at Lahey Clinic I was convinced that, like many of the wizards in the Harry Potter universe, I could magically will myself anywhere. This particular instance I said this to Kelley when she accompanied me down to CT scan. Kelley then rightly said to me, "Paddy, I watched them take you down here." to which I responded "No! I can apparate! I think of a place and I am here!" This wasn't an isolated instance and in fact it played a huge role in the many dreams I had pre and post surgery. I imagined I could whisk myself anywhere, though always still in my bed, and usually to places around the hospital. That was and is one of the most confusing things about piecing together what happened to me; a lot of my imaginary doings involved whatever hospital I was in (or some fanciful imaginary hospital.) At one point I dreamt I was in some alternate version of Dover and whenever things got too crazy or weird I would close my eyes and believe I would reappear back in the safety of my room. More on that later.
"Six six six! The number of the beast! Hell and fire were spawned to be released!" - Again, this was uttered to my nurses at Wentworth Douglas. Why? I have no idea. Kelley (mistakenly, sorry love) told the confused nurses who were laughing and had no idea what I was talking about this was a line from Spinal Tap when really I was spreading my love of Iron Maiden. Or something.
"Why did you bring Penny with you?" - Asked to Kelley and our families when they visited me in ICU at W-D. I thought they had brought my cat Penelope to see me too. Cats don't go in hospitals, kids.
Transport Guy: "Sir, do you know what the date is and where you are?"
Me: "Why yes! It's the year 11,023 and we're on the first floor of Brentwood, Massachusetts."
This one is a gem. It was common practice for the staff at Lahey to ask me the date and where I was and I do remember I was pretty close most of the time. It took me awhile to say Lahey Clinic and my dates were usually within a few days but on this particular instance I was a bit off. In hindsight I think I just put together the numbers of the actual date so instead of 1-10-?? it came out as 11,023. Also, this plays into one of my dreams where I believed I was in some future version of Japan where they were converting humankind into pure energy as kind of a last-stage evolution thing. As for the Brentwood, MA thing that actually makes sense to me because I couldn't wrap my head around Burlington, MA where Lahey Clinic is. I kept thinking Burlington, VT so my brain grabbed the first B town it could think of.
"If you drop me, you're all DEAD." - Although it sounds menacing, this was pretty funny and innocent. I was again being transported to CT scan at Lahey and when the transport guys were getting ready to move me from my bed to the CT slab one of them jokingly told me "Oh don't worry, we haven't dropped anyone today." as a way to assuage my fears of being handled. I was still a pretty hefty boy at this point, mind you. In response I looked to him and everyone else in the room and VERY seriously told them "If you drop me, you're all dead." They had a good laugh about that one.
That about does it for now. I'll have to consult my hospital historians for further humorous quotes and there will be another proper posting coming later tonight. I hope you enjoyed my ramblings thus far.
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Note: While writing this I was listening to and singing along to Chris Carrabba's cover of Weezer's "Jamie" VERY loudly. I hope my neighbors don't mind.
"I am Harry Potter!" - according to Kelley and my parents when I was first being treated at Wentworth Douglas and in and out of consciousness it occurred to me that I was in fact Harry Potter. Which leads to my next lovable quote...
"I can apparate!" - Post-surgery at Lahey Clinic I was convinced that, like many of the wizards in the Harry Potter universe, I could magically will myself anywhere. This particular instance I said this to Kelley when she accompanied me down to CT scan. Kelley then rightly said to me, "Paddy, I watched them take you down here." to which I responded "No! I can apparate! I think of a place and I am here!" This wasn't an isolated instance and in fact it played a huge role in the many dreams I had pre and post surgery. I imagined I could whisk myself anywhere, though always still in my bed, and usually to places around the hospital. That was and is one of the most confusing things about piecing together what happened to me; a lot of my imaginary doings involved whatever hospital I was in (or some fanciful imaginary hospital.) At one point I dreamt I was in some alternate version of Dover and whenever things got too crazy or weird I would close my eyes and believe I would reappear back in the safety of my room. More on that later.
"Six six six! The number of the beast! Hell and fire were spawned to be released!" - Again, this was uttered to my nurses at Wentworth Douglas. Why? I have no idea. Kelley (mistakenly, sorry love) told the confused nurses who were laughing and had no idea what I was talking about this was a line from Spinal Tap when really I was spreading my love of Iron Maiden. Or something.
"Why did you bring Penny with you?" - Asked to Kelley and our families when they visited me in ICU at W-D. I thought they had brought my cat Penelope to see me too. Cats don't go in hospitals, kids.
Transport Guy: "Sir, do you know what the date is and where you are?"
Me: "Why yes! It's the year 11,023 and we're on the first floor of Brentwood, Massachusetts."
This one is a gem. It was common practice for the staff at Lahey to ask me the date and where I was and I do remember I was pretty close most of the time. It took me awhile to say Lahey Clinic and my dates were usually within a few days but on this particular instance I was a bit off. In hindsight I think I just put together the numbers of the actual date so instead of 1-10-?? it came out as 11,023. Also, this plays into one of my dreams where I believed I was in some future version of Japan where they were converting humankind into pure energy as kind of a last-stage evolution thing. As for the Brentwood, MA thing that actually makes sense to me because I couldn't wrap my head around Burlington, MA where Lahey Clinic is. I kept thinking Burlington, VT so my brain grabbed the first B town it could think of.
"If you drop me, you're all DEAD." - Although it sounds menacing, this was pretty funny and innocent. I was again being transported to CT scan at Lahey and when the transport guys were getting ready to move me from my bed to the CT slab one of them jokingly told me "Oh don't worry, we haven't dropped anyone today." as a way to assuage my fears of being handled. I was still a pretty hefty boy at this point, mind you. In response I looked to him and everyone else in the room and VERY seriously told them "If you drop me, you're all dead." They had a good laugh about that one.
That about does it for now. I'll have to consult my hospital historians for further humorous quotes and there will be another proper posting coming later tonight. I hope you enjoyed my ramblings thus far.
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Note: While writing this I was listening to and singing along to Chris Carrabba's cover of Weezer's "Jamie" VERY loudly. I hope my neighbors don't mind.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Part One: Things Fall Apart
I had more or less wasted away my 2010. For whatever reason I lived to forget; I was a functioning alcoholic and spent most of my waking hours either drunk/buzzed/messed up or trying to get that way. To be honest I probably couldn't tell you a lot of specifics about last year and it was wearing on myself and my relationship with the gal that would end up saving my life. It all culminated December 15th, a night not unlike every other. I was hiding the fact that I was wasted from Kelley and after she went to sleep I drank my final bottle of MD 20/20, passed out and that was that...
...until the next morning.
I was sicker than I had ever been in my life. The most violent spell of vomiting conceivable for hours and I thought I was going to die. Not far from the truth, as it would turn out. I couldn't get off the couch so in desperation I called Kelley at work and my mother and pleaded for one of them to come and take me to the hospital. Actually, I was against going to the hospital but they were both adamant that we go so we managed to get me into the car and off we went. I don't remember a lot of specifics after we made it to the hospital aside from vomiting outside of the car and being wheeled into triage. At this point I think I believed it was a simple sober up and get hydrated situation but it turned out to be a bit more serious than that and my life-altering adventure began. I'm not sure when it was determined that I needed real medical attention but I was admitted to the hospital and began detoxing and was, according to Kelley and my parents, not exactly a model patient. I was fairly combative and disagreeable and not happy to be in the hospital. To any of my nurses/doctors/hospital staff that had to deal with me around this time I sincerely apologize for being an out-of-my-mind asshole. The staff at W-D did their best to keep me comfortable as we started to look at what really was wrong and how to make it better.
...until the next morning.
I was sicker than I had ever been in my life. The most violent spell of vomiting conceivable for hours and I thought I was going to die. Not far from the truth, as it would turn out. I couldn't get off the couch so in desperation I called Kelley at work and my mother and pleaded for one of them to come and take me to the hospital. Actually, I was against going to the hospital but they were both adamant that we go so we managed to get me into the car and off we went. I don't remember a lot of specifics after we made it to the hospital aside from vomiting outside of the car and being wheeled into triage. At this point I think I believed it was a simple sober up and get hydrated situation but it turned out to be a bit more serious than that and my life-altering adventure began. I'm not sure when it was determined that I needed real medical attention but I was admitted to the hospital and began detoxing and was, according to Kelley and my parents, not exactly a model patient. I was fairly combative and disagreeable and not happy to be in the hospital. To any of my nurses/doctors/hospital staff that had to deal with me around this time I sincerely apologize for being an out-of-my-mind asshole. The staff at W-D did their best to keep me comfortable as we started to look at what really was wrong and how to make it better.
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