All was not gloom and doom at the hospital.
Yeah, okay, I'm not buying it, either. For most of the stay, I vacillated back and forth between various states of fear and boredom. That's a screwed up Venn Diagram, let me tell you. Every single doctor who visited me had a different diagnosis and worse, a suspected prognosis. It was frustrating, to say the least. One doctor comes in and says, "We don't know what you have, or how long you're going to be here." The next day, the surgeon comes in and says, "This wound site looks fine. I don't think you'll need a PICC line or a port. You may be able to go home today." Then the infectious disease specialist visits the day after and says, "You will need constant care for a minimum of four weeks." This multiple choice kind of diagnosis always happened before noon, insuring that I'd have the rest of the day to ponder every decision that may have led to my groin exploding in a fountain of goo.
On the other hand, I did have a captive audience by way of the nurses. None of them had heard any of my scrotal edema jokes, so I got a tight five minute set out of every new nurse that came to visit. After a while, they were just sending new nurses in from other floors. That kept me busy for about two days. After that, I started eyeing the window for a quick exit.
Showing posts with label hospital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hospital. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Monday, March 18, 2019
Six Days Closer to Death
Well. That was fun.
For those of you just joining us from another station, I've been recovering from a surgical procedure I had at the end of last year, literally on the 31st of December. It involved removing part of my lower abdominal pannus, which is that thing that hangs down over your belt. In my case, it had developed into panniculitis, which is when the fatty tissue hardens and in my case, blocked my lymph nodes, was pushing my legs apart, had gotten infected, etc. A real mess. And if I was to get healthy, as is my continued intention, it had to go first, so that I could, you know, walk more than ten yards without feeling like my hips were displacing.
The panniculitis got cut off (in a panniculectomy) and the bottom of my abdomen was stitched back to my stomach and, well, aside from some scrotal edema (about which you probably know way too much), I was more or less okay. Turned out, it was less. A lot less.
For those of you just joining us from another station, I've been recovering from a surgical procedure I had at the end of last year, literally on the 31st of December. It involved removing part of my lower abdominal pannus, which is that thing that hangs down over your belt. In my case, it had developed into panniculitis, which is when the fatty tissue hardens and in my case, blocked my lymph nodes, was pushing my legs apart, had gotten infected, etc. A real mess. And if I was to get healthy, as is my continued intention, it had to go first, so that I could, you know, walk more than ten yards without feeling like my hips were displacing.
The panniculitis got cut off (in a panniculectomy) and the bottom of my abdomen was stitched back to my stomach and, well, aside from some scrotal edema (about which you probably know way too much), I was more or less okay. Turned out, it was less. A lot less.
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