Fifteen days ago, I sat in the ER waiting room with a CAT Scan report from urgent care that said I had an intestinal blockage due to a tumor. Mark, my husband, was with me. And wait we did. At long last, however, we were called back to our own little partition in the ER.
The nurse began by starting an IV and then the doctor came to talk to us. Now, in my job, I often have a brief due, and I had something due in the 11th Circuit that coming Friday (it was Wednesday). So when the doctor started talking about surgery, I asked Mark to get my laptop so I could knock it out before surgery. The doctor (strenuously) disagreed with that plan. He said I needed to clear the decks for the next two months. He also said I needed an NG tube inserted. An NG tube is an instrument of torture a medical tube inserted through your nose, then down your throat that suctions stuff out of your stomach and upper intestine when things aren’t moving in the normal directions. Trust me, you don’t want one.
I will draw a merciful curtain over the NG insertion tube experience, except to say that I insisted once they got it in they needed to be sure it stayed in because I was not going through that again. Then we sat in the ER room and waited, again.
Turned out they were working on getting me a room at one of the hospitals in the area who had a surgeon who could do the type of surgery I needed. Once they had a room, I had to wait for an available ambulance. I was curious about the ambulance because I’d never ridden in one. It wasn’t nearly as thrilling as it looks on TV, which is probably a good thing. So it was about 4 am on Thursday the 11th before I found myself in a room in a hospital downtown. They managed to get me into surgery by noon.
The only thing I remember about the surgery is telling the nurse in the pre-op area that if they had to take the NG tube out to do the surgery, they needed to put it back while I was under anesthesia. When I get hold of an idea, I tend to hang onto it.
The next thing I remember is being wheeled back into my room, where my husband and sister were talking to the surgeon. I don’t remember much about that, either; I was capable of four words: hurts, Mark, and thank you. Given what I was going through, it wasn’t a bad set of words to have.
Somewhere along the way, I acquired more words and decided I needed to use them. I think there was still some anesthesia or something in my system, because this was the email I sent to my work the day after the surgery:
Day 3 of my incarceration - uhhh, hospital stay. Yesterday's schedule included an open laporotomy so some doctor could remove 14 inches (!) of my intestine with carcinoids attached.
Today, the reality of Diet Coke withdrawal set in - and my captors' sad decision not to allow mainlining of caffeine. I am sitting in a chair right now. Trust me, that's a big deal.
Carcinoids looked non-cancerous but they are testing them to be sure. Alas, the NG tube remains, but I have hope of liberation from it in another day or so. As you probably can tell from this email, they do have me on some righteous pain medicine.
Seriously, everyone here is very nice and putting up with me through caffeine withdrawal. I HOPE to go home Monday or Tuesday. Thank you everyone for your kind wishes and prayers and help.
Most people at work thought it was hilarious. Fortunately, my family kept me off of email for the rest of my stay, and I was allowed to go home on Monday, April 15. I’m cleared to go back to work this coming Monday.
The worst part of the experience weren’t things like the surgery and pain from the surgery, but the NG tube, cutting out caffeine cold turkey, and the hospital bed. A modern hospital bed is a technological marvel, but I, at least, was unable to get comfortable in one. Cutting out Diet Coke was not in my playbook, either. Cold-turkey caffeine withdrawal is an ugly thing. Caffeine withdrawal on top of major surgery is personality changing – and in my case, not for the better. As soon as I could, I started drinking it again. I became a much nicer person once I did. Both of our offices are stocking up for my return on Monday.
Sometime during the last two weeks, I thought about how we are taught that mystery novels require an inciting incident that leads to instability and then a new normal. In this case, fortunately, the inciting incident was just a detour that doesn’t require a new normal. But somewhere in the whole experience a story lurks; I just have to discover what it is.
