19 hours hernia post-op

Surgery went well, as far as I know. The doctor was running 2 1/2 hours late, and I spent the last hour, as usual, in a line of ten gurneys in the pre-op holding area. These gurneys face a bank of windows opposite which stands a two-story cross (the sole evidence of Sacred Heart’s Christian ideals is that cross and a crucifix in every room).

Just before I was rolled to pre-op, Peggy read on my chart that I am 6’10”, so I passed the wait pondering the implications. As a young man, I would have thought it great to be a foot taller, but now I can see the downsides, things like beds being too short, chairs being too low, airline seats being too close, and so forth.

The surgeon wanted me to stay awake during surgery so he could have me cough when he was done. He apparently decided against this, because while I was still on the table trying to ask questions, he was calling a friend to make dinner arrangements. It was by now 5:30 p.m., and he had put in a full day, so I naturally accepted the priority of his dinner plans over my health issues (in all fairness, the tranquilizing agent might have caused me to forget being told to cough).

He did say that the lymph note he removed didn’t look ominous. I went home shit-faced on Percocet, but optimistic that I had dodged the cancer bullet. Bright and early this morning—7:30 in fact—a nurse from my internist’s office called to say that I needed to come in for blood work and a full-chest CAT scan. This was more than a bit of a surprise since the surgeon had said nothing to me about my x-rays being abnormal. The nurse had no explanation, so I asked if she might please find out and call back (or, better yet, have the doctor call). She called (no surprise there) with a confirmed diagnosis of chronic atelectasis (a word she couldn’t pronounce, but that Peggy could upon hearing the first four letters). Chronic atelectasis is a lung blockage that can be caused by any number of ominous diseases, one of which is asbestosis (I used to work around asbestos, and have long worried about it).

Other than the kind of shabby treatment that I have learned to expect from doctors, and the fact that my anesthesiologist was pitifully sick with a cold, everyone else who was involved in my care were terrific. From the young man who shaved my groin to my many nurses, I have only praise. As for the doctors, I can but reflect on the irony of the fact that they make far and away the most money, yet act as if they are doing me a favor by treating me at all.

The surgeon said I would hurt and swell more than most people (I don’t remember why), and I suspect he was right, but the pain meds are keeping the hurt down to a dull roar, and ice applied thirty minutes every hour is keeping the swelling manageable. My bandage is bloody, so even as I write Peggy is out getting a new dressing.

With this, as with my last surgery, the post-surgical pain is minor compared to the aggravation of trying to get information from nurses who don’t know and doctors who won’t talk to me.

That’s where things stand at 11:00 a.m., nineteen hours post-op.

credo

We’re like the people in the Twin Towers just before the planes hit. We can do nice things for others; we can enjoy good food and good books; we can even create meaning in our lives, but the moment will come all of this is gone from us—or rather us from it. We will then exist in the same way we existed before we were born, which is to say as matter and energy. I ate sardines tonight. They used to be little fishes; now they are me. Soon they will be something else. Such is our existence. The personal is transitory. The eternal is indifferent.

The universe is incredibly dark, incredibly cold, and infinitely uncaring. This I worship because it is nobler than an anthropomorphic deity such as the petulant and vindictive god of the Bible. Yet, I could happily partake of mass or communion because they are like the word god in that they have so many different meanings that they lack meaning. It’s not the object of worship that matters but the impulse to worship. I refer to worship that comes from the inability to not worship. In this, I find purity.

France when you might be dying!

Peggy asked if I thought she would still go to France if I have cancer. I said she should consider the prognosis. Her response was that there was no way she would go. I was so surprised that I didn’t think to ask if she would stay home to support me, or because she would be too bummed to enjoy France. I wouldn’t want her here unless the prognosis was grim. I would miss her, but no more than I would miss her anyway; and I would be awfully sorry about all those nonrefundable reservations.

Peggy and I differ in that I am much more likely to make decisions based upon money. I love watermelon, yet I didn’t buy a single melon last year because the prices were too high. Peggy was horrified. “You’re worth the money,” she argued with generous intent, but with logic that reminded me of a television commercial. “What does my worth have to do with overspending on a watermelon?” I countered. “You could just as easily argue that I am worth saving the money.”

When I spend big, it’s on non-consumables like tools or that $1,750 bike I bought last year. I’m not cheap; I’m frugal. I’ve been this way as long as I can remember, and I have no desire to change. Peggy is also frugal, but not as much. If she weren’t frugal, we wouldn’t be together. She would be out spending like the average American, and I would be home packing my bags and separating our finances. She does have her indulgences, but we’ve worked it out so that I can live with them. Her skiing—like her trip to France—comes out of common funds. Her buttons are another matter because the expense is ongoing. When she began spending what I considered a lot of money, we agreed that, for every dollar she spent, I got one dollar for myself. Her “dollars” are displayed in cases; my dollars are in mutual funds.

She argues that the stock market could crash tomorrow and I could lose everything, whereas she has already gotten enormous enjoyment from her buttons, and is unlikely to lose them. She might be right, but then again, a fire or a flood could take her buttons while my funds would go on doing their compound interest thing. Maybe I don’t enjoy greenbacks as much as enjoys buttons, but they still give me a warm feeling. Money alone can’t buy security, but I never heard anyone say he felt more secure without it.

Peggy is away (reluctantly, due to my health) on her annual “Girls’ Weekend Out,” and I’m cleaning house in preparation for surgery. Hernia surgery is low risk, yet I had a friend who died on the table, so I’m doing a more thorough job than usual. Things like cleaning out closets, rearranging cabinets, putting contact paper in drawers, backing up computer files, updating lists, and getting rid of unneeded items. Peggy literally doesn’t know how to operate the washer and dryer, and she is all but computer illiterate, so I know I would be missed.

Yet, she would survive, I suppose, which is more than I might do if she died. I can’t say for sure because I haven’t crossed that bridge. I just know that I always hold suicide as an option, and that she does not. This is another of our differences.

Medical errors

The following is a weeks worth of medical errors—or at least medical system errors—and I haven’t even been to surgery yet.

1) My internist sent me to the surgeon with a form stating that I had a hiatal hernia instead of an inguinal hernia.

2) The surgeon’s office sent paperwork for me to fill out before my appointment. It was mailed Tuesday; my appointment was at 8:00 a.m. Wednesday.

3) The surgeon was a half hour late for my appointment, so Peggy and I took the liberty of reading my chart. Before the nurse took it from us, we discovered that I had been wrongly diagnosed with acid reflux and a missing left ball.

4) When I went for my pre-surgical appointment with the anesthesiologist, he said he had no idea why I was there. His office called the surgeon’s office for an order, but the surgeon’s staff was not yet answering their phone. Peggy went and got the information.

5) When I went to Oregon Imaging for my chest x-ray, I learned that I was scheduled to have it done at the Sacred Heart. I denied this. Since it is unusual for an outpatient to go to the hospital for an x-ray, Oregon Imaging called the hospital and learned that I had been admitted through the ER and was in room 683. The hospital was sure of this, and the lady at Oregon Imaging was equally sure that I was standing in front of her. I got my x-ray at Oregon Imaging.

6) After Oregon Imaging straightened out where I was to be x-rayed, they informed me that the surgeon had neglected to say why I was to be x-rayed. This meant that my HMO wouldn’t pay for the x-ray. I refused to pay for it myself so, after much discussion, they assured me that they had arranged things so that my HMO would pay for it.

7) After returning home, I called my HMO to be sure the surgeon’s office had contacted them to okay my surgery. My HMO was surprised to learn that I had a hernia, and they suggested that I “build a fire under the staff at the surgeon’s office”.

8) I called my internist to ask if my surgeon had called him to ask if he wanted to see me before my surgery (the surgeon had said he would call as soon as I left the office). The internist didn’t know I had been to a surgeon.