Mangled - 6 Zipperback Mountain

Rob drove me to the hospital at noon on Wednesday for surgical checkin. After signing in a nurse escorted me back to the surgical inner sanctum changing area, where I traded in my street clothes for a Johnny, hairnet non slip booties. Vitals were taken, more blood drawn and more release forms to sign, agreeing that if anything went wrong the hospital was not at fault. I felt like someone signing up to be a cast member on the Jackass TV show. If you really read all of the warnings, caveats and remote possabilities of something going amiss before you sign on the dotted line, you probably would have thoughts of passing on the surgery.

As a reflection of the times we live in, they have to ask you if there's anything at home that you feel afraid of for your well being; spouse abuse, havign Baby Jane Hudson for a sister, etc. Other than the monsters that live in my bedroom closet and the little gray aliens who abduct me for experiments, everything seems ok at home. Of course the first thing they verify is if you have medical insurance. I wonder if I said "NO" would they have asked me to leave. Even space aliens ask for insurance cards before abducting people for medical experiments today.

"I'm stepping out, party with the angels"

Once they were ready Rob was escorted out, I was given a shot of valium in my IV and wheeled into the OR. I was hoping to be out of it by the time I entered the room, but was wide awake. There was a radio playing somewhere in the room and Gloria Gaynor was loudly belting out "I Will Survive" I broke down laughing as they wheeled me into position, one of the team asking, "ahh you find something humorous, that's a good attitude", me replying, "No it's just hearing I will survive as I'm wheeled in, very reassuring." I added, " I thought I was supposed to be in Lala land by now." The anesthesiologist assured me, "Oh you will be very soon," me replying, "just remember I'll hear everything you say, so no OOPS to OH SHITS. let's keep it upbeat. Everybody get a good night's rest last night?........ok I'm ready, let's do it."

The next thing I knew I was in recovery, a nurse asking if I wanted a sip of water and how I was feeling. "I told her, fine, just a bit sore, piece of cake. She smiled, "you're on morphine now for the pain."

By the time the morphine wore off I was singing a different tune, "AAARRRGGGHHH, why did I go through with this?" Every fiber of my body was on fire, I had a tube down my throat, one up my nose, another up my dick and IV bags dangling over my head. They zonked me out on Percosets when I reached my room, and for most of Thursday everything just hurt like raw exposed meat that has been rolled in salt.

When I woke up in the morning members of the surgical team dropped by to see how I was doing, which was when I learned the surgery was a bit more radical than I thought. Instead of a 1-2" incision I had an 8" zipper along the middle of my back, held together by staples. They decided to do both the T12/L1 and L3/L4 using one big incision. I was told the surgery went well and that my first 24-48 hours would be the roughest. A nurse asked if I wanted to be on Morphine, which scared me so I told her, "just the percoset for now." My pee tube bothered me and every time I turned over in bed, beside the searing pain, there was a sharp tug on my wiener by the catheter. And every couple of hours I had to do 10 reps of sucking and blowing into a gauge to keep my lungs clear after surgery to prevent pneumonia.

Thursday was pure misery and after a fitfull night's sleep, interrupted every couple of hours for lab samples, meds and vital signs, I didn't feel quite as bad on Friday. When I woke up Friday morning a nurse came in a removed my catheter, "take a deep breath" God that thing came out of me, must've reached all the way down to the bottom of the crankcase. I'm glad I was out cold when they inserted it.

One of the surgical team doctors stopped by Friday morning to ask how I felt about going home. Between medical insurance bean counters and the shortage of beds, they throw you out as soon as possible so long as you're a few steps away from death's door. I called Rob who drove in to pick me up, after I was given prescriptions to be filled, paperwork and sheets filled with do's, dont's and what to do if's.

One thing I was very unhappy about was during my 2 day stay my waist had ballooned from 29" to 34" and it looked like I was growing a second butt. I was retaining a ton of fluid plus had not had a bowel movement for 3 days, partly due to trauma of surgery and partly due to meds, particularly the pain killers.

The dam finally broke this morning and I think every inch of my intestines purged themselves, so I lost an instant 5-7 pounds plau another 5-7 from peeing my brains out. I was also told the excess fluids should clear up in a couple of weeks; I hope so because none of my pants fit me now. My pain levels are basically just a sharp ache from my middle upper back to my butt and stinging where the staples are. It will be difficult to tell if the surgery has done me any good for a few months. I do get to pace around the apartment like a caged tiger, was told to walk around as much as I can to aid healing and prevent blood clots. I also spend a lot of time laying in bed watching the X-Files, South Park and the Simpsons on DVD. Sitting for any period of time drains me, plus the ache grows more and more intense the longer I sit. I have my staples pulled out next Thursday where hopefully I'll get to talk with the neurosurgeon, who I never saw while in the hospital.

And if I thought I had serious short term memory access and storage problems before surgery, I can barely remember a thing now.

Surgery is a curious bit of sorcery, where they dangle you over the edge of the abyss, so close to death, fiddle around with your innards, then do a warm system reboot of your body. I was lucky this time around, no blue screen of death on reboot but the crap you have to endure during system beboot is painful and bothersome.

I hope in the long run this is all worth it, but time will be the judge. The human body is a remarkable machine, with it's own built in restorative powers. In the past doctors have been amazed at how quickly I bounce back and heal. I am much older now and the process is probably going to be slower.

Monday November 13 addendum:

My body seems to have this built in feedback loop that keeps me at a 29-30" waist and weight of 160-165 pounds. Most of the water weight has been flushed out and I'm almost back to normal now. The same thing happened when doctors put me on Vicodin and Neurontin about 18 months ago, I retained water like a camel, my body ballooned out and my kidneys began malfunctioning, so off the drugs and everything returned to normal. In my opinion Neurontinn is an absolutely useless drug when prescribed for the off label use for treating neuopathic pain. Many HIV patints have been on Neurontin for neuropathy and most I spoke with claimed it did very little to alleviate the symptoms.

I'll be glad when the staples are out, they are causing additional pain on their own as the incision heals and inflammation around the wound subsides. Every time I try to lean back in a chair it feels like a line of tiny razor blades are digging into my back.

Once again it was interesting that all of the doctors and nurses who made the rounds while I was in the hospital were amazed tnat I've been living with HIV for so many years and have remained as healthy as I have. They're even more shocked and amazed that I've been off all HIV meds for 16 months and still coasting along fine. A few have asked what I attribute this to and I tell them, dumb luck, genetics, taking care of myself, being aware of and listening to my body, doing my own research (on the web) plus taking the law into my own hands as far as medical treatment goes.

During the past couple of days I've been in a lot of pain, and my legs were killing me, so when I wasn't up pacing in my apartment was lahying down reading or watching episodes of The Outer Limits, X-Files, Twilight Zone, Simpsons and South Park on DVD. The weather has also been awful, rain all weekend and rain forecasted for a good part of this week. Bad weather affects my back a lot, and might be one reason I felt so crippled up over the weekend.