More Medical Mischief

I recall saying something about chugging cough syrup in a Whataburger drive-through the other day. Well, it worked. Aside from getting results from my little foray into the operating room at the local hospital on 9/11, I’ve had another interesting medical emergency crop up in the past couple of days.

The latest crisis snuck up on me last Wednesday afternoon.

I had difficulty walking. My right leg was letting me know that it was unhappy. As I was still recovering from the surgery a week and a half earlier, I had the notion that the pain in my leg was something related to the surgery.

I was a little worse on Thursday. No big deal, I thought. The dog Filbrix and I had our usual walks and all the world was skittles and beer. I mentioned the hurt to the wife. She told me to see a doctor Friday if things were worse.

They got worse.

Friday morning, I barely got the dog Filbrix a couple of doors down the street when I knew to go back and call the doctor.

Making a long story somewhat short, my doctor sent me to an imaging center where I had a relatively good time entertaining the troops, followed by a twenty-minute wait in my car so I could know whether to head to my doctor’s office or to the Emergency Room.

I was hoping for the doctor’s office. Instead I was summoned to the Emergency Room.

There’s some good news as well as some bad news about the Emergency Room. The good news is that it was within sight of where I parked my car at the imaging center. The bad news was that I had a looong wait at the Emergency Room. Nearly 8 hours long. In pain.

It wasn’t until after the shift change that I was finally called to see a doctor. My wife actually came to recover the car I drove to the Emergency Room, stayed with me for a couple of hours, and then went back home to comfort the dog Filbrix before I was called to be examined.

Another exam and I was given a pain reliever and a couple of blood thinners with a prescription for more thinners to be taken ad infinitum. The wife came back and drove me back to the house to a very worried dog Filbrix at ten-thirty that evening – roughly 13 hours since I left the house to go to the imaging center in the first place.

Things got a little worse in the morning.

I got a text from the “Brand Name” pharmacy telling me on Saturday that the blood thinner would not be available until Tuesday. We ended up shifting our preferred pharmacy to the locals. They didn’t have the full ration of the pills I needed, but they did have enough to see me through the weekend.

Crisis averted.

Even with crutches, I was having a hard time navigating in the house, so, my wife ordered up a wheelchair from Wal*Mart (of all places) for less than $200. In the meantime, I found that the manufacturer of the blood thinner suggested I not use a blade to shave, instead to use an electric razor. Amazon had a Norelco for about $50. It felt good to be able to shave.

I spent the week of Labor Day getting progressively better. The wheelchair worked out to be a handy way to get around for the first part of the week – by the end of the week I was getting to the point where I was using the wheelchair less and less. To a degree I was like the character “Guy Caballero” on SCTV who was perfectly capable of walking – he just used his wheelchair as a way to evoke pity.

The Monday after Labor Day, I had an appointment with my Oncologist. I was driven and went in on crutches.

There was more good news and a bit of bad news.

The good news was that surgery to remove the little bit of cancer on my liver was a success. The bad news was that it was the same sort of cancer found a little over two years earlier in my rectum, meaning that there might be some of the little critters waiting around to infect something else, leaving me with a choice of either playing Whack-A-Mole for some time to come or undergoing Chemotherapy to go hunt down the little critters once and for all.

Chemotherapy was considered to be a better option.

I was back in the Hospital a week later to have a port installed so that the Chemotherapy Drugs could be administered. Before the port was installed, I had a session with a Nurse Practitioner telling me what to expect – she went ahead and ordered up five different medications, four of which were to help prevent nausea and vomiting.

The port went in as scheduled. It took more time to get me prepped than it did to insert the device (16 minutes according to the report). Chemo was supposed to start a few days later. I called the office on Thursday and was told that the insurance company still hadn’t approved my treatment. I suppose I would find something out in this last week of September.

One last little bit of irony just before I sat down to write this on Saturday afternoon – I was cruising through Facebook and found an ad from a law firm talking about the dangers of having a Chemotherapy port installed in my body. Not even one dose, and I’m being told that there was a possibility I could sue sometime in the future.

In the meantime, I suppose all I can do is wait.

Be Seeing You!