August of 2015 I went in for surgery and had the ride and near end of my life. Twice. That’s why this post is so late, 12 months later. I’m still recovering from the effects of my surgeries. Yes, Plural, with a capital P. What was supposed to be a 5 to 7 day event snowballed into 8 weeks of agony, time travel, perhaps demons( yes I know) unknown people in my room, and a general massive plethora (I always liked that word) including the body fluid/blood kind… of crap. Well that too. You know, hospitals, bed pans naturally just go together. I know, right? Never had to use them before but I got some unwanted use and way too personal with them to the extreme. Believe me, way more than my share of having to use them.
Butt, I digress somewhat.
Well… the white rabbit hole awaits, lets dive in shall we?
So August 11th I entered Carolina’s Hospital to have Nano’s traveling companion removed. Like I said it was supposed to be 5 to 7 days. So Aug 11th 2015 I had the surgery to remove Nano’s ” dark passenger”. Dark? Indeed he was or the DR. that removed him. Because at 4 days out I was still leaking out of the removed laparoscopic tube hole that was put in Nano to remove his “dark passenger” which apparently crumbled when the DR. grabbed it. So, stone out and a few days later out comes the tube but it keeps leaking urine from the hole in my abdomen. A lot. So much so, bandages can’t contain it. I awake in the bed the night of the tube removal in a saturated gown and puddle of my blood and urine. We are not amused! After a few more times the charge nurse fits a type of bag over the hole that allows urine to drain into a urine collection bag which is emptied every few hours. Then 3 days later they try to sew me up and the urine leak slows to a stop and after a few bandage changes I was “spanx” style bandaged with a foot wide squeeze on me abdomen. Nano no like. I was waiting on discharge papers and knew something wasn’t right. Que up and begin the nightmare from hell. Approximately 5 mins. before leaving I tell my male charge nurse something doesn’t feel right. I feel bloated, full, tight. So Steve checks my bladder with a portable sonogram reader. Very little urine in bladder. So I says to me self. Self? Where is all this urine??? Quick trip to xray & sonography . Not good. Gordie’s abdomen now is FULL of Nano/Gordie urine and blood. That’s right. Nano’s peed on me, or in this case “in” me. Perfect. Plus side? A new tube in me “stuff”. Decidedly NOT fun! It’s one thing to have it done when you’re knocked out before an operation, or pulled from you while awake(not a laugh fest either). But quite another to have a long plastic foreign object inserted in my…., up to my bladder while awake. OUCH!!!! Radiology again for a new tube to be stuck in my left abdomen Nano is in my right. Let the de-flooding commence. In 2 hours Nano’s trip to the bathroom for a continuous pee has produced 2 GALLONS of urine in my entire gut surrounding my intestines, working towards my organs. I’ve never seen so much urine escape me! And so it flows on and on. So much so they have to connect it to another bag. and empty it every 30 minutes. So then bleeding decides to plague Nano. Dr.’s have a new scan done. There’s a blood clot all around Nano between his membrane and him. He’s being squeezed and kidney function plummets. Dr’s want to open me up and play peek-a-boo with Nano. Major surgery. We both play bashful and hard to get. For awhile. Life rules out, they win. Dr.’s 1 Gordie/Nano 0. So scene 3 in O.R. I’m getting prepped for the big “opening” number. Lights, camera, action and we fade to black. A few hours later I awaken (thank you Lord). So their assessment of my situation is correct. Nano looses his raincoat (membrane) and all the clots but they decide to add railroad tracks to the wound closure instead of just surgical super glue. harumph!
So now I’m back on pain killers via an IV pump I control and must endure the rush to make me poop after a few days because during major surgery anesthetics also put your bowels to sleep and it takes days for them to wake up. So for days I am pummeled by nurses inserting things up my back side, trying to get my bowels to awaken and produce the end results of my food intake. Why me? I spend a week+ stoned from opiates awaiting what doesn’t happen hardly at all. Downturn for the worse comes my way. During this time Gordie starts taking trips without leaving my bed. Then time traveling. I think I’m just stoned but what is actually happening is my intestines still aren’t working. One day my nephrologist asks how I am, I say blearily “ok.” Liar. That afternoon I awake (whats this new room?) and see Be at my door talking to 3 strange women I assume they are nurses until one looks over her shoulder at me and grins the most horrendous grin I’ve ever seen. Just like the beings in “The Devils Advocate”. Be turns to say “who?” “The 3 women right THERE NEXT TO YOU!!!” “No one is here I’m waiting to talk with one.” she says. “They are right there next to you!” I insist! Except now there are 2. Look to my left and one is sitting 3 ft from me grinning that horrific horrid grin. I start immediately praying against them because now I know what they are. Think what you want, you weren’t there. They all disappear. Later after a bad run in with a nurse who I demand leave my room and not come back, (Trust me I had good reason.) I have strangers in my room. Wonder who they are ??? I time travel to the 1700’s. New Orléans I think. Some guy rides a bike through my room. Reality, I have a horrible night of spitting up black stuff into a small plastic tub all night with unbelievable heartburn. Next morning my nephrologist shows up with my kidney surgeon. They are asking me questions and observing me and I start picking what looks like colored cotton balls floating in the air. Gee, that’s a beautiful red one there next to the yellow one I think as I reach for it. I realize my nephrologist is looking very concerned at me. Turn to my right. So is my surgeon. Next thing I know I’m being wheeled into a much bigger room. I’m being told I need to have a tube inserted down my nose to my stomach. No FRICKING way I go. They insist and tell me I have to have it. My right nostril suffers first. No go, because of a previous break in my nose. So after a loud crunch and blood the surgeon says use the other side. So now I have to swallow as this “snake” is fed down to my stomach. Not good, or good depending on how you see it, because Gordie’s stomach now decides to disgorge all its horrible contents and a flood of black quicksand starts to pour from my mouth. I know, less graphic. The male floor charge nurse and another nurse try to keep it contained into a pink hospital tub, using their forearms to sweep it back in. I decide to fill 3 of them. (note to self: reality sometimes bites) I black out. At some point I blearily remember getting cleaned up and a new gown and sheets. Again I pass out. I now have 4 tubes exiting my bod, other abdomen drain tube, my “stuff” tube, IV and nastrogastic tube in my nose.”Tubes R Us”, r now moi. Needles R Us still holds true also. Joy. be. mine.
I awaken to a bright sunny room after some strange swashbuckling dream. I kid you not. I’m still out of it somewhat. Be sits at my side. “What happened?” I go”……..oh”. Then I remember my strange new nose toy. (note to self: Self, never buy stock in strange nose toys. Evah!) I say I have to pee and start to get up and remember my secret tube. I still want to stand and do it and have the “I’m peeing” cramps as I try the slow pee the tube only permits as a I have the old “ahhhh….” relief with cramps again and again until done. It’s the most frustrating pee relief you could ever have to endure, because the catheter has a balloon in my bladder to keep it in place. That has small holes in it so it’s a slow frustrating relief! I have to practice it again and again while there until the thing comes out. I keep trying to get better, feel better, but things just keep get worse. So after my ordeal with the tube I’m off to radiology for a picture. My illius which is the intestinal movement that propels your food and waste along is still not working and the Dr.’s naturally don’t want me to eat any foods. I still need nutrition. So the next day I’m sent to radiology again, to have a new tube inserted into the artery in the right side of my neck. OMG! As some of you may know when Dr.’s say”This may be a little uncomfortable” is really bedside Dr. code for “THIS IS GOING TO HURT LIKE HELL !!!!!” …even with a numbing shot(s). It feels like they are trying to park the semi-truck of needles in my neck! Then this plastic contraption gets pinch “clamped”/sewn to/by my neck skin. I will now be fed by my new tube directly to my blood stream. I’m a lying in bed Frankenstein with 5 or 6 tubes protruding from various orifices and or man made holes. Can it go downhill any further? Why YES it can! Throat becomes dry and cracked and bloody. Fever. Nurse takes a look at my throat and tells the Dr. “I’ve never seen a throat so raw and cracked” Hard to swallow. I wake up to find 9, yes 9 people file into my room at like 7:05 am. Seven Dr.’s 1 PA and the kidney transplant floor charge nurse. I can barely understand whats going on. I’m incredibly weak at this point and feel at times like I’m loosing my battle. Beverly tells me the kidney surgeon( the main one) said it’s not real good and I’m in free fall and they don’t know whats gonna happen, while I was getting my new neck tinsel. Notice my urologist (the guy I have to thank for all of this hiding at the back while under my gaze of death at him.)But amazingly Nano is working well despite all of this. The problem is my guts now, not him. If they don’t start working they will become gangrene and I will need more surgery to remove part of my intestine or die or both. They want to try a new high risk drug in the hope it will get them functioning again, otherwise surgery and I could loose some intestine. I have to sign off on the drug.. So, later drug comes. The next day 11 people, (11?, REALLY??) file in. Nine… 9 ! Dr’s this time 1 PA and floor nurse. Slinky Dr still hiding in the back slightly behind the door curtain. GRRRR! “Well 9 yesterday 11 today this can’t be good” I softly croak out. Silence, meets me. So the next day left side tube leaves but they want to put a new smaller tube in Nano to help drain urine and make sure it gets out still, one about the size of a coat hanger. I reticently agree but it really bothers me since he is still working great. A new hole in him seems worrisome. So plans are for the next day. How bad can that get? Wait…. Wait for it. Day turns to late afternoon turns to 6:30pm. Radiology again, to place the tube. I wake up near the end to find myself on my left side strapped to some contraption and my right foot, ankle and low calf looking like a latex glove blown up. “WHAT HAPPENED TO MY FOOT!!” I exclaim. Silence. Pissed off is putting it mildly. What? Well I am human and I get angry! Damn it! Someone notices and a tube is touched and I fade out again. Sneaky! I wake again and they are disconnecting me from contraption. “WHAT HAPPENED TO MY FOOT!!” “WHAT. HAPPENED. TO. MY. FOOOOOT!!!!!!! Useless. “Dr will explain.” I then notice my leg is a little swollen and numb and my “boys” feel squeezed. FUDGE!!!!! Yep. That other word. Frustration.
So what happened? I just found out a month ago. Be tells me the Dr. hit a vein when he decided to go in my right side. You see, my transplant is in the upper area of my abdomen in front of my right pelvis. My original kidneys are still where they were. So going in the side makes some sense. Anyway that vein is in the upper area of my iliacus or psoas major which is the muscle on the front side of one’s pelvis. This muscle connects to my upper quad. That vein bled into the muscles and caused a hematoma which is the same as a large bruise, except in my muscle not under my skin. It caused the upper thigh to swell which then pinched my femoral artery (foot swell and leg swell, uncomfortable “boys”). Fortunately my artery did not completely get closed off. Unfortunately my femoral nerve did get pinched as well as many other smaller nerves that controlled my thigh and knee etc. So the front side is numb like it’s full of Novocaine and my right leg doesn’t work right now. GRRRRR! But Nano is working great. Which was a miracle and the risky drug worked. I’m going by walker with help very carefully to the rest room. I discover I can barely make it there. I am so weak. I’m breathing heavy just going 6 ft away. The tube came out of neck=I can eat again and all but 3 remained. Stuff tube, IV and the new kidney tube. Physical therapist start coming to my room to make me walk and get my strength back. I have a hard time just walking 5 steps before having to fall back in a wheelchair being pushed behind me. Three days later I’m getting 2- 1/2 weeks in rehab section of the hospital instead of getting out of hospital prison! AUGGGGGHH! So slowly I began to recover from my ordeal and Nano recovered and 4 days before I leave Rehab the final small exterior kidney tube and the hated “stuff” tube leave me. When that one goes the nurse says if I don’t pee twice in my urine bottle in 3 hrs I have to get the tube back. I drank so much water you would not believe how determined I was to keep that thing out of me. Nano cooperates in my endeavor and we avoid reinsertion.Whew! So Nano recovered completely and even better … what? huh?? I asked the Dr. one morning how Nano’s function was. Normal creatinine level, which is an indicator of kidney function is 1.o-1.3 in most people. The Dr. says the last 3 results in earliest order, 0.83, 0.73, and 0.63 which is phenomenal! Period. So I endured the Physical therapy and left the hospital Friday Oct. 2 2015 in a wheelchair with a walker in tow and a tub seat for me to use for showers at home. FREEDOM! We spend the weekend at our Hotel. I admit to a few glasses of wine and champagne. I’m entitled. Monday I have to visit my Urologist (GRRRRR) to remove my stent left from surgery. So now another tube in my “stuff ” to grab the end of the stent and pull this thing out. The last. Oh, forgot bed pan. Just kidding. hahaha TMI. Use your imagination, bad x 100 embarrassing x 1000. Imagine being “cleaned” and bathed by a *complete stranger* of the opposite sex, a lot younger than you. No really just take a moment and put yourself there. Yea. Not. fun.
Through out it all of this, I had psalm 91 which I repeated back to Him as “my” promise and God had my back. So near death twice, I survived. Just working on my leg still. I walked in the hospital and I came home in a wheelchair and with a walker. Now I walk and drive and can lift my leg up, when before I couldn’t move it forward just 1 inch while seated. Now I can lift it off the floor cross my leg and lift it out straight. Going up and down stairs is really tough still. I still have some work, but it’s coming and my God is faithful. I have fallen 3 times in my house and once on my gravely asphalt driveway partially under her vehicle and sprang my foot, ankle, and knee each time but I recovered and didn’t break anything each time.
I survived it all. So far. But it was the wildest trip ever. One really tough year. Well … dialysis maybe that was worse because there was a chance each day I might die as I was doing it. But I digress again, I’m past it. At my last Neprologist appt. I was told that I’m in the top 6% and may keep this kidney 20 years. Usually for a cadaver kidney 7 or 8 years. Astounding. Amazing . A Miracle? So far?… why yes it is…. after all that, I should know.
In His Grip, still
Gordie ><>……………….><>……………………………………………………………….><>
pluggedn 
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