Little Eldon's Blog: 2013

Some notes on my recent adventure so you know what has been going on in the better part Kentucky

Thursday, December 29, 2011

     Well I’m back home. The reason I was away for several days was because on early Christmas morning I woke up with lower chest pains, nausea, and some other things, all put together sort of reminded me of my little heart problem. So after putting up with this stuff for some time I got Lorraine up and we went into the emergency room. As I got dressed and down stairs I felt like I had to vomit again so rushed over to the kitchen sink. The next I knew was that I pitched forward and might have fallen had I not been lucky enough to catch myself with my nose on the edge of the counter. I let Lorraine drive this time so that I could keep the blood from running down my fact from the cut on the bridge of my nose. The ER reacted swiftly (by then it was about 5:00 PM) to the announcement that I might be having chest pains. The EKG and blood work came back in a few minutes showing that the heart didn’t know of any reason for our early morning foray. So they dumped me in a bed, shot me full of whatever and said we would continue this exciting diagnostic adventure in the morning, which of course it now was. Being Christmas day the staffing was a little short. About 10:00 they finally rounded up someone to do a ct scan. By this time the area of the pain was a little more definable, just under the ribcage and maybe a little more pronounced on the right side. I’m throwing this all in to exercise the diagnostic skills of all the medical family members out there. After the ct scan the doctor came in all aglow announcing that my gall bladder, beside being full of stones, looked to be quite toxic. He then went to great lengths to explain why my description of the symptoms had made it so hard for him the come up with a diagnosis earlier.
     Then they roared off to look for a surgeon who had nothing better to do on Christmas then take out some huddlehunce’s gall bladder. Well it so happened the very best gall bladder surgeon was just waiting for me. (I’ve never had surgery but it was by the very best one for that particular procedure in the whole local area if not the whole local state and maybe including both coasts.) If nothing else these hospitals know their PR. And that includes the house doctors down to the cleaning people. I got scheduled for that afternoon whenever they could fit me in, which they did around 2:00 PM and after the previous eight hours it was a nice restful time.
     Since being checked in I had been hooked up to a rolling-tree with IV monitors oxygen up my nose, circulation things on both legs, and a heartbeat monitor on my finger and a JP drain after the surgery. I’m going through all this to explain the process of getting up at night to go to the bathroom. There were only about five things to unhook, and then untangle before I could start moving the tree along with me to the intended location. This took about two minutes but I found that with my condition I had only about fifteen seconds before my delivery system relieved itself whatever I had in mind, which made for a very touch and go (no pun intended) situation. Hoping I was not entering a new phase of my physical existence I struggled through the first night. By the second night I knew I had the answer. I would just use a portable urinal thing while standing beside my bed therefore not having to unhook my equipment. So the first time that night I felt the urge I unhooked my leg things stood up beside the bed, got everything positioned and did my thing. It didn’t take very long to realize that I had not finished one rather important process and that was to open the top of the urinal which was firmly closed. Well being a swift learner I did not make that mistake again. I was also relieved (another pun not intended) to find that my urgency problem left with my gall bladder. That’s why they don’t let old people out much.
     The next noon the surgeon came in while I was contemplating my lunch and pointed out that my gall bladder had looked to be about the size and color of my baked icky-brown sweet potato. Well I’ve never been fond of sweet potatoes and now I have an even better excuse to avoid the things. He also said I looked fine to go home as soon as the hospital doctor released me. But there came the rub. The hospital doctor who admitted me was out of town and another hospital doctor didn’t want to release me without the surgeon being more aggressive about my release. By the time the two of them came to an understanding it was Thursday and I had spent another day in my unfortunate incarceration.
     My sugar glucose levels have been elevated for several years. My doctor keeps saying “well the sugar levels are about the same so keep watching the sugar and carbs and we’ll do this again in ninety days.” When I hit the hospital the readings went wacko. They were pricking me every three hours or so. They admitted that the little portable pricker thing they were using had a margin of error of 20-30 percent, plus or minus. That’s a big swing. For medical work it seemed a little slapdash. Mostly the readings were higher then what I had been seeing before. I gently asked several of them how my current situation would effect those levels and they agreed that what I was going through could make the levels do all kinds of things. But no one had any idea of what the current stress on my body actually should or could be making the levels do. I talked with a diabetes director, a diabetes educator, and a diabetes technician. On much of the information they came up with similar answers but there were enough discrepancies to make a person nervous. And as I’ve since read through some of the information on the web there are very few absolutes to tie a program to.
     Now before going on with this let me explain that diabetes is a sneaky and terrible thing and anyone who has good sense would be wise to be vigilant. But the people at the hospital were like saffron robed priests looking for another convert into their ashram. And they might be right about me.
     Now after going on the internet I realize just how big an industry this diabetes thing is. There are numerous services and twice that many gadgets for diabetic people to use and of course buy. It is huge. If you goggle diabetes you get 300 million hits. If you put in diabetes glucose meters for an example you get 1,470,000 hits. Now to help themselves out and broaden their market the industry lowered the levels of what constitutes a diabetic by about forty percent. That automatically pulled another forty-six million (give or take) Americans into the diabetes marketplace. What a great move!
     So like I said I’m back home, feeling sore (they did do it laparoscopically), moving slow, but certainly not needing any pain meds.
     Needless to say this adventure shot in the head our plans for going out to Portland on the 28th, up to College Place on the 30th, and back to Portland with everyone on the 1st, and back home on the 3rd.