Friday was but
three hours old, and Russ and I were on the road to Atlanta and the Emory
Clinic again. It was pleasantly cool, and I-85 was eerily devoid of traffic.
Or, perhaps it was me feeling homesick for Erie, the lake. I was listening to
WCLV on the Internet earlier in the week, and the forecast for Lake Erie
included ten- to fifteen-foot waves. Watching them slam against the break wall
at Ashtabula would have been worth the price of admission: standing out in the
cold, wind and rain.
We did encounter a few rain drops along the
way, but none worth mentioning. So, please feel free to disregard the last
sentence. It was quarter of five when we pulled into the Emory parking garage.
There is an advantage to arriving in the hours before old Sol makes his
appearance: no problem finding a spot to park. Using the map we were given
Monday, Russ proved himself an able navigator of Emory’s labyrinth of hallways.
And in timely fashion, he got us to the place where I was invited to remove my
clothes and step into a stylish blue robe that offered a stunning view of my
rump.
The tarted-up gurney on which I was told to
lie was easily the most uncomfortable, high-tech bed in the history of the
human race. The hospital must be trying to discourage malingerers. Nonetheless,
with Russ seated at my side, I promptly fell asleep until I was awakened by an
endless line of questioners.
“Why are you here today?”
“To get a new battery and whatever else the baclofen
pump requires.”
“Where is the pump located?”
“Right here,” I told them, gently patting
the lower right side of my abdomen.
Then they would look at the chart, smile and
say “Good.” But I was certain that eventually one of them would watch me pat my
right side, look at the chart, frown and say, “Oh shit, but it says here…”
And the questions went on:
“What is your medical condition?”
“Multiple sclerosis.”
“When were you diagnosed?”
“October, 2006.”
“Have you had anything to eat or drink since
midnight?
“No.”
“Have you taken any medications?”
“No.”
“Did you take your bupropion?”
“No.”
“Did you take your atenolol?”
“No.”
“It says here, you occasionally take
aspirin. Have you taken any aspirin?”
“No.”
“When was the last time you took aspirin?”
“At least two weeks ago. They told me to
stop taking it until I was done here.”
“Good. Have you taken any Bactrim DS?”
My face says, “What the hell is Bactrim DS?”
“The
antibiotic we prescribed.”
“Oh, that. Not since midnight.”
“But you have been taking it, right?”
“Twice a day since I got it.”
“That’s perfect. Are you allergic to any
medications?”
“None that I’ve taken.”
“Have you ever had trouble with anesthesia?”
“No.”
“Did you have any difficulty with the
anesthesia when they put your pump in?”
“Your honor, I object, the medical
professional is badgering the witness.” Well, I didn’t say that, but I wish I
had. I just said “No.”
Then this fellow came in, looking far too
chipper for seven-thirty in the morning. He introduced himself, but in that
stream of people introducing themselves to me I have forgotten if he said he
was a doctor or a nurse. In any event, he was there to start an IV. He quickly
earned the distinction of being the first medical professional to fail to find
one of my veins on the first try. He did, however, find my radius – or maybe it
was the ulna – but it certainly wasn’t humerus.
Ten minutes later, I was carted off to the
OR and put into a sound sleep from which I awoke in the recovery room at
ten-thirty and was told that all went well. The best news was that there
weren’t any problems with the catheters and I would be able to go home shortly.
I hadn’t looked forward to the prospect of spending Friday night in the
hospital. Then I was wheeled to another recovery room, where they continued to
monitor my vital signs for a while, decided I would live, and gave me some
orange juice, something they had audacity to call coffee – Juan Valdez turned
over in his grave, I’m sure – and a few crackers.
Russ was invited in and helped me dress.
When he finished tying my shoes, the nurse told him to fetch the car and meet
us out front. It’s no short walk to the parking garage, and before the nurse
took me down, she told me I could shower later in the day so long as I did not
aggressively scrub around the incision. She said I should call the surgeon if I
experienced uncontrollable pain, and she handed me a prescription for vicodin.
“Vicodin? I don’t like that stuff.”
Back in the fall of 2005, when MS began
intruding on my lifestyle in earnest, I hyperextended something in my right
knee as I tried to master the art of walking with a less than cooperative left leg.
The doctor gave me a prescription for vicodin, telling me to take a pill before
going to bed, that it would ease the pain and help me sleep. In the words of
Colonel Potter, “Horse pucky!!!” Maybe it did help with the pain. I don’t
remember. What it did, was bring back memories of my college days, more
precisely, my college nights spent in non-academic pursuits at the Old Town
Tavern, of going to bed those nights and lying there while the room spun around
and around.
“In that case, just take some Tylenol,” she
said.
Then we got on the elevator and went to meet
Russ. By four o’clock we were back in Columbus. Shortly after five, I took to
my bed and slept until seven. I puttered around for a bit and was back in bed
by nine.
It’s Saturday morning now, and I’m feeling
surprisingly upbeat. I don’t know if this is because I no longer have to worry
and fret over having the pump tinkered with, or because they mixed some happy
juice in with the anesthesia. And my extremities are a looser than they have
been in weeks, which leads me to believe my suspicion that the battery had been
dying a slow death wasn’t farfetched.
And so the day I was not looking forward to
turned out to be good after all. Not a great way to spend the day with Russ,
but a great day because it was spent with him.
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