Hi Everybody...Hi Doctor Neeeek!

So I am behind as usual in my blogging. It is a good thing I don’t get paid for this or I would be one poor man!

So where was I ….oh yes heading off to the surgery ward…so along comes a porter with a bed to take me to the surgery ward, and I am just waking up, trying to put my things away, Quaing the nurse is putting needles in me, and the porter is trying to get me into the portable bed. It kind of looked like a Laurel and hardy Comedy…or maybe the three stooges.

So I am lying on the bed and rolling down the hall, and I am watching the lights on the ceiling whiz by, and all I can think of is, this looks just like the movies when they are wheeling someone around in a hospital bed. We finally make it to the ward and I am placed in the line up. It kind of looked like the line up at a Nascar race, 5 beds across 2 beds deep, “Gentlemen start your IV’s!” A nurse then comes over and starts chatting me up, asking me questions, the same questions the doctors ha asked and the young surgery intern had asked, and the chief surgeon had asked. I was feeling a little more confident that they all asked the same questions and although this information was all written down already, they wanted to make sure I didn’t forget anything. After about 10 minutes the one of the anesthesiologists that would be in my surgery came over, and shook my hand and introduced himself. He then asked me all the same questions the nurse had done. He assured me everything should be fine and not to worry. I must say I wasn’t really worried at this point, just relieved to be finally getting this pile of pain out of me. After another 5 minutes or so, they rolled me into the operating room, and I had this funny little Simpsons saying pop in my mind when the Doctor Walked in…”Hi Everybody…Hi Dr Nick!” So they put me on the operating table which is cold on my bare ass and they start messing with IV and stuff. Then the head anesthesiologist comes in a lil late because someone forgot to tell him we were starting. Anyways, everyone is great, happy go lucky, friendly. I was feeling quite relaxed at this point. The Doctor gives me my first blast of anesthetic through the IV, which makes me feel funny, and then a minute later he gives me the rest and …….when I woke up I was in the recovery area about 40 minutes later.

A nurse was there with me and taking my vitals and chatting to me and asking me how I am doing. I am actually feeling pretty good(and high still) at this point. We sat and chatted for about 15 minutes or so and they called one of the porters to take me back to my room. It had been just under 90 minutes since going in for surgery. As they are rolling me up the hallway to my ward, I spot this person sitting in the chair in the waiting area, “I know that guy “ I bellowed, it was my buddy Marv sitting there waiting for me to come back from Surgery. He was surprised I recognized him with my glasses off and all hopped up on happy juice. He joined me in my room and we chatted a bit as I checked my email and phone messages on my phone. I had a message from a recruiter looking for a reference check on my buddy Rick who was waiting for a job offer from these people. I know what it is like to be waiting so I calle the recruited back right away and proceeded to give her a reference. I did explain I just came out of surgery. I don’t remember much about the reference but Marv tells me I gave Rick a pretty good reference!

I must say I actually felt pretty darn good at this point and happy to have that gall bladder out of me. I felt a little bit sore but not too bad. I don’t remember too much the next while as I think I may have slept for a bit. I do know Cathy and Brian came and visited me again and then right after my nice and BF came and visited me. I had my dinner, the first solid…well it was Jello….which was solid for me…anyways my first meal since Saturday, and I was scarfing that Jello and soup down. I highly don’t recommend this meal. After a couple hours of guests, I watched some video on my laptop, and fell asleep in the sitting position as that was the most comfortable position I could get in. I slept til around 2pm where I was able to get some more T3’s to help with the pain and then slept through toil the morning.

Ok I will end it here and pick up the next day on my next entry!

Heading in for the surgery.........

So as I revisited my first night at the Hospital, I did confirm that Marv had come and seen me while I was still in the emergency ward. He brought me some magazines and sat through my morphine induced ramblings and help me live some of the most painful moments in my life. Not long after Marv left later in the afternoon, they wheeled my limp useless carcass up to the 3rd floor ward 34, and gave me a semi private room. The nice thing is, it was a slow weekend so I had no roommates. So as I got into my new PJ top and my custom fitted super duper turbo charged bed, which had more buttons than my TV remote control. As they rehooked me up to a new IV and gave me a styling hospital garment, I settled into my new digs. The pain started to come back with a vengeance and the nurse came in and offered me some more of that wonderful pain medication called morphine. This time I asked for a double! Problem was , in the emergency ward, they injected my morphine right into the IV which gave me the instant high I was coming to know and love. On the wards they could not do that, and they had to stick me yet again with a needle. On further inquiry the reason was explained to me – in the emergency ward there are always doctors present should something go wrong from a direct injection, and on the hospital wards they were not allowed to administer the ejections through the IV. Also the nurse explained that the morphine in the IV was fast but didn’t last as long, which I agreed, and the injection into the arm was slower pain relief but lasted longer, which was good as my injection would only come every 4 hours, instead of every two which again I had come to know and love. So I got my usual morphine with gravol to ensure I would not be sick. Around that time, as I don’t remember much, Cathy and Brian returned with my belongings, PJ, bathrobe, and most importantly laptop, so I would go online and post all my whoas and get the sympathy factor on facebook! I curled up into the fetal position again and went into another morphine induced slumber. I awoke a couple hours later to the nurse taking my Blood pressure and my temperature. I was really hungry at this point as I had not eaten in two days. Because of my condition and impending possible emergency surgery I was afforded only a wee glass of apple juice. Ironically, my pain had also subsided to the point of being a dull throb in my lower rib cage. My 40 hour gall bladder attack was ending. I drank my apple juice and savored every lil drop of it. I logged on to my laptop and checked my emails and updated a couple posts and then settled back in for the night. As it was around 10pm, and I had not slept the night before , I was looking forward to a few hours of non drug induced sleep. I even turned down my happy morphine shot, for the sake of two Tylenol 3’s. I figured I didn’t want to have to go through an intervention when I got home!
It was around 2am when I woke up and grabbed my wash basin and threw up. I remember reaching around in the dark and things crashing to the floor. The last thing I wanted to do was throw up in or on myself in my bed. I managed to hit the basin, and at the same time push the call button...and push the call button and push it again for the nurse – little did I know the call button I was pushing didn’t work and there was an actual separate button from my souped up bed remote control. None the less the nurse heard my heaving and came into help me out. All I remember is I had nothing in my stomach except bile and a wee glass of apple juice....I miss that apple juice...anyways, I finished my pity display and the nurse got me some more gravol to help with my nausea. I declined any more barbiturates as my main concern now was would i just throw my gall bladder up and avoid the surgery! Finally I rested having been glad I had no roommate that night with my typical patient like display.
Around 6am I heard the hallways come alive as all the doctors were doing their rounds visiting all the patients and discussing their prognosis with the young interns. In came 3 young doctors, the resident, the intern and the chief surgeon for the general surgery department. They were super nice and treated me with the uppermost respect and talked to me and not down to me. They poked and prodded and decided at that time that although my attacked had subsided, and the ultra sound did not look all that bad, my gall bladder was still pretty sore and tender, and that surgery was the best option. I would be scheduled for emergency surgery that very day, and barring any influx of more serious patience, I would be in surgery before 2pm. Of course that meant no food again, no drinks except a small amount pf water with my new best friends T3’s. The day nurse came on, a young Asian guy named Quang and he was nothing short of amazing. This guy loved his job, and took care of me like my own mother (minus the yelling and screaming and being grounded). I was able to get a shower and get a new outfit(hospital gown and feel a little human again. Once I was done I settled back in for a nap. Then about 2 hours later, Dr. Shiller came in, the guy that would be doing my surgery. He told me all the risks and explained what he was going to do, and even sat down and scribbled on a piece of paper what the surgery entailed. I felt really good and confident that this guy knew what he was doing and I trusted him. When he left i felt pretty good about the surgery. I fell asleep again, and then call came, time for surgery! Quaing woke me and hustled me along to get ready and to pack all my stuff up, which Cathy and Brian would grab for safe keeping. On a side note, I guess a lot of things get stolen in a hospital from patience which is a pretty sad state of affairs for someone to do that. None the less, I packed everything up, and had to remove my under garments and receive my post surgery shot and get into the new bed with a porter who would escort me down to the surgery ward. Ok I am a pretty solid guy emotionally, but around this time, I must say I missed having someone there that I knew, and that I was a tad bit scared.

Ok I promise to get the rest of this done this week. I have been traveling so much my time has been eaten up.