'Twas the night before Christmas
The night after I finished Naïve I wasn't feeling too hot. This was the evening of the 23rd of December. As night rolled in I could feel myself getting sick and was bracing myself for what I knew was going to be a long long night. At about 4:00 am, after being in and out of pain and panic I finally woke my brother and had him hold a heat pad on my back -
"d00d, you should go to the hospital."
I argued against going for a few minutes but realized I wasn't going to make it otherwise. We left for St Jude's Medical Center in Fullerton. Big men like myself don't like to admit things like this but when we arrived I was in so much pain that I lost my composure at the admission desk. Jonathan filled out all the paperwork for me and I was put in one of the patient's areas quickly. The doctor knew exactly what was going on and ordered an ultrasound and some pain medication. The pain medication came first - a shot in the ass has never been so welcome an experience as it was then. After a few minutes I was on my way to the ultrasound. The backstory to this is that I'd been waiting for an ultrasound for months but because of the HMO bureaucracy it was drawn out almost indefinitely.
I just knew that it was my gall bladder. I just knew.
The technician couldn't tell me what the results were - I had to wait for the doctor on that one - but when I did see the doctor again it confirmed my intuitions. The doctor asked if I wanted to go home or have the gall bladder removed then and there - the obvious answer was to get it done. After a year or so of being caught in bureaucracy I wasn't interested in delaying my cure. The surgery was arranged for noon, Tuesday, and they would keep me there at the hospital under painkillers in the meanwhile.
When it came time for my operation, I was feeling an odd sense of relief. I was wondering how they would put me under and how long it would take to recover from the operation. They used a breathing mask to put me under - I always try to stay awake as long as possible but it had to have been maybe 45 seconds or less before I was gone.
I woke up a few times in the recovery room, gasping for air.
I think it is better to go under with an IV rather than a breathing mask. I don't know what, if anything, my gasping had to do with the breathing mask but it wasn't as comfortable as the intravenous approach I underwent in my last surgery.
So my Christmas Eve was spent in and out of conciousness. Falling asleep in mid-sentence. Grace, Jon and Ruth came out to visit and while I was COMPLETELY high on Demerol and other pain killers I excitedly explained quantum mechanics, eigenstates, the measurement problem.
I didn't have an opportunity to feel sorry for myself though; in the ER a woman next door to me was wailing over and over while a tube was stuck down her throat and into her stomach to drain blood. During my stay my roommate was under medication for kidney stones - his surgery was for the next morning. As bad as gall stones are, I'd almost rather that than the prospect of having to piss a 9mm kidney stone.
I was released Christmas day, in the afternoon. I didn't know if I'd make it at home; at that point walking about 100 meters exhausted me to a point of taking a good 45 minute nap. Time has been kind though - I'm now getting up and down by myself and eating foods I've avoided for the last year. Chocolate, cereal, cheese... and fist fulls of animal cookies.
4:17:14 PM 
|
