Gladta Be Back!

Been in trouble this past 15 days! Sick and in the hospital most of that time.

All started with a series of tests prescribed by my new doctor. Not blaming her! She wanted a series of tests to establish her own baseline understanding of my health.

I think she was right. I've been feeling uncommonly tired after my daily workouts and walks. Found myself thinking:

You're aging buddy! Accept that fact.
Cut back your physical regimen.

But I wasn't sure. And I don't like giving in to changes. Especially when I'm forced to conclude I'm getting seriously old. Especially when I don't have all the facts. Life-changing decisions should demand a closer look.

So I agreed: We should base any decisions on a series of tests.

Two of them nearly killed me. The first was a colonoscopy. My last one was over five years ago. This one discovered five polyps. They sat there like old buddies, all smooth and round, grinning at me in their picture. . .as if the joke was on me. Obviously benign -- as later analysis proved them to be. Lucky me! But they were large, and their removal left a sizable wound in my large intestine. Still, I felt no more stress than had the procedure been a haircut.

The second procedure proved more difficult. My new general practitioner saw some troublesome signs in a recent stress test. So three days after the colonoscopy I took the scheduled heart cath. This procedure discovered that the three major arteries on the left side of my heart were about 95% blocked. . . which discovery led to an immediate, very thorough and successful angioplasty.

The before and after pictures of my heart are astonishing. Before: the three arteries appear much like dried-out and shriveled ends of a dead tree limb. All three arteries show more than a single blockage. How the condition hadn't triggered a major heart attack puzzles me. After: all the plaque had been removed, and three stents were strategically placed. Blood flow is abundant. Completely restored -- an amazing transformation.

In retrospect, the truly astounding thing is that I had been able to continue my usual daily two-three-hour-brisk walks and weight-training regimens. And how had I maintained my balance and strength during my daily yoga sessions? No wonder I was feeling tired.

But the real problem was the required addition of the blood-thinning drug plavix to my daily prescriptions. This drug threatened my life, because it scrubbed the "scab" off the wound in my bowel, and in a matter of hours, I had expelled approximately two pints of blood into the toilet. Or so I was told. . .though the arcane formula by which my doctors determined the actual blood-loss is equally lost upon me.

THAT was scary! It was a serious catch-22. My heart-guy rightly feared that without plavix, the sort of stent he'd employed might be quickly clogged with plaque. My bowel-guy rightly feared that plavix would bleed me out. Where was the middle ground?

As they discussed my predicament, it was first thought it would be necessary to REcauterize the wound in my bowel. But what if this procedure merely enlarged the wound in my bowel and the new scab be washed out by the plavix? Could they then resection the bowel? And if they did so, would this procedure then bleed? Not an easy problem to solve.

And there were other difficulties. My hemoglobin count went down from my usual rosy 12-plus to a little over 8.0. Worse, my blood pressure -- usually 120 over 60 -- dropped like a shot-put. At one point in the midst of the crisis it was like 70 over 20.

Plus I inadvertently made things worse when they moved me from surgical recovery to a private room. I was light-headed. . .kept passing out whenever I raised my head. But I was experiencing pressure in my lower bowel. . .felt like I had to move my bowels.

Somehow I got myself super-wobbly onto the toilet. There I sat, perched on the throne, hunched over, elbows on knees, trying to keep my head from spinning. Bearing down, I felt the tell-tale squirt I remembered from expelling blood earlier.

But I'm ever the incurable optimist. I wanted absolute evidence. By now I was exhausted and light-headed, bent double over my thighs on the high stool. I turned sharply to the left over my thighs, reaching back to my right, the toilet tissue in my right hand. At that exquisite point of extension, my left elbow slid off my left thigh. I fell forward onto the tiled floor and felt my head explode into stars. I blacked out.

How long I lay there I can't determine. But when I woke up, I discovered my nose had bled, forming a big circle beneath my left cheek. My jaw was fiery pain. I had an immense goose-egg on my left temple. It felt like I had broken my cheek-bone and left eye-socket. My head was spinning. My left shoulder ached. I needed to throw up.

My head cleared enough for me to realize I was shut into the bathroom. I needed help. But that alarm-string hanging above toilet-paper roller was too high. Okay: don't panic. . .one thing at a time. . .deep breaths. . .collect some energy. . .open that door. . . slither out where someone might find me. I crawled a few feet to my right, reached up with my last ounce of energy and yanked down on the door handle. Big victory! The door popped open first try. Thank goodness! I was able to wriggle halfway through. I passed out again.

How long I lay there I have no idea. Next thing I knew, hands were all over me. I flew through the air and came down lightly onto a bed. And then it was like one of those hospital scenes in a movie where corridor lights fly by overhead.

I woke up sometime later in the ICU. Lotta bustling people, indistinct murmurs, busy hands all over me. . .like that. Friendly place. I passed out again.

When I awoke later, I was told I had been lucky: they had found me. They were now ramming me full of saline and anti-biotics and some concoction I was told would quiet my bowels and counteract my impulse to evacuate my bowels. or something like that. My mind wasn't completely clear. I had this big goose-egg on my left forehead. My jaw was broken, high up near the top of my ear. My left shoulder which had absorbed much of my fall, felt broken. But a series of scans discovered it wasn't. Nor was my neck. . .which felt injured. Tile-over-concrete floors are unforgiving. I had an excruciating head-ache. But: I would recover.

Or so they said.

And, in fact, I had been lucky. Had I fallen flat on my face, I'd have surely broken my nose and smashed my teeth to smithereens. . .and done my cheek-bones no good at all. Nevertheless, years of shaving have made me acutely aware that it would have been at least difficult to do much harm to this face. I felt glad I hadn't done even more harm.

I also felt stupid. Who goes to the hospital with serious difficulties AND MAKES THINGS WORSE? I felt as if I had flunked an IQ test.

I was not made aware of the REAL PROBLEM until the next morning. How to continue the plavix, preserve the stents, AND stop the bleeding? I had lost more blood.

But I'm home after eleven days. . .not bleeding now. I know it's likely I will be back to my OLD energetic self in a matter of weeks. Of course, I would much rather be back to my NEW energetic self . But at my advanced age, that's unlikely.


Still! If you think I've been a little UNlucky lately. . .consider this: about four days before this comedy of errors began, I had been called by our local blood bank. You see: I donate a pint of my blood at regular intervals. Mine is B+. They call me. Anyway, the Wednesday they called me I was crazy-busy with errands. Didn't make it in. Had I made it in that day -- as I had planned to -- I would have been THREE PINTS down instead of TWO. I call that MY good luck. Whoever needed my blood that day, might not have needed it as much as I did some four days later.

I'll soon be back to long walks, weight training, and yoga.
I'm feelin' younger every day. How 'boutchu?!