Dougie's Big Adventure at the Hospital or . . .

 

 . . . Sorry, Too Much Time on My Hands

“Have you pee’d today, Mr Pederson? (she pronounced it “PETERson”) asked the nice nurse.   Me, “No.” “Have you farted yet, Mr Pederson?” asked the kindly nurse’s aide. Me, indignantly “No, I have not passed flatus!”

Welcome to potty training, age 73. And welcome to recovery from surgery.

Recently (Jul 28th) I had a  major and fairly complex surgery on my lower back. I used to joke that what I lacked above the shoulders I made up for below them. Ooops, not so much anymore. But allow me to back up to the beginning of this tale of woe.

About a year and a half ago I started gimping around with some stupid pains in my right leg. Luckily, since it happened in FL, nobody actually noticed given all the other geezers gimping around. So like any proud guy . . . I ignored it. 

But not for long. Finally, just to make Mrs Dear Leader happy, I visited her FL chiropractor. (The gall of her, getting mad at me for complaining but not doing anything about it - women! Besides, why DOES she have a handsome young chiropractor in FL anyway? Hmmm.) Anyway, X-ray says blah blah blah, L4-L5, blah blah blah - that will be $150. O-kay, thanks. I shall take it under advisement but I have 9:00 tee time.

Well, we get back to Twin Cities and I'm starting to think I might actually have a problem. I go to a neurologist, have an MRI and he says blah blah blah, L4-L5, blah blah blah - that will be $2000. O-kay, so what do I do? Should I cancel my tee time? (Nahhh.)

So here's the deal, options are: physical therapy, spinal injection or surgery. I decided the spinal injection first. They sound fun; poking a thread-sized needle into a thread-sized nerve in your spinal column - cool. Anyway, unpleasant but helpful - gotta couple more months of golf out of the first one but second one not so much.

Then, just to tidy up while postponing the inevitable, I did physical therapy. PT is a very good idea - core strengthening is really important for a powerful golf swing. It didn't really do much for the pain and I only got another month or so of golf but on the plus side I do look like this old guy so I got that going for me. (Of course now neighborhood husbands don't me go outside without a shirt on - sheesh.)

So like most (guy) patients I fought the notion that I would need to go under the knife. Sort of like the knight in Monty Python’s “Holy Grail” who gets all his appendages chopped off and claims it’s just a flesh wound, I too denied that I had THAT kind of problem. I hemmed and hawed, talked to a couple good surgeons - blah blah blah, L4-L5 blah blah blah - that will be $170,000 - Mein Gott in Himmel! Anyway . . . here I am and a what journey it's been.

Having never had surgery (if you don’t count the one that stops babys from happening - and which is yet another procedure that requires dropping any pretense of modesty) all I had to go on was the reassuring voices of friends who had had the same surgery: “OMG, the recovery is so awful, you’re going wish you had died!” “Geez, the pain is like child birth” (not sure how he knew that.) Finally, “Wow, the drugs are really wonderf . . z z.” Sadly, only the first two matter.

With those grim images in my brain I went ahead anyway – the stupid leg pain was really starting to affect my backswing. (As the lovely Mrs Dear Leader would say, “Does everything in life have to relate to golf?” Silly woman, yes, of course!)

So, pre-surgery physical – check. Covid test (negative) – check. Confirmed insurance coverage and/or papers assigning custody of oldest child to the doctor – check. (Sorry, kiddo, but I’m sure you want your dad to golf again, right?)

Day of surgery, one simple job: remember your birthdate because you will be required to repeat it 1,021 times. (Even then I still wasn’t sure towards the end.) My last memory of actual surgery was the very kind anesthesiologist waltzing in asking how we were all doing. I apparently had been entertaining her assistants because when I said, “We’re having a gas!” they and I laughed. 

She quickly put me under. (I guess she’d heard that one before.)

Hours, days, weeks later? Who knows but I woke up in some boring room with a bunch of other stiffs lying around. I use the term advisedly but I guess it wasn’t the morgue because they finally pushed me to my room.

That’s when the fun really begins! IV’s, catheters, drain tubes, monitors - it’s like the scene in “The Right Stuff” when the bold astronauts look like buffoons with tubes stuck in every orifice. Modesty? Pride? Ha, I spit on them! Oh yeah, and I walked that very same evening – if you call staggering in the halls for 5 minutes dragging hardware around walking. Hey, time to go home yet?

Two days later - after 2 nights of being awakened every two hours for drugs, to check vitals or just for the hell of it - I did. I had spent several hours of intensive training (okay, 15 min’s) practicing rolling over in bed, getting in and out of the shower, the toilet and a car. Oh yeah, and how to put on underpants without bending over - very handy! Anyway, they said I was the fastest study ever (but I think they say that to everyone given my inability to remember which foot goes first, the good one or the bad one, when going up and down stairs.) Then, after apparently purchasing a walker I never used (and still haven’t) and a boat load of drugs I do use, I was sent home. Yes, yes, I had pee’d and passed flatus too. (No need to dwell on bodily functions.)

The days are pretty much the same at home as at the hospital except for the décor – and having a loving care giver take care of things. I kid you not, it’s hard to imagine going through this alone. In fact, impossible. Sure, I’m a  wonderful, easy going, low maintenance kind of guy . . .  Dear, you know I like my bologna sandwich cut corner to corner not crosswise! And where's the Miracle Whip?! Sorry, where was I? Oh, yes. So I owe Mrs. D L a lot and if she ever needs this kind of help I will spare no expense to find someone to provide it! 

Speaking of recovery, it's nice of folks to keep in touch with me especially my kids. I mean we talk (well, text)  pretty often but this is kinda different, they are actually checking up on me and that feels good. Of course it's not like I expect them to help change my Depends (yet) but still it's nice.

Then there are my so called "neighborhood buddies." Ah yes, always ready with wise counsel and help. To keep my spirits up they even created all sorts of  (allegedly) humorous gifs with my face inserted. Sure, most of them make fun of my shuffling walk and disheveled look but mockery is good, it proves they love me, right? Right?!

Executive Committee - Thomas Ave MENSA Club

Clearly, people you can depend on for good advice (cue "Dueling Banjos")

So here we are. You can see a little more progress everyday and that’s all it takes with us silly, optimistic humans. I had one horrific night early in the process when we somehow got behind the power curve on pain killer - something I can assure that you will only let happen once! It's a minimum 3 month recovery so I'm by no means done with it yet but smooth-ish sailing so far.

I gotta mention the clinic staff at Twin Cities Spine and at Abbott NW hospital. Companies - especially health care companies - all claim they care about customer service but these folks actually mean it. Absolutely the best.

Finally, there's this regarding my surgeon. Ever notice that everyone always says they had the best doctor this, the best surgeon that - yada, yada, yada? That’s impossible, of course, everybody can't have the the same procedure with a different doctor and still have the best one - duh! Besides someone had to finish last in every med school class too so there is that.  But I digress. All I know is my guy, Doctor T, put in a full day of surgery and rounds – and he’s no spring chicken - then stopped by with the newspaper that evening and chatted because he remembered I had told him I don’t sleep well unless I read the funnies last thing at night. Try to top that! As a bonus he's a damn fine surgeon. (Of course in some countries, for the kind of money this cost, I could have purchased my very own surgeon - and they would throw in the walker.)

Oh yeah, in case you're curious, all my original symptoms and pains are gone.

So that's my story. What does it all mean?  Well, like so many things in life, perhaps not much. I told my good friend, who shall remain anonymous, (Hint: but lives in Vegas) that I was really bored sitting around recovering. He thought that it would be a great idea to fill my time writing about it and then inflict it on others so you can blame him for this. (With ideas like that it's a wonder he has any friends.)

But maybe there is a morale to the story after all though. If this was 100 yrs or even 50 years ago good old Dougie would probably have had to accept living in pain the rest of his life. I have often said that my generation is the luckiest in the history of the world. That said, then I am the luckiest guy I have ever met or heard of!

Anyway, in the end, life really is like golf . . . 

 . . . Expensive , Time Consuming and Frustrating - so enjoy it when you can!

 Cabo del Sol - Ocean Course   #6

FORE! (hopefully in 3 months)

Recovery Music

Babys    Back on my Feet Again