Relive and Relieve 3

Once again, I'm hoping that by exposing my most painful life experiences here in this blog, they will become a lesser part of my daily burden of stress, anxiety and self-doubt. Complex emotional issues aside, I'm grateful to at least have my health. But it came at a cost several years ago, when I found myself hospitalized following a car accident.

When I tell people that I spent the better part of two weeks hospitalized following an automobile accident, images of overturned cars, bloody asphalt, a medical helicopter transport and a full body cast come to mind. I was neither that lucky nor unlucky. The accident appeared to be a minor fender-bender on the Capital Beltway but unfortunately left me with a mysterious medical condition.

Gory details aside, I essentially had a kinked vein in my shoulder which led to bizarre swelling, deep pain and an unnatural skin hue in my arm. Doctors didn't really know what to do with me other than stick me with lots of needles. A crack team of doctors at a county hospital were split on whether or not I'd be "up and about in no time" or if my arm was to soon "shrivel up and rot like fresh fruit on a hot day."

I eventually wound up at Johns Hopkins Hospital. They're consistently rated one of the top medical campuses in the world and they're not shy about reminding you constantly. In fact, the sense from the doctors there is, "you're lucky that you're sick, because you got to come to our great hospital." The sense one gets from the nurses is more like, "we're understaffed, underpaid and the doctors treat us like crap. If you squeeze that call button, you better be dead."

The Hopkins doctors determined the only way to fix this problem with my arm was to strap it to a board (which in turn was strapped to the side of my body) and feed catheters into my arm until they came out my ass -- and subsequently fed back into my arm again. If this wasn't successful, they'd try cutting me open even further.

I was rolled into the Intensive Care Unit of Johns Hopkins Hospital following a lengthy catheterization procedure during which I had been only mildly sedated. A bed in the ICU at Hopkins Hospital is, needless to say, a step down from a suite at the Ritz Carlton. In fact, it's even a few steps further down from a cot in that little room at the end of the hall that has the trash chute and dirty mops in it.

A bed at the ICU is exactly that: a hospital bed surrounded by a shower curtain enclosure just big enough to fit the exact dimensions of your bed. And the curtain is just opaque enough as to only allow the passing silouehettes of nurses and doctors. The room is filled with a constant din of beeping, buzzing, groaning and the occasional "code." My neighbor, just a few inches to my right, had just had a triple hip replacement. He screamed in constant agony. "Kill me, please," came bellowing from his distressed voice 73 times per hour for 18 hours straight. He was sobbing only about half the time, though. Knowing that surgery was likely in my near future, this was not a comforting experience. I had tried to convince myself that surgery really can't be that bad and that pain medications will take care of everything. My bed-neighbor but those delusions quickly to rest.

I meanwhile lie in my hospital bed, arm strapped to a board, strapped to my side, unable to move. The ICU does not allow visitors. The nurses for some reason took kindly to me and allowed my fiancee to come visit for a little while. She convinced them to roll a TV into my curtained area. The TV made the curtain bulge out and it was struck throughout the night by passing "crash carts" and gurneys. The TV was eventually taken away and I was left to watch the shadows pass along the curtain.

I think was there for the better part of two days before I was finally taken to an intermediate care unit. Here I at least had a large room to share with only one other dieing person. This was an 87-year-old man without a lower jaw. I couldn't imagine what had just happened to him. I couldn't even bare to look at him. He probably thought the same things about me.

Since my condition was not improving, I was scheduled for surgery. In preparation for surgery, the doctors ordered a chest X-ray -- because nothing cures you faster than a dose of radiation delivered directly to your vital organs. A few moments later, in rolls the portable chest X-ray machine. But they go straight to my roommate. He's completely out of it as they prepare to "take some pictures." Only, I notice the technician is referring to him by my name after each shot. I finally call across the room and ask the tech to make sure he's got the right patient. Recognizing his mistake, he gets the pictures of me they need. I can only wonder what the doctors would have done to me had they seen the X-rays of my 87-year-old roommate, thinking they were mine.

Early the next morning, I'm awakened at some ungodly hour to be prepped for surgery. I'm rolled into the OR and surrounded by nurses. As they begin to administer the anesthesia, I'm told to count backwards from 10. I remember getting to 9.

I woke up from surgery with my father at my bedside. It was eerily reminiscent of all those mornings in high school he'd come to my room to drag me out of bed. Only this time he wasn't screaming at me and I was quite thrilled to be awake. He had a look of serious concern, since the doctors had said the surgery was not successful. I was soon taken away for another short procedure, after which the doctors were now more confident in saying I'd be "up and around in no time."

I was now due for another stint in the ICU. This time, my neighboring bedfellow was an elderly woman named Mrs. Norris. Mrs. Norris had just had her gall bladder, two kidney stones and Adam's apple removed. She was much quieter (or more nearly dead?) than my previous neighbor. The nurses seemed to be having difficulty waking her up.

"Mrs. Norris, can you hear me?" the nurses would shout at her.

"Muhh..." replied Mrs. Norris.

"Mrs. Norris, do you know where you are?"

"Muhh..."

"Do you know where you are, Mrs. Norris?" the nurses persisted in louder and louder tones.

"Mrs. Norris, are you awake? Mrs. Norris, who's the president? Do you know where you are, Mrs. Norris?"

This series of questions were repeated every five minutes until she started to come around.

She finally answered their questions: "Yes," "Taft," and "Cupcake," respectively.

I soon was transferred from the ICU to a semi-private room. Let me just say this. A semi-private room is the furthest thing from private. It is the most un-private place imaginable. So un-private that you get to hear every single bit of medical history about your roommate -- and vice versa.

My first roommate was a middle-aged African-American man. He looked pretty normal, but had just received news of his terminal condition. The doctors came in to talk to him about his situation. They drew the soundproof sheer curtain between our beds when they came in to ask him some additional questions about his bowels and sexual history. The questions consisted of various combinations of the words, "bleeding," "rectum" and "intercourse." His answers to these questions were positively astounding. No matter how much I turned up the volume on my TV, nothing could drown out this line of questioning.

The worst moment came a couple nights after my surgery when I was woken up by what was nothing short of an explosion. My roommate had soiled his bed. And by soiled, I literally mean some ungodly foul shit. The nurses rushed in, followed by a team of orderlies and the 3rd Armed Infantry. The orderlies donned their hazmat suits and made quick work of removing my roommate's sheets and gown and incinerating them.

I wasn't in great shape myself. In order to prevent blood clots in my legs after being in bed for so long, I was fitted with a pair of inflatable pants. These weren't like MC Hammer pants. These were essentially plastic bags attached to a leaf blower. Every two minutes the blower would kick on for a few seconds and the bags would inflate, squeezing my legs. At night, I woke up every two minutes thinking someone was sitting on me.

I'd now like to take this opportunity to point out that morphine doesn't do crap. The excruciating pain of post-surgery was no match for narcotics. You get a little button to press whenever you feel pain. Pressing the button releases a specified dose of morphine. I pushed that button so many times, you'd think I was playing Space Invaders. None the less, I was really pissed when they took it away and made me get out of bed.

Walking sucked at first. I had all kinds of things hooked up to me and hanging off my body. But being young and quick to heal, I was moving little by little after a couple days. Since I was receiving medication that required constant monitoring, I spent an additional week in the hospital after my surgery. By the end of that week, I was walking pretty well. At no point during this ordeal, did I ever really lose my faculties. I had been fully aware of everything that had been going on. And I was now completely aware of the fact that I was stuck in that goddam hospital with no where to go. I'd take my little IV pole, make sure my gown was tied securely behind my rear, and go for walks around the ward. I'd do laps. Nurses would give me strange looks after passing their station for the 35th time. Eventually they'd ask me to make runs to the vending machine, deliver mail and take vital signs from another patient.

During the course of those several days walking the wards, I'd peek into rooms and see truly tragic cases. Johns Hopkins Hospital gets some of the sickest and most desperate patients. I now realize that Mr. Triple-Hip-Replacement, Mr. No-Jaw and Mr. Explosive-Defecator are probably no longer with us. (I hear Mrs. Norris is doing great, however.) While this ordeal really sucked for me, I was able to walk out on my own power. No matter how bad you think you've got it, a place like Johns Hopkins Hospital will remind you that there's always someone else that has it worse. And that all the other stresses of life are minor in comparisson.