doctors

Monday’s Rune: A passing moment of gloom

 

More Time, Please

It was one of those warm and humid days.
When it’s like that in LA, it is
miserably smoggy, but here
it is just moody and gloomy—no rain—
in the mid-seventies, like me.

Drove and hour to Temple, Texas,
for tests (the answers to which I thought I knew)
and to see a new PA-doc
and then to get gas
and drive another hour back home.

It’s boring sitting and waiting,
but since this is a hospital, boring and routine are good.
No, “I’m sorry, Mister Bill, but … ‘oh, no’.”

I saw nicely dressed police or correctional officers escorting
a mildly overweight bald man in an orange jump suit
and fake shoes
with handcuffs in the front,
all making it hard for others to not stare and wonder.
It was not so boring thinking about that.

Got an obit email that morning.
Another high school classmate had died
(they say he passed to be euphemistic
as though he just kept driving).
Patrick Murphy (Murph)
was an artist and philosopher
of Irish descent, and a Vietnam War vet.
His obituary was more interesting than most.

Anyway, I shall not be
characteristically pointing out problems or deficiencies today
because Murph is dead, and I am not. It’s all good, thanks.
So, I’ll just sit here trying to remember him
from art class, I think,
and be happily bored on a gloomy day
in a hospital clinic waiting area
in Temple, fucking, Texas.

Looking both ways at the days of gloom and doom.
Mind the gaps in loose cuffs and I wonder who wipes his butt.

Click the photo of Robin Williams and Matt Damon to watch this scene from the movie, Good Will Hunting.

 

Monday’s Rune: Weekends

 

Saturday Morning Doctor

Monday or Tuesday is
the time to be sick.
Those same days are best
for having hospital
admitted surgeries.

Weekend emergency rooms can
get crowded and are often
staffed for far fewer sick people
but what are you gunna do?

Friday night I knew. Damn!
Saturday morning I was
off to an urgent care clinic,
a relatively new ubiquitous
phenomenon in the health care business,
because I was not sick enough
for an ER, and no routine
doctor care would be available
until Monday, if then.

The nice, large, waiting room had maybe
five people, not all patients,
queued up as walk-ins,
first come, first served, maybe.

“Have a seat, Mister Bill. Someone
will be with you in about three hours.”
Urgent? Right.

I read, wrote, and people watched.
Moms with kids had long waits too.
A lady using a walker was whining
and moaning, kind of lost.

But she was soon packed off to an ER by EMS.

It was a classic civilian version
of hurry up and wait. Yet,
I confess to enjoying the sights,
people watching, and the quiet reading time.

Three hours later
I was off to pick up a script.

Look both ways on weekends for doctors at the beach.
Mind the gaps when you clean-catch into the cup.

My favorite doctor song.

 

Tuesday Rune: Health

Nine on Tuesday

It’s nine o’clock on a Tuesday.
The patients just shuffle in
with oxygen tanks and walkers,
some in wheelchairs, hoping
for something better
for medical science
to keep them in one piece
to keep us alive and well.

Now, for some, is the time
of politics over health,
religion over medicine,
conspiracy over science.

I look around
and I say to myself,
man, what are you doing here?

It’s nine in the morning
and I am just one
of these people.
Another old fart
or flatulentess
getting a test to tell us
what we already know.

Some day this shit’s
gunna kill us,
if our own stupidity
and pride
fail to do it first.

It’s a lovely, sunny, cool day
here in Temple, Texas,
for wondering, Bill,
what are we doing here?

So, we sit and wait,
neither early nor late,
to have some clinician guide
say it has not gone away.
“If you stroke out,
give us a call, and
have a nice day.”

Look both ways.
Understand life backward but live it forward for as long as you can.
Mind the gaps for the fountain of youth, the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, and life everlasting. Amen.

dVerse Prosery: Bombarded

Say What?

The doctor’s face was serious as she cut each stitch.

I joked with her. She was quiet.

Then she said, “There! That part’s done.” I caught on—that part?

She frowned, “I wondered why the pathology report took so long.”

I asked, “What are you talking about?”

She said, “The report said the cyst was undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s cancer, Bill. We made an appointment with oncology. There’s nothing more we can do. Good luck. I’m so sorry.”

I thought she would cry. I asked, “Can you please say what it is again.”

She repeated the diagnosis.

I said, “I am bombarded yet I stand.”

She looked at me, puzzled.

I said, “It’s from a poem. I often wondered how you folks handled this.”

“They will give you all that information on the way out. Good luck.”

 

Look both ways because life if full of surprises.
Mind the gaps.
Thank medical science and live every day with gratitude.

Click on the image to link with dVerse.

Gratitude

GMany people have found that journaling and being grateful are useful methods to feel better and to enjoy life more. Grateful people seem to be happier. I prefer to be happy, so it follows that I want to be grateful. I will not discuss journaling since I don’t, but I admit that I should. Maybe this blog is kind of like that. I don’t make gratitude lists, but I could easily. I know many happy souls that do.

Last week, I had a medical procedure. It is not new to me. I inherited what I refer to as bad plumbing from my father. He called it poor circulation. Medical folks call it arteriosclerosis. I am not grateful for it. My doctors tell me that I am just ‘one of those people.’ Anyway, I have had this before. They’ve run things up into arteries from my wrists through both arms and into my heart. Years ago, I had stents inserted into my iliac arteries through my groin to help with circulation in my legs. Last week we again had to venture in at my groin. With all of these, I was awake so I could joke with my doctor and tell him how I was doing. As he tried to find my artery and his fingers pressed into the spot between my groin and leg, I let out a moan. He asked me if that was pain, or was I ticklish. I am very ticklish and I was also very stoned thanks to the happy drugs the wonderful nurses slipped into my IV. I already had four stents. These were numbers five and six. It took about two hours and I was off to my hospital room for the night. Not my best night, as it happened.

At that point, I had one order: “Don’t move!” I had to be (lie or lay?) flat on my back until told I could move. From my chest down, I was not to move a muscle, not roll to my side, not lift my knee, not bend my leg, nothing. This is to prevent bleeding. Until blood clotting improves, the doctor left a sheath, or tube, in my artery that the nurses would remove after checking on my clotting factor. Let me help with time.

I got to the hospital about 1:00 PM and was placed on a bed until called to the OR (Cath Lab) at about 5:00 PM. It was supposed to start at 3:00, but there was an emergency. From the time I got there (5:00), I was flat on my back for the next 14 hours. After the procedure, which took two hours, at 7:00 PM, I was in my room. The nursing team transferred this old gnome’s body by sliding me on my back twice. By 11:00 PM I was in miserable pain caused by not moving – as blood just pools with gravity. But there was one more problem. They kept pumping fluids into me, which means that eventually, that bodily function had to….well, function. I had to pee.

The last time I peed from a position flat on my back I was wearing diapers, or should have been. Since pressure was going to be applied to my groin, I had to let it out. But how? I asked the nurse how and suggested rolling on my side. “No, Mr. Bill. You will need to urinate into the container while not moving.” I protested, “That’s impossible. That will never work.” She smiled at me and said, “Let’s just have positive thoughts, shall we?” And then, like I needed extra motivation, she tells me, “If you can’t go, we will just have to insert a catheter. So do your best.” Uh, oh.

Several years ago someone stuck one of those things in me. I’m sure was an old garden hose. Back then, a male nurse (jokingly) informed me that they have a lady whose husband left her for a younger woman put them in. She is angry with all men for what that guy did to her, and she exacts revenge upon those of us who are so equipped. I recalled the pain of that experience and how it was many days later, before I could pee again without pain (Stephen King, are you listening?).

thank-you-gratitudeIn less than two minutes I had filled the plastic jug to the brim without moving an inch. I handed to the nurse with a smile and asked her to keep that catheter thingy away from me. She smiled, let out a mildly sinister chuckle. Then she said, “See what positive thoughts can do.”

Finally, at about two in the morning, they managed to remove the tube from my artery with virtually no bleeding. That’s because the nurses maintained pressure on the wound for 25+ minutes. Then the clock started for a minimum of another four hours on my back.

I am grateful for all the nurses, doctors, techs, staff, cleaning crews, medical technology folks who manufacture the stents, the drugs, the plastic jugs, and all that they have done for me. I am grateful for my wife for being there and barking orders when the nurse was off dealing with other snarcastic old farts. I feel wonderful, my heart is doing great, and I am back to normal. Thank you.