News from EAMC (!) Thursday Nov 6 2008
In this
issue:
Health update (another near death
experience ... I gotta stop doing this!)
In
other news
Profound wisdom from a voice of my
childhood
Health
update
Tuesday Viva and I went to UAB for
a follow-up CT scan. The tumor has shrunk in width by another 1.4cm; it's
down to about 9 cm across. That's still big, but smaller is better.
Unfortunately, something else went wrong as a set of dominoes fell
together.
Late Sunday night I began to
have a tummy ache and my pulse began to increase (it was 60 on Saturday, 90 or
so Sunday, and 125 at rest on Monday, quickly rising to 155 if I stood.)
When I complained of these symptoms at UAB they ran a battery of tests and
determined that I was severely anemic. My hemoglobin count was roughly
half of what it would be for a healthy man. That was Tuesday, and it kept
falling after that!
I think it's time
for me to stop experimenting with near death experiences. Wednesday Dr.
Graves admitted me to East Alabama Medical Center to treat the anemia. The
short story (in badly written layman's
terms):
- During my last hospital stay
I was given antibiotics.
- Antibiotics kill
bacteria.
- Some bacteria make Vitamin
K
- Vitamin K is important for blood
clotting
- When the steroids say to take them
with food, DON'T FORGET!
- If you're taking
blood thinners, forgetting to take food with your steroids, and you DON'T have
bacteria making vitamin K, then bad things can
happen.
For those who know what these
numbers mean: my INR (a measure of blood clotting time) was as high as 15 while
I was here. It's down to 1.9 now and that's where Dr. Graves wants to keep
it. My nurse last night said that she's never given so much blood to a
patient who was conscious. From about 5pm yesterday until 9:30 am this
morning I received 2 units of "fresh frozen" plasma (I still find that name
funny), an injection of vitamin K, and 4 units of red blood cells. A
stomach scan (EGD) showed some erosion (wrong term) of both the stomach and
the lower esophagus. I'll be returning later to EAMC for another scan to
biopsy a suspicious looking flap. (It would have been done today, but
hospital staff are very overloaded and needed blood analysis in the lab was
delayed until after my procedure was already done. Personnel shortages,
pressure to cut costs, etc., are issues that will have to be thought on very
carefully in the future.)
I expect to
return home tomorrow.
In other
news
Before the GI (gastro-intestinal)
bleeding episode I was feeling wonderful. Saturday morning my pulse was
between 59-65, I didn't even need to O2 tank for most of the morning. Adam
and I went to lunch together and had a good
time.
When I went in for the EGD there
was a lot of waiting, so I started to recite Galatians to myself for practice.
It takes about 22 minutes. The anesthetic hit just before the last
verse. When I woke up from procedure I looked at Viva and (I think) said,
"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.
There, done.!" I also remember Dr. Graves coming to see me, but I
don't remember a word she said, nor being taken back up to the floor. My
pulse is back in the 2 digit range, my chest is not pounding, and the only
dizziness I feel is what's expected from today's anesthesia.
Yay!
There have been many other
moments this week in which I found great humor, but they were all in a medical
setting and so many people may not appreciate my being explicit. I'll give
this hint about one of those moments: combine together suspected GI
bleeding, a determined nurse practitioner young enough to be my daughter, and me
feeling the urge to start singing "Check the poo!" from the Scrubs episode "My
Musical."
That should give you
enough to go on. (The nurse practitioner didn't know the song, so it was
just as well that I didn't
sing.)
Profound wisdom from a voice
of my childhood
A few weeks ago my friend
Sean came to visit me for a day - just before my last hospital visit.
After my last couple of newsletters, Sean's mom, who has known me since I
was 6, sent me this nugget of wisdom that explains the "Are you sure?" question
and it also says a lot about why our families remain
close.
Here is an old lady's view of
the battle of the sexes. Moms who tried to enforce gender neutrality were
chagrined to fine that girls still wanted to dress up and boys still wanted to
blow things up. Some things just are. Women whether we want to or not are
hardwired to look after people which does involve a degree of nagging. Men are
designed to be fixers even when some people (wives) do not welcome advice. The
best thing I have found about getting older is the ability to forgive people
including myself for being
human.
Thanks,
Mom!
I'll write again in a week.
This time I'll do my best to be healthier!
Posted: Thu - November 6, 2008 at 10:02 PM
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