It Might Get Messy

You know that scene in Johnny Mnemonic when J-Bone introduces Jones-the-hacker-dolphin saying “the Navy got him wired up for hard encryption”? Well, Dr. H got me wired up for bodily fluids. I got two drains “out” and one drain “in”. Oh, and when I woke up from the anesthesia, I was catheterized. And I’m thinking, “what the hell?!”


But let’s not start there. Let’s start with the overnight technician. In the GBMC hospital, the nurses and technicians write their name and 4 digit cell number on a big white board over your bed with every shift change. My tech was Maria, a tough, take-no-prisoners Cuban woman, early 60s, I’m guessing. I’m also guessing she could have hammered rum with Hemingway all night then gone out at dawn to wrestle 700 pound marlin without batting a dramamine. She came on around 8 o’clock, came in to look me over and introduce herself, and immediately decided I was “Pops”. Officially. For the whole night. I’m 58, BTW.


Back to that catheter. Doctor H, anticipating that it was going to make me crazy, left instructions that we could remove it at midnight, but apparently there was some sort of urine volume threshold involved. The nurses insisted we couldn’t pull the catheter until they had 300 ml. I was too fuzzy brained to ask, but, given that the basic plumbing—kidneys, bladder—is the same whether the urine is passing via catheter or penis, why would there be a volume delta?


Anyway. Via some desperate slurping of ice water and ice chips, I made my vigorish. Technician Maria comes in and prepares to remove the catheter. I say “this is gonna hurt, isn’t it?” And she says “no, no. I pull, you say ‘ouch’, and it’s over.”


Trust me. It hurt. 


After the catheter contretemps, my head cleared. And when the nurse came in to give me a heparin shot, I asked why—given that I was bleeding at the time rather profusely through massive incisions. She said—“oh. That’s a good question. It’s to prevent blood clots in your legs. But you’re not going to get blood clots in your legs, are you?” We skipped the heparin. 


Also worth introducing is the phlebotomist who came in to get my morning labs. She was seriously harried by 0930 hrs. But still smiling. “Man, they got me rockin’ and rollin’ this mornin’, Sugar” she says (obviously hadn’t met Maria). “Don’t tell anybody, but I’m thinkin’ of going and sittin’ in the bathroom for a while. How about that?!” I told her that’s where I usually hide. She liked that. 


Anyway, here’s the big finish for today.


It might get messy. But it probably won’t get messier. All the biopsies came back clean. I am, at the moment, cancer-free!


Check back here on the weekend. I’ll put some photos of the suture lines up. Those of you with weak stomachs will have to turn away!