It Might Get Messy

SHEEEEEEEIIIIIIT! Or “shite”, as my granduncle Henry, late of Belfast via Brooklyn, would have put it. Over the past few weeks I have been gutted, stitched up, gutted again, stitched up again, partially gutted again, partially stitched up again, leeched (I SWEAR), drugged, and set on the path, such as it is, to the rest of my life. I quickly found myself unable, for various physical and psychological reasons, to deal with weblogs and emails. So I’ve been in radio silence since things kicked off. I may be back in business now, with this specimen as the test-case weblog. Let’s pick up the narrative thread where I left it the night I tried to write about recovery from surgery.

Might Get Messy indeed. It would be damned hard to get much messier than it is right here and right now.  One shade or two more of “mess” and there won’t be much left to clean up, believe me. For the few moments I’ve been lucid this week, I’ve been terrified of writing this piece. This is because things are so much worse, and simultaneously so much better than when I posted a week ago, that I wasn’t at all sure what to report, and how and why. Still, I am strong enough now to begin getting this column out of arrears. 

For reasons that will clarify in the coming weeks, some aspect of the cyclical processes of being will be appropriate themes. On the other hand, so much happens on an hourly basis that it’s tough for me to do more than whine. But I owe more than that to the mystics who operate the Spiritual and Physical Realms. Hell, the observation I offered a couple years ago—that I can’t sleep when the universe bifurcates into 2 suites, one missing my corporeal self in error and one containing it in same—still pertains. Haven’t slept in more than a week, as the physics sorts itself out (and probably befuddles itself at my continued presence, given that I’ve now fought through 2 full follow-up procedures and at least one near-death experience with a pericardial catheter after my tongue and mouth surgery last Monday.

But let’s not start there. Let’s start with the best drink of water I’ve ever had. 

As an adolescent, I was an idiot. None of you are shocked to hear that, I understand. But I was more idiotic than you might suspect even of me. In particular, I was idiotic regarding winter sports. 

Back in the days when New Jersey had 4 seasons and public open space, we ice-skated and played ice-hockey with a barely subreligious fervor. The most intense risk levels associated with these behaviors were injuries from under-equipped amateurism and thin late-season outdoor ice on lakes and ponds. One year, it remained possible to play on Pompton Lake well into March (remembering that opening day of trout season was usually 1st or 2nd week April then). 

And play we did. One Sunday, we started in the morning and played deep into the afternoon. Nobody brought drinks or water. Our usual habit was to hit the convenience store at the downstream end of the lake by the dam. But, with the ice this thin, even stupid and oblivious teens could see that it wasn’t safe to make the run down the channel to get to the store. So we basically dehydrated over the course of the day.

About 4 o’clock, we all looked at each other. My parent’s house was relatively nearby, but the stock of teenager-friendly soft drinks was always spotty. Besides, we wanted to play one more period, for the unique experience of the late afternoon light.

So we did what any idiot adolescents would do. We hacked a hole in the ice and drank the cold, cold water directly from the lake. 

Well. I can still remember every detail of that drink. The water was clear, tasted clean, slightly algal, and on a parched throat was like morphine cutting into long-lasting pain. I drank liters and liters of lake water that afternoon. It was incredible, and that morphine analogy is hardly too strong for the quenching pleasure and physiological relief.

Mind you, we understood at least some of the risks we were subjecting ourselves to. The lake had long been closed to swimming due to sewage input and bacteria counts. The watershed even then was highly urbanized, street runoff and storm sewage was a high proportion of total flow. Hell, in summer when we’d violate the swimming ban, we’d come down with massive earaches and boils on legs and arms. And we were well aware of the industrial chemical inputs from the upstream manufacturing facility. 

But we went ahead and drank. Nobody was made directly ill from the incident, as far as I recall. But that can only go down to luck and youth, I suspect.

This is relevant because the tale of my hospitalization and the devastation wrought by my treatment (wait until you see some of the photos!) is a story of risk assessment and management in a complex situation under intense pressure. There are lessons here for all of us. And the teaching continues—despite the massive and radical therapies I’ve been subject to, and my present intensely weak and difficult condition, residual carcinomas or suspect carcinomas remain at several places in my body. These have to be factored into decision-making going forward, and soon. The cancers are aggressive, and prone to proliferate.

But we have a long way to go before we get to THAT discussion. Tune back in here every 2 or 3 days or so for the foreseeable future. Just recounting the adventures of my time in hospital is going to require multiple entries. Oh, plus I got photos of the leeches!

I am far behind on emails and thank-yous. I’ll get caught up asap. But for the moment, I’m going to concentrate on this record of my time in the belly of the medical system. Ever see the George C. Scott classic “Hospital”? I urge you to watch it as prequel to the coming entries in this blog. My love and thanks to you all for the good wishes, prayers, food for the family, the Power Point document, cards, emails, inquiries and calls. Once again I can’t tell you how important those were in getting me through weeks of darkness in the hospital. They gave me an edge of the pool to see and work towards even when I was sunk in the depths. Thank you all!!!