Alive and...... Well?

I am back from the hospital again, and very glad to be out of there, and even more glad to be home. I feel good, am recovering well and as long as the antibiotics continue to work, all is wonderful.

I could easily say that this was the scariest medical thing I have been through. It doesn't compare to the throat cancer operation, in that I knew up front that it was a life changing event and didn't know what life was going to be afterwards, but from a fear factor, this was way up there.

Last year, there was a long time pool player here, that went to his doctor because of an ingrown toenail. It got infected and he went in to have a procedure done to it, The toe got worse, they amputated it, he got a super bug infection in the hospital, developed heart trouble, and to make a long story short, within two weeks, he was dead from 'medical treatment'.

There were a couple of times this week in the hospital that I thought I was going down that same path - and fast...

As promised, this entry will describe all the medical 'fun' that I have been having over the past 6 weeks. And, in order to discuss it all, I thought I would use the chart that my doctor drew to explain it all to Pam and I. So, here is the chart showing the three options I had to choose from...

It all started on 12/2 when I went in for a scheduled Aortic Aneurysm stent procedure. The stent was the little pair of pants that fit into the parts to the left of the 2 and 3 in the chart. with the top part of the pants in the 2 area and the legs going down in the two areas with the arrows below. That procedure was scheduled for overnight and went well. Prior to the operation, I had a bunch of testing done and a couple of CT scans so that the doctor and the stent company could see the area being stented and get the correct size and type of stents for my specific needs.

I was recovering and about two weeks later, I was walking about 2 blocks and almost couldn't make it. I wasn't even breathing hard and my left thigh felt like I had ran a marathon. So, I called the surgeon and he had me come in. He checked me out and sent me over to the hospital for two afternoon's of tests. The problem was that my artery seemed to be too bent and the left leg of the little pants stent got kinked in the arrowed area by the '3' and was blocking off the flow of blood to my left leg. I am not sure why they didn't figure that all out when they were sizing and typing the stent, but...

The surgeon's nurse informed me that it needed to be taken care off and they would get right on it.... as soon as the doctor returned from his vacation on 1/5. I was also to take an aspirin just in case of any clots in the mean time. So, the doctor is gone and there is no one else in the area that can spell 'stent'. At that point, I could walk about 40 feet and then had to stop and rest.

It was getting progressively worse daily to the point that I could only walk like 10 feet before it starts hurting. So, I am basically confined to the down stairs of the house and my doctor won’t be back until another week to fix it.

I called my surgeon’s office and was referred to his backup while he is on Vacation. I ran this all down to his nurse and she talked to the doctor and I guess he read my surgeon’s files. And, the bottom line is that I was told to walk, even if it hurts so I won’t get clots until my surgeon gets back and can do something to fix it. I was told that they were going to go in and replace the stent leg with a heavier one that wouldn’t kink due to the artery bends.

I was really having a difficult time with walk even it if hurts, because the hurt is from the leg not getting enough oxygen and blood. And, I have no idea what walking is going to do about clots. At this point, I am very confused and frustrated.

Then, the 'big fun' started. I started getting what seemed like food poisoning. I had the runs and was throwing up, just like being in Mexico. It was over in 24 hrs. Then, I felt sorta OK, for a day or so, then another 24 hr bout with the dreaded runs and throwing up act. then another day or two of recovering. All the while my leg was getting worse and I was basically confined to a room or so.

Then on Saturday morning, I was at the computer after not being able to sleep for a couple of days. I dumped his pile of parts on the floor, and bent over to pick them up for about 30 sec. When I lifted back up, I realized that now all circulation had been cut off from my leg. Within, a couple of minutes, it was totally non-functional. I tried a number of things to try and get it functioning again, but it was totally numb - a Very weird feeling. So, after waiting a few minutes to see if it would recover, I woke up Pam and had her call 911. And, shortly thereafter, I was in an ambulance and Pam was following in the Jeep.

After the usual check in stuff, I was getting a CT Scan and the hospital had tracked down my surgeon who just got back from his vacation. I was checked in and the doctor came in and drew the diagram showing my options.

The first option was to do what they were going to do at first. That was replacing the kinked leg of the stent with a new and stronger one. That is the area that is all marked out with the little squiggly line going down it. The squiggly line is the stent and the marked out area is all a big blood clot that had formed and was what was causing the progressively worse blockage. The doctor said that they could still do the stent leg replacement option, but will all the blood clot that had now formed, it could have more problems. I am wondering why he hadn't thought of that before he left on his vacation...

The second option was going in, though the front of my abdomen, like in the old days and that would be a major surgery and a very long recovery. So, that was 'X'ed out as option #2.

Then, he came up with the third option. That was to basically leave the stent in there, with the blood clot and do a Femoral bypass, AKA Fem-Fem bypass down below the whole stent area. This allowed the left leg to be fed by the right leg. as shown by the lower quarter of the diagram, with the 'X's marking the spots. That seemed to be the way to go so that became the plan. A couple of hours later, I was being operated on...

The operation went well and I was back in my room. Pam was there and did a great job of managing it all and keeping all going smooth throughout the night.

Then all the big 'fun' started again, complicated by the surgery recovery. This time I was very sick and it ended up lasting almost 3 days, in which I got about 4 hrs sleep total. They kept doing other things and nothing was working. I was just getting worse by the hour.

We called in another doctor to try and deal with the problem and he thought it was some type of hospital super bug, called a C-Stat, I think, but all the lab tests said I didn't have it. He was going to do a complete scope job from both ends but my surgeon talked him out of it, and I was put on antibiotics for it. I was getting 3-4 shots every hour or two for days. I cannot guess how much medicine I had put in my IVs.

After the third day, I had coughed and gagged so hard, that when I woke up, I have these heavy pains in my shoulders, chest and back. I told the nurses and they sorta freaked out. My main nurse, Jared, was a very cool guy. He was the most logical and in charge person there. When I started seeing him freaking out, I knew this was not good. I really thought I was going down with all of this, remembering the story about the pool player. That was the first day that Pam hadn't stayed there over night as I now had a roommate. She was called about 6am and during the next few hours, it was really crazy. But, they finally figured out that it was not a heart attack.

From there, the antibiotics still seem to be working and my body is recovering from all the abuse. I didn't eat anything for 3 days or sleep about the same time and had a lot to recover from. They kept me another day and finally released me yesterday. And, as long as the dreaded super bug stays away, I will recover from all this. I guess all the antibiotics that they usually use for operations, kills off all the other bacterias but this super bug and then it just goes crazy and it has developed immunity to most all of the antibiotics.

I wanted to get this all written down while it was still 'fresh', as I really don't want to remember it again for a long while...

I must say that Pam was wonderful throughout all of this ordeal. I cannot begin to say enough about all that she as been through and has taken upon herself to manage all the time this was going on. She stayed there in a chair for nights and was constantly way beyond what I would have expected anyone to do.

I need to rest now...