Three Surgeries & A Month in Hospital

Alright, this is a true-story, one that happened to me over the last few weeks. You could label it a number of ways, but the overarching theme is pain. And it involves a number of characters, but the main character is undoubtedly Frank (aka “The Culprit”, or in a more physically correct description: a stone in my intestines). Apparently, stones occur in intestines all the time, moving around, clumping together with all the material floating around. In this case, Frank got dislodged in my appendix, and as you might have guessed, it caused an appendicitis, an inflammation of this rather useless piece of evolutionary leftover.

The pain started diffusely, and for a few days, I joked around that “I have food poisoning without the nausea” that usually goes along with it. Then, on a beautiful Saturday morning, April 6, I was rushed to the ER. Doctors here, doctors there, but ultimately nobody made the call to hook me up with painkillers. After swallowing half a liter of contrast agent, I was wheeled into the CT-scan area, where they shot beautiful pictures of my abdomen, at 15$ a pop. The pain grew stronger and stronger, until I finally arrived at a state that called for morphine. At this time, yet another doctor examined me, tapping gently, then more forcefully on my kidneys. “Yeah, that hurts!”, and in the next split-second I started to reel over the railing of my bed, emptying my stomach and covering the floor with neon-yellow liquid (Ah, that’s how contrast agent looks like). “Wow, that was powerful.”

“Hey, what more did they need to confirm that I had appendicitis ?” Apparently, I was now high enough on their list, so that they got me ready for the operating room: Please strip down all your clothes, jump into the baby-boy blue hospital gown and get carted away. A big black nurse, trying to calm my fears of anesthesia (Did I ever say that I am afraid? I am not. After all, my mom’s an anesthesiologist herself), she started to place various brightly colored electrodes onto my chest, while remarking in her southern drawl “Oh boy, look at that luscious chest hair.” Ew, I can’t believe she said that.

If you have ever been fully anesthetized, you know the game. You are looking onto the ceiling or into the bright operating room lights, while nurses and doctors dressed in light-blue hospital garb busily scurry around. The anesthesiologist asks you to inhale deeply, and you start counting, trying to stay awake as long as possible. Yet you always fall asleep faster than you can feel tired. I guess you can never win at this game.

Anyway, the surgery was successful in that it removed the appendix. However, nobody knew at this point about Frank, and that the appendicitis was his evil doing. Within three days of the surgery, the upbeat cohort of resident doctors deemed me fit enough to recover at home. Wishful thinking and big mistake! As soon as I was home, and as soon as I had eaten dinner, a single lonely yoghurt, my stomach and my intestines started to rebel. They weren’t simply awake enough to do anything, except sit there and do nothing. Obviously, I had to learn much about the long-term effects of anesthesia. The 2 am visit to the ER taught me also another thing: If you are admitted to the ER, and you are discharged within 23 hours, it doesn’t count as emergency and you will have to pay a 30$ co-payment. If they’ll keep you for longer, it is considered an emergency and you won’t pay anything out of your pocket. Strange, not?

Fast-forward. Ten days after the surgery, Frank made itself heard again. An infection had grown around the stone, in effect mechanically blocking my intestines. That’s not good. And io, pain was flashing through my body, forcing out the beautiful argentine steak I had just consumed hours earlier. Fever and chills, only interrupted by prayers to the porcelain god. Back in the ER, I faced the usual spiel of doctors running around, diagnosing around, but unable to give me painkillers until the next doctor had his shot at diagnosing around. How do you relief the pain from an obstructed bowel? You shove a clear plastic tube into the right nostril of your nose, have it go through your throat into the stomach, and have it empty your stomach. Beyond the nosebleed, this one was truly a relief, quickly reducing the pressure on my intestines. In retrospect, the gagging induced by the tube was really nasty. I still remember trying to tilt my head to make the tube move away from my tonsils. After a day of suction, and literally an empty stomach, I was given the honor of CT-scan number 4. Ha, what do you think showed up? Frank, the stone.

Before I go on, let me briefly muse on the virtues of painkillers. Pain is tremendously affecting the quality of your life. Persistent strong pain can drive you nuts, make you cry, and make you wish you weren’t here. People see you lying around, maybe even moving around during the ultimate recovery, but what they can’t see is the pain that accompanies you all day and all night long. After being in the hospital with so much pain, I feel truly sorry for all of those with constant arthritic pain, and I am much more adamant about giving terminally ill patients the benefits of a painfree stay. Ok, enough of that.

According to the doctors, this second surgery should be an easy one: “We know exactly where the stone is, we’re just going to go in and remove it.” Without much alternative, I encouraged the surgeon to “do your deeds”. Back to the OR, back to full anesthesia, back to a couple more IV-lines. I was rolled in at 1.15 pm EST. When I slowly awoke from my slumber, trying to orient myself, my eyes glanced at the clock, which now showed 5.15 pm. “What had happened, why did it take so long?” “Something must have gone wrong”, I knew, way before the doctors ordered another CT-scan. “Mr. Iserloh, we have good news and bad news.” The good news was that the infection had been successfully drained. The bad news concerned Frank, who was still hiding in my bowel (now on the left side). They hadn’t removed the stone, or weren’t able to remove the stone! Either way, we were now looking at surgery #3, 35000 dollars and counting. Ka-ching. And this time, the heat was on: the surgeon knew he’d better retrieve the stone, because this was going to be his last chance. Going into the OR, I was now definitely the pro, excelling at the usual spiel, “no, I don’t have dentures”, “no, no known allergies”, “yes, I can eat shellfish”, “no, I am not afraid of anesthesia”.

Waking up once more in the recovery room, I was glad to notice the ticking wall clock, just 2 hours after going in. “Must mean that this surgery went well.” Back in my hospital room, I started a conversation with my neighbor, yet another one. When you are hospitalized for the first time, you’re mainly concerned with your pain, and with all the annoying sounds that make it impossible for you to find true rest. Bleeping phones, chatting people, discoursing nurses, throbbing IV-pumps, blaring emergency signals. Every six hours new intravenous antibiotics, every four hours vital signs. Despite the ear-plugs and the blindfolds, I was still unable to shut out the outside world from my dreams.

Then, as you gradually adjust to the humming rhythm of hospital life, and as your social engagements slow down and your visitors stop coming, you recognize the virtues of talking to your fellow patients. Old and young, male and female, black and white, it doesn’t matter as long as they have something to tell. And my roommate certainly had many stories to tell. A New Yorker for all his life, he was still playing baseball at 69. Despite his age, he was quick to get out of bed, and out of the hospital. “Hey, young guy, get out of bed and get moving” is what he would remark to me. “I can’t, I am in pain”, I would reply, yet I knew I better get moving.

Eventually, I did and I left the month of pain behind.