BLOBBY'S BLOG

Last Night 15 Years Ago a DJ Morty Saved My Life

I always remember my friend's birthdays. I can't say I'm always really good about doing anything about it - other than maybe sending e-cards. Morty's birthday I always remember. If for nothing else (and this is not a nothing!), but he had a big hand in saving my life the night of his birthday 15 years ago.

I'd say it started the day before, but it really started earlier in the month. I had gone home to see my parents and wasn't feeling really well. Just a weird burning in my stomach area. Since I had an ulcer by the time I had hit 24 or so, I didn't think much of it. Took some antacids with out much luck. It ebbed eventually. A week later I got my semi-annual sinus infection and went on antibiotics.

The day before Morty's birthday I attended a reception thrown by the President of Ohio State and ate some unknown hors d'ourves, but not many because I was meeting a few friends for lobster, as one of them had brought back from Maine. I'm not a big lobster fan by any stretch of the imagination. I should have not eaten it at all when there was a question on how 'alive' the lobsters were before being placed into scalding water. But I ate. Lo and behold at 4:30 a.m. I woke up with the worst feeling in my gut. I lay there thinking it would pass. It did not. Antacids did not help. It got to the point where I attempted to make myself vomit. Honestly, I don't know how those with eating disorders perform that act on any regular basis. All I got were the heaves with none of the bile. Probably just as well.

By 5:00 a.m. I started calling any and everyone who had eaten that lobster dinner. Wouldn't you know - no one wanted to answer the phone at that hour - so they didn't. Fuckers! Eventually I got Molly, our hostess, to pick up and she claimed no one she knew was sick. CLICK! It finally got to the point where I called Denton to take me to the Emergency Room. It was horribly inconvenient for him since he had a major paper due that day. But g-d love him, he did.

The ER was empty when we got there, so they took me immediately. Vitals and bloodwork were taken right away. Then back to the exam room where they did the history and physical on me. Xrays were the next order of business. I was in too much pain to stand for a chest xray, so they had to bring in the portable machine. They also took films of my abdomen. Many many many xrays were taken because the technician wasn't all that good at his job. Too high. Too low. Off center. You get the idea. NINE xrays taken to get it right! And even then they said it was inconclusive!

Back to the treatment room where I did nothing but lay on a cart with an IV in me for almost eight hours!!! Nothing for pain. Let it be known that in any other medical situation, they normally take vitals every 4-8 hours. Never once after my initial triage did anyone check vitals or bloodwork again. Eventually Dr. Dick (honest to g-d, that was his name.....and oh how it fit!...but not in a good way) sent me home with muscle relaxers, because he said the pain I was experiencing was from stress. Pain meds were not given, as according to him, since people like me come into ERs just looking for narcotics. oooookay. Denton got me home and into bed where I immediately passed out. I think. He left, dropped off his paper and then went to work.

Seven hours later enter Morty. Morty (and Dith) lived next door to me. We had the only two apartments in the building. We rarely locked our doors and just kind of came and went like a warped version of Three's Company. Or more like Eight's Company when you added in Jon, Mitchell, Slusser, Pat and whomever else! Anyhoo...Morty came in to check on me. He pats me on my bare shoulder as was his attempt at medical care. Immediately he says, "ok, we're going back to the Emergency Room. Now!". Apparently he felt I was way too hot to the touch for it to be anywhere near normal.

A word of advice - when you're having stabbing abdominal pains, don't let a friend take you for a ride to the ER down a rough brick road in a Jeep Wrangler. Not only do you feel every frickin' bump, one must also step up into and down from the vehicle. Hurts just a tad!

This time the ER wasn't so empty. I had to wait and wait to be triaged, let alone to go back to a treatment room. Actually, there was no room in the treatment area. I ended up in what was basically a converted supply closet. Soon, I was joined by another patient - a cowboy from the Ohio Quarter Horse Congress , who got his kneecap kicked out by a cow. We were separated by a sheer curtain.

Denton eventually got off work and came down (he worked upstairs) and he got to relieve Morty of primary caregiver duties. There was no use in him waiting around since it was clear it would be hours before I'd be seen. Finally a surgeon came down to see me. My temperature was up to almost 104 and my white count was through the roof. Mind you - had anyone during the first visit had taken additional vitals or bloodwork, they would have realized this 8-10 hours earlier. The surgeon performed another history & physical - and for the history part, this time I get questions that were never asked earlier. "Are you gay?' I nod, only so the cowboy behind curtain number one doesn't hear. But that's not good enough. The doctor to get confirmation say - "Yes?? Yes you're gay??!!!". Thanks! Then he asks the inevitable potential gay health (read: HIV) questions. Nice for the neighbors. Sure this was a decade or so before HIPAA, but c'mon!

As for the 'physical' part, it was only one part. The doc pushes a finger into where the once diffused pain had now localized. He pushes hard. When he does this, I have no pain in my gut. It's a miracle!!!!! Then he releases his finger. Blobby experienced a new level of pain only reserved for prisoners of war! He's 90% sure it was my appendix and it's bad. Ok - no duh on the latter part of that! He wants to get me up to surgery right away. I think most people would be frightened of going under the knife. I was longing for it - if it meant this pain will be over. Yeah - that is how bad! It turned out there are no beds in the PACU (or recovery room for you folks who watch General Hospital, nor are there any on the hospital floors. My surgery was put off until morning. At least I was transferred from a gurney onto a real bed that is located in the clinical decision unit. FINALLY they allow pain meds....but it's too late. The pain is so acute, the morphine doesn't even begin to touch me. To add to the experience, the 88 yo man next to me croaks out a request every 23 seconds for 'water' that he will never receive. He'll continue to ask until they transport me to surgery.

I am ecstatic when they wheel me to O.R.. The anesthesiologist is really nice and says if he can avoid it, he won't intubate me and just bag me the entire time. Next thing I know I'm in PACU. Nurses all over me, patients all around. It's past noon and they don't know when I'll get a bed. I use the phone next to me and call the Admitting office - they are working on it. For some reason I call Morty too. He ends up telling ME what bed I'm going to be in. Just so you know - Morty doesn't work at the hospital! I tell the nurses who are just amazed. I BEG them to not transfer me at change of shift, because the floor will forget about me. They laugh. Then they transferred me at change of shift and no one comes to see me until almost 5:00p. Not only that, they had no room on a general surgery floor, so I got put on an ortho surg unit. But I had a private room. I'm not disparaging nurses, but man I had some horrid ones (to where I complained to the CEO, Chief Nursing Officer and Ombudsman about two inparticular)....and two really really good ones (who got that in writing also).

It never was relayed to me if the appendix was perforated. The antibiotics I had been taking for the sinus infection was masking the symptoms and warded off some inflammation. The day I stopped those meds was the day before the lobster dinner. There was no laproscopy for me. There wasn't even a traditional suture. No...I was left with an open wound. 7" long. 2" wide. 3" deep. It was packed w/gauze that needed to be changed every 6-8 hours and that I would have to learn to redress - as it would take more than a month to heal. The poison inside my body had to be sopped up, so I could not be sewn up. The gaping hole had to heal from the inside out. It's a beauty of a scar though. I also got an eight day hospital stay w/round the clock IV antibiotics and then another ten days of oral meds.

Looking back, now I can find the humour and actually laugh at some of the things that happened during that hospital stay....including the jeep ride to the ER.

• Slusser (that bastard owes me twenty bucks!), who passes out at the sight of blood, falling out of his chair as he watched the nurse tried to get me out of bed for the first time - with her letting go of ME to catch him!
• The nurse who would not take 'no' for an answer on waiting to remove my catheter while I ate my first solid food in almost four days. I swear getting it out was as unpleasant as them putting it in!
• Dropping three bars of soap during my first shower (l-rd knows I couldn't bend down to pick them up) and Stephanie, a friend and nurse, saying 'if you drop this one - you're on your own!'
• Becky calling from Houston, to make jokes about how big my inflamed appendix was in comparison to another of my body parts. It hurt to laugh - but my friends were great!!!

I can't discount all the help and friendship Denton and Jon did for me during this time. I assume Denton would have checked on me during his ride home, but that was three hours from Morty's insistence on taking me back to the hospital.

Maybe I should also thank the fuck-up of a radiology technician too. On my second day back at work (four weeks later), I get a call from the Emergency Room saying they found 'something' on one of my xrays and I really need to see someone........



....Oh......and happy birfday to Mort!