A Four Day Hospital Adventure

Your old friend Josh is a simple blogger who doesn’t understand the ways of the world. He knows not what he speaks of in business or social media. This is proven to be true by the lack of comments and followers who frequent these parts.

That is two parts sarcasm and three parts rhubarb boiled in rum and sweetened with some sort of sugary something or other. Or maybe it is proof that I suck at math, beats me.

I don’t care to think too hard about it.

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I can’t decide how detailed or how honest I want to be in this post because I am not sure I am prepared for what might come out.

It is not something my family will likely want to read or revisit but I am the guy who dances in the fire so I offer this opportunity to skip this particular post because I am going to immerse myself in the flames.

Experience has taught me I burn and I ache but I keep going.

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Cue mood music either One Minute You’re Here by Bruce Springsteen or Knocking On Heavens Door by Bob Dylan

If you want some additional background click here and see older posts.
I am less than 24 hours removed from a four day adventure at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Grapevine.

For days now I have replayed everything that happened that night and thought about how I relate to elements of the end of Gladiator.

For days now I hear Syrio Forel instruct Aria there is only one thing say to death, “Not today.”

For days now I see immense amounts of blood, my blood and think about the steps I took to try to slow things down.

For days now I know I didn’t panic and that I took logical steps to correct things but that I should have asked for help long before I did.

Maybe that would have prevented the need for the paramedics to come work on me or maybe not. Maybe in my effort to try to avoid scaring my family I traumatized them.

I learned I am the guy who will tell the ER doc to skip the long winded discussion of the risks of a transfusion and to just get it in me.

I learned I am the guy who will yell at the ER nurse that I don’t want a fucking bed pan, give me a blanket and I’ll find the damn toilet.

I am grateful the paramedics worked on me and that what they gave me helped my blood to clot. I am grateful that modern science and medical tech helped make sure I am here to write this post.

Help Me Dad

Somewhere around 1:30 AM I am in the tub in the master bathroom taking those aforementioned steps to try to get things under control when I realize it’s not happening.

I think a stitch from my surgery has blown, but I am not certain. I know I am bleeding in the kind of way I can’t fix and that I can’t stay in a tub that looks like a crime scene.

It takes effort to pull myself out but I do so and I lie naked on the floor thinking about whether it is smart to close my eyes. I know I am in bad shape, but I think that if I rest a little I can figure it out.

There is less discomfort than I would have expected and I realize this is how people go because it seems peaceful.

I silently call out to my father, “help me dad.” It is 7.5 years since he died and who knows what happens once we’re gone. My paternal grandfather used to say if there is anything afterwards it can’t be be bad because no one comes back.

So I call for Dad’s help in my head and then something happens. I can’t tell you if it was my imagination but I choose to see it as real.

In my head I see my father standing with two of my grandfathers in front of a door. I try to open the door but it won’t go.

It angers me because I know Dad is the one holding it shut. I look at him and think, “Do you really think you can stop me.”

And then I realize I thought I was looking at the almost 75 year-old man who was beaten down by pancreatic cancer.

This face is a mix of who he was at the end and the 25 year-old holding infant me. I am not possibly strong enough to force it open, because now it is like I am the five year-old boy I once was wrestling with my father who is impossibly strong.

Still I am infuriated by it all and I start thinking about all of the things I want to see my kids do and that is enough for me to pull myself off of the floor and onto the toilet.

It takes an impossible amount of strength to get myself up and even more to keep from falling off. I barely hear my wife ask if I am ok and barely clock her saying help was coming.

Can’t tell you if five minutes or five years elapsed from when I heard those words but I remember half collapsing in the arms of the firefighters who laid me on the floor and then lifted me on the gurney.

I remember thinking I was embarrassed and that I would close my eyes to protect my dignity but I recognize the truth is I couldn’t focus on anything.

I had to close them and once I did it became easier. But I am not sure how much I missed while they worked on me.

I know I gave them my name, birthday, address. I know I told them what did or didn’t hurt and agreed to treatment.

I know I asked why we weren’t going to the local hospital and that when they said we were heading to Grapevine because they do 24 surgery around the clock I was mad.

There is more to tell and more to share. Stories about the ER, the CT scan and series of docs who came to spend time with me.

Tales of phlebotomists who tore apart my hands and arms taking blood and how I learned that hospitals may be places to heal but are the last place to visit if you want to sleep.

May share more and may not, haven’t decided but I am grateful to be here. Grateful to be able to tap upon the keyboards and plot my return to the gym.

Grateful that I have spent as much time as I have this past year on the hero’s journey reworking body, mind and spirit.

The hours in the gym were not wasted nor the effort in eating healthier.

I didn’t expect that Mr. Toad’s wild ride would capture me in its grip or that I would be able to write my own Yelp/Google review of “do not recommend.”

But I am here now and all things considered in pretty good shape for a guy that got two units of blood.

Going to have to slow down and take it easy for a little while, but I expect to be back in the gym sooner than later.

Grateful for all that I have, it could have been much worse. Life does turn on a dime huh.

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If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended:
that you have but slumber’d here,
While these visions disappear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream”
Puck’s Epilogue
A Midsummer Night’s Dream- Shakespeare