The Best-Laid Plans

I’m a planner, which means that I map out in advance my activities for the coming day, week, or month. I walk into my office in the morning with three or four priorities. Sometimes, of course, one emergency or another will push aside my best-laid plans and surge to the top of the list.

One such emergency was on March 27th, when my (first) cervical spine surgery took place. My recovery seemed to be going well, although afterwards I suffered from far more pain than expected. In fact, I made an appointment with the surgeon to get his opinion.  He took a look at the latest x-rays, admired his handiwork, and told me everything was fine.

Four days later I woke up with a white film on my pillow. My wife thought that perhaps I had spit up during the night, but when I got out of bed she saw my back and shouted, “Don’t get in the shower!”

She immediately took a picture of the back of my neck and emailed it to our son who is a doctor. He called instantly to say, “I’ll meet you at the emergency room with my over night bag. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

It turned out that I had a major infection, and it had “made itself known” by bursting through the sutures from my original surgery. One nurse almost fainted when my wife showed her the photo, which apparently was passed along to many others on the hospital staff.

So approximately six weeks after my first surgery the “A” team once again gathered at nine am on a Saturday morning for my second spine surgery, this one needed to clean out the infection and replace much of the contaminated hardware.

I’m now at home after a nine-day stay in the hospital. Hopefully you won’t ever find yourself in a similar situation but if so, here are a few hints:

1. Insist on having the best technician in the hospital draw your blood. My arm was stabbed once by an idiot who wanted to try again, and insisted that the hospital allowed him to make two unsuccessful attempts. I told him that my rule was only one. My wife told him to leave. Without warning he tried to lower the head of my bed on his way out. Ouch!
2. Listen to hints from the nursing staff. When I asked for a stronger pain-killer and reported my pain as a “four,” my nurse said, “Read between the lines. Your pain has to be at least a seven to allow me to give you the stronger dose. Now, what is your level of pain?” “A seven,” I answered.
3. Have someone stay with you 24/7 if possible. You will receive much better care, I promise.

This is how I spent my extended Spring vacation. I hope that yours was a lot more fun.

Love,

Alan