The general focus of my writing is on issues of significance to the military and veteran community. Those who are on active duty are denied any means by which they can address wrongs resulting from government actions or inactions. I attempt to be a small voice on their behalf. Veterans and retired military personnel have long been ignored by those in power. I also try to speak in their defense. In a different arena of concern, I write on the failings of liberal politics and the dangers presented to the public by media bias.
Wed Feb 10, 2010
Dear Family, Friends, Well Wishers and Those Who Enjoy Hearing About Other People's Operations
If I have been out of touch for a while now it is because my wonderful wife and warden Pattie has not let me near a computer. What started out as a fairly simple procedure to place a stint in a heart valve ended up as a trip to the operating room loaded with people and all the required bells and whistles to take me through the process of having a triple bypass. Since many of my friends are a bit older than dirt, I quickly learned that the commonality of the operation ranges somewhere between getting a splinter removed from your toe and a botox injection. The surgeon flying this link of my medical journey is a fellow by the name of Ruben Flores. He told me not to worry because he had done hundreds of these bypass operations on people. (Though I didn’t know it at the time, the guy who operated on Rep John Murtha used the same line on him) Anyway, to make a short story longer I slept and the medical gang cut me more times than Bennie Hana chops up steak.
I came back to reality in the ICU, where a wonderful nurse by the name of Lois spent the next 14 hours tending to all my cries for help, whiny comments, moans of pain,and demands to see my attorney. She had hoped to get rid of me at the end of her 12 hour shift, but I guess the relief nurse got wind of the crazy old guy in ICU and ducked out on her duty by calling in sick. At the 14 hour mark the charge nurse called Elisabeth took over for Lois and sent her home. I didn’t mess with Elisabeth. She was a big gal who carried around sharp instruments and immediately too control of the situation by yanking about a dozen tubes, lines, and taped up places where a guy should be allowed some small grain of modesty. She was my shepherd for the next four hours. By that time she was sick enough of hearing all my whimpering to get rid of me. She found me the nosiest room in the hospital next to a mail shoot, a vacuum tube delivery system and the ice machine. She also made sure that the guy who drives this zambeeny-like buffing machine spend a lot of time shining a spot right in front of my door. Now the nurses on th cardiac care unit are not as kind and loving as those in ICU. These guys and gals have the system down to a science. As the huge clock on your wall makes sure you know the exact second in they march every 15 minutes of the day and night. There are probes, meters, needle, sticking things, pills, charts, IV bags and I think that once I even saw someone’s sack lunch swinging from a long pole by th bed. With every IV, with every blood check, with every probe, they say “See that wasn’t so bad, was it? Now get some rest. I have yet to figure out how anyone “gets rest” when they are stabbed with something sharp every 15 minutes 24/7.
The operation took place on Wednesday. By Sunday I had made myself into such an obnoxious old coot that I received the fastest cardiac hospital discharge in history and was sent home. There Pattie,( my warden) and sister Darlene starring in the role of Nurse Cratchet have been on me like hawks 24 hours a day. I have now been locked up like this for three days. ( That is 634 days in hospital time.) I am allowed to walk twenty or thirty steps and hour, take pills, and sleep (that is a joke) in my recliner. I also found out through astute detective work at one of the pills the hospital send home gives a person extreme constipation and denies them any change to slumber. Since Pattie and Darlene work in shifts, this morning there was finally a gap in their defenses. Both were asleep at that same time. I was able to sneak into the computer room and softly type out this cry for help.
Still, on a serious note, and with hopes of avoiding litigation by Harlingen Medical Center due to my hospital related commentary, I had a grand surgeon, wonderful nurses and care givers, good food, the prayers and well wishes of soooo many people and the dearest thing of all....the care, concern and attention of a loving wife, a devoted son, a gentle daughter-in-law (another of those Nurse Cratchet people) and a family that shows its love openly. I am feeling well and have found my computer hiding in a back room.