Death by Christmas Lights Saga IV

Prologue

Christmas has always been an exciting, joyful time for me as a child, and still is today as an adult . Growing up, there were family gatherings, presents, and snow, with snowball fights, and presents, and snow forts, with snow tunnels, and presents, and sledding and skiing and presents and Christmas trees with decorations and presents.  The only thing that was missing was outdoor Christmas lights. Once I became a homeowner, I decided I would have outdoor Christmas lights.

The first Saturday after Thanksgiving in 2010, I did what by then had become a tradition of hanging outdoor lights.  I’m sure it is a somewhat comic spectacle watching me zip around the front yard in my little red scooter setting up the outdoor array.  After perfectly positioning a string of lights, I returned to the bucket of decorations in the driveway.   I leaned down to my right, reaching into the bucket.  Grabbing two handfuls of string lights, I began righting myself, and the scooter tipped over.  Not wanting the glass I held to shatter and slice my hands, I broke my fall with my elbows.  They ached slightly,  but my sleeves had no rips after my fall.  I continued hanging lights.  That night, taking off my shirt, I noticed a quarter sized abrasion on my left elbow.  I thought it was nothing of concern.  “Just a flesh wound,” I muttered to myself. Nothing so innocuous and insignificant as a scrape could have  devastating consequences.   Boy, was I wrong.

Conclusion

Antibiotic associated diarrhea wasn't the only "fun" of my nine-day hospital stay.  Immediately after surgery, my arm started regaining its pinkish, humanoid appearance.  It was still markedly swollen. So, back in the makeshift IV pole sling I went, an apparatus that felt more like a Medieval torture device then modern medical ingenuity.  I spent both awake and sleep hours with my arm elevated above my heart pointed to the ceiling, 24/7. The extreme discomfort of this position prevented me from sleeping at no more than 20 to 30 minutes at a time, with seemingly hours of restlessness in between.  During these sleepless nights, my mind would wander to dark places that, in retrospect disturb me, but at the time seemed completely reasonable.

At night the darkness in my room led to loneliness, that turned the discomfort of the sling into agony and despair.  “Why me?” would run through my mind like a broken record.  I thought about everything that MS has taken from me, starting with my young adult self all the way to the present.  An intense and profound sadness over “what could have been, should have been” deepened the abyss.  I just wanted it to end, all of it to end.  Fortunately, thoughts of my wife and children would break through my melancholy and yank me back into the light.

What a waste that would have been had it ended.  I would have missed out on so much life.  Ironically, much of my experiences I owe to my disease.  Without it, opportunities to try new sports, such as wheelchair waterskiing, or experience old ones in new ways, like wheelchair snow skiing, would have never presented themselves to me. Thanks to MS, I don’t have to wait in line for rides at amusement parks or at airport security, and I get great parking.   Without it, I never would have been honored by the local MS society as the 2010 Gateway Area MS Society Chapter, Father of the Year.  I would not have done the radio and television public service announcements that went along with the award.  More importantly I would have missed out on watching my children grow and succeed as they each have, and Abigail never would have been.

Shortly after being discharged from the hospital, I told my friend Don about my ordeal with septic bursitis.  I talked about the ambulance ride, my blood pressure dropping in the ER, my swelling left arm.  We shared jokes and laughs about what I had gone through, like old friends do.  As I told about my high fevers and sweats, delirium fueled dreams, and disturbing thoughts and feelings, he quieted, no jokes, no laughter.  He just listened.  When I finished telling my saga,  Don was uncharacteristically silent.  I realized then just how close to widowing my wife and orphaning my kids I had been.  After a few moments, he broke the silence by saying, “Who’da thunkit, man, death by Christmas lights.”

Death by Christmas Lights Saga III

Despite heavy doses of high-power antibiotics, my arm continued to swell and become even deeper purple until it looked more like it belonged to the popular kids’ show character Barney the Dinosaur than me. My temperature still spiked periodically.  My health continued its downward spiral.  Dr. Irvine decided on Friday night to take me to the operating room for an intra-operative incision and drainage on Saturday morning.

Hospital transport wheeled me to the OR the next morning.  They placed me in a private pre-op holding room.  My wife by my side holding my hand, provided comfort, strength, courage, and most of all love.  Through her touch, I heard “You better come back to me.  We need you.”  

A nurse fluttered around the room prepping me for surgery. The anesthesiologist joined us briefly asking me about previous surgeries, allergies to medications, any history of adverse drug reactions.  All to which I replied “no, except for an ‘appy’ (medicaleese for appendectomy) in 2002”.  Dr. Irvine came in briefly to answer any last minute questions.  A kiss on the forehead from My wife, and the procession to the OR began.

Even though I had been a surgeon-in-training in my “previous life” and had been involved in hundreds of surgical procedures, most much more serious than what I was about to experience, a small part of me felt fear. My thoughts and concerns were less about fear of not surviving the surgery, but rather how my family would go on living if I didn’t.  As my procession passed through the large wooden automatic double doors into the OR suite, my coherent narrative ends thanks to the preoperative sedative administered by the anesthesiologist prior to leaving my holding room.

Looking down at my arm when I woke from surgery and once the anesthesia had worn off, two things relieved me. The first, I was still alive.  The second, my arm no longer looked like it belonged to Barney but a plumper, pinker version of me.  Hospital transport returned me to my room and the “real fun” began.  By “real fun” I'm not referring to the daily physical therapy sessions or the uncomfortable sleepless nights with my arm elevated, pointing to the ceiling in the modified IV pole sling.

Antibiotics not only kill bad bacteria, like the presumed staphylococcus that was attacking me, they also kill good bacteria we need to maintain life.  Bacteria live in everyone’s intestinal tracts facilitating digestion and absorption of nutrients, i.e. food.  Much to most people's surprise -and sometimes disgust- bacteria is necessary to live.   Antibiotics can cause the healthy balance of the normal bacteria residing in the colon to become altered.  When this happens antibiotic associated diarrhea develops, resulting in a watery, frequent, and sometimes explosive diarrhea.  Being a mobility challenged person, I have difficulty outrunning the “runs” as it is.  Giving them a head start is just unfair and downright sucks!  

The first few times I found myself in the position of needing help with the “mess” I had just made of myself, my bed, and sometimes the floor was mortifyingly embarrassing.  After a while I resigned myself to the fact that it was outside of my control, a humbling experience.  I just had to accept that I needed these often times young, cute nurses to run washcloths all over my backside, perineum, and genitals, areas that I had reserved only for my wife. A concept to which my good friend, the older brother I never had, and best man, Don, later said, “Damn, I’d be shittin’ constantly”.