Medical absurdities

Who better to cast a wry eye towards the whole 'hospital/major operation' scenario than a guy who's last visit to the hospital was at age 3?

It was tonsils back then. 1962, and like most kids, not a care in the world. I had my stuffed toy monkey, and I got ice cream after.

Several decades ensue, and not a single broken bone ... nor a single reason to go to the hospital, except to visit those weaker specimens of humanity who were in there for some weak reason. Likely a weak constitution. Or just being weak.

Fast-forward to 2002. Same cocky guy (me) is waking up from major surgery – the rebuilding of a bizarrely misshapen foot following the discovery of my condition, and the mutation of the foot – and the beginning of a karmic session of "careful what you mock" (never mind "wish for").

Nearly a decade ensues. I've lost count of how many times I've been 'interred' in ward, mostly for IV antibiotics to attempt to put out the infection fires from this whole HSAN-Type 1 inherited neuropathy bastard thing ... not to mention at least four minor ops to lop off two toes suspected of harbouring infectious sources ... and some general hacking out of infected tissue areas on my foot.

WTF, indeed.

Jump to October 8, 2010. I'm being prepped for surgery to amputate my right leg, below the knee. I'm ready for it. I'm anticipating it ... WANTING it. I'm sick of being sick.

And I'm a far cry from the guy who used to think only weak people need to go to hospital. (Or maybe I'm just old, busted and weak?) Either way ... here I was, gladly and willingly going into surgery to have part of a leg cut off.

If someone from the future had shown up at any time between the ages of 3.5 and 42, and told me what I was going to go through, I would of course had laughed. "Not me! I'm bulletproof!"

Absurdness - I had it, in spades.

So what things made me either go "Hmmm" or "WTF" while going through a decade of hyper-focussed health care here in Wellington?

Rockin' the leg 'sans' the fake doll skin.

•  When you're on crutches, you ALWAYS get a seat on the bus. This seems mostly to be courtesy and good manners. But when I'm on crutches I have a seat on a bus, I get the whole seat. No one will sit next to a crutchy person. What you have may or may not be contagious ... but you're persona infection monkey non grata when you're crutched-up on public transit. I rather enjoyed this.
• Nurses love a patient who is mostly OK and in need of little care, except for checking of vitals and the swapping out of IV anti-bee lines. I was "Mr. Popularity" every time I went in to ward. I didn't need much of anything other than to lay there and sponge up the anti-bees, and eventually go home. Nurses would fight to get me as part of their brace of patients. It made the rare but occasional pressing of the "Nurse call" button something that was answered almost instantly every time (and it was always for something innocuous, like needing a shower towel).
• Needing to propel yourself on crutches is a really good way to instantly find out what kind of shape you're in ... and how much weight you need to lose, you sorry excuse of a fat-ass. Getting around the hospital ward was easy (back and forth to the bathroom). But go any further and you're sucking wind bigtime with a short jaunt down the hall. Once home, chairs and sofas become a much-desired target, once you've been crutching around for more than a minute. And forget about going down the block to the store. One such attempt early in the game back around 2003 resulted in about an hour to go just down the block and get some milk and bread. I did this ... once.
• Having to re-tell my 'story' countless times for many people ("So how did this happen?") gave me great practice for boiling said story down to salient points. I did find it odd that I needed to do this for House Surgeons who would be checking up on me ... too lazy to read the files I suppose.
• The longest time I stayed 'inside' for anti-bee treatment ended up being 5+ weeks. In a shared ward I went through many, many 'flatmates'. Most of them wondered why I was even there, as I appeared to be healthy and fit and just laying around for no good reason. I watched old men with hip replacement surgery come and go ... one guy with a leg amputation came and went ... and still I needed to lay there and absorb drugs. The only single flatmate I had who was in there before I got there, and who stayed longer than me, was a guy who got smashed off his motorcycle and was broken in several places. 
• Being sick all the time is hell on relationships – especially for someone who is so "anti whinge" that I never talked about it much, if at all. I would just be sick and quiet until the 'being sick' part put me back in hospital. And away went two perfectly good women (and a few other short-term 'contractors') who apparently had their fill of the 'strong silent type.' I always felt, however, that they'd all have flown the coop faster if I was rabbiting on about it all the time. Seems to be no right answer here. 
• Anti biotics have a strange side effect for some – an enhanced sense of smell. Every time I went on a new round of anti-bees, I became an X-Man-like mutant with an incredible sense of smell – so intense that it often sent me reeling. This is a good thing when smelling food cooking, or nice subtle perfume on a pretty girl. Not so good when smokers are near, or when I pass garbage trucks or a fish market. Thankfully my gag reflex is good, and there was never any actual heaving.
• Some people have a problem with anaesthetics (for surgery). I seem to thrive on it. No adverse effects at all ... in fact I love waking up out of a session of surgery. It's a feeling of bliss. And, I always wake up hungry! Much to the bemusement of the post-op nurse looking after me after my amputation, I woke up and was asked how I felt. I said "Hungry!" She asked: "No pain?" I grinned and answered: "Nope!" (likely due to a fun combination of painkiller drugs and a sort of nerve-damping drip line right behind my knee, that the doc hooked up about 20 minutes before the op. So the nurse dutifully toddled off and found me a sandwich and some yoghurt. I got more food once they returned me to my room, feeling quite fine (high as fuck) and with zero pain where my lower leg used to be.
• Pain is a funny thing. You go without experiencing it for so long, you forget how intensely it can hurt. Due to my neuropathy, I felt NO pain whatsoever for 9+ years going through all the nonsense with my foot (no sensation in BOTH feet). This was never more apparent than when my surgeon had a couple of goes at me right in ward, to trim away some pesky infected flesh with a scalpel ... my podiatrist Hilary would also merrily whack away at me with a scalpel too during my regular visits with her. But the kicker was – I went through two actual sessions in theatre without anaesthetic. Yep, I was awake for two minor "washout" surgeries. Zero pain. This got the attention of more than a few docs and nurses each time this happened! Also, it had the plus factor of me getting wheeled straight back to my ward room after the surgery (no need for waking up in post-op). Which meant a faster line back to lunch/food! (Hey, they do insist you don't eat for 12 hours before surgery ...)
• The first (and only) time I DID feel pain associated with the amputation was when it was time for the stitches to come out. Sweet fucking hell ... and there were a lot of them to remove. All the skin at the end of my stump was fully alive with nerve endings, unlike my dead-to-sensation foot that was no longer there (which was a good sign that the neuropathy hadn't re-manifested itself there). Every little pinprick to remove every single stitch felt like a wasp sting on top of a cigarette burn dipped in acid, while hanging my leg over a volcano. In August, in the Sahara Desert. Ouch.
• My neuropathy is rare and uncommon for a person who isn't a diabetic. And I'm not a diabetic. But they needed to be certain. So at the start of all this, after a neurologist figured out what the hell was wrong with me, they needed to test me for diabetes. This happened three times with three different docs over a few weeks. The first two were just blood tests that came back negative. The last one featured me consuming a cup of super concentrated sugar syrup, then sitting still and waiting 45 minutes or so, then being tested again. The answer was still "How about NO! You crazy Dutch bastard!" ... but man was I wired after that super-concentrated sugar dose! I bounced out of the doc's office ready to run a marathon, or perhaps build a bridge out of popsicle sticks ... 
• One big question I found myself faced with, after realising I was about to be laying around for long periods of time after each operation (and especially with the amputation): What to do? The net occupied a lot of my time, in the form of chatting, emailing, and downloading stuff to watch (and software to play with). The concept of this Blog eventually came to me, but only after the amputation ... I was laid up for about the same amount of time after my first "foot reconstruction" op, back in 2002. But I didn't think of Blogging or keeping any sort of a diary (an absurd thing for a writer to NOT do).  I read books and newspapers a bit, but it was primarily the net, and watching downloaded movies and TV shows from same, that occupied a lot of my time. What did people do in the olden days? Daytime TV would melt  your brain ... and before TV, staring out the window at the barnyard animals would likely have the same effect. Even worse would be if you weren't on a farm. What would you look at then?  I suppose books about farm animals.
• Lots of people ask me about "phantom pain". Do I experience it? Well, no ... but phantom sensations are certainly there. At first I would "feel" a foot still there if I stretched in a certain way. There was no pain, it just felt like the muscles in my arch were flexing as I stretched. It wasn't creepy either. Just interesting. I also feel a "nerve memory" of my foot flexing as I walk on my new prosthetic. It's a good feeling, it's sort of like having a bionic leg ... being able to "feel" how the fake foot flexes is also interesting.
• A really amusing sensation was how 'backwards-wired' the nerves in my stump were shortly after the op. The flap of skin that gets drawn up from over the calf to create the 'cap' on the stump seemed to be hooked up backwards! Touch the front, and the sensation was felt on the back ... and vice versa. That has since faded, but for a while, if I was sitting down and one of the cats rubbed up against the back of my leg, I'd feel it on the front. Odd. Not painful, just ... strange.
•  People's reactions to being banged up or even crippled/handicapped are always fun to gauge. With a cast on my foot (prior to amputation), it seems most fun for folks to chat about it, or write something on it. With just a taped-up or "moon booted" foot, people just generally look concerned and stand out of your way. With a missing leg, it's more concern and some queries, depending on how well they know me. But the most fun is with the prosthetic. I went for the Robocop/Terminator look, and opted out of the fake "doll skin" over the leg. It's just the fiberglass socket and the metal pin down to the foot. Little kids are the best – they'll stare and then ask about it. Telling them I'm a Transformer or Terminator is fun. Adults though – most will notice it, stare for a second, then look away and pretend not to notice. One guy I met at the Limb Centre (who also rocks his leg "sans doll skin") said he likes to stop every so often and suddenly turn around to catch folks staring after him. Heh. "Gotcha!"
• 'Armchair doctors' are fun too – it always amazes me how someone with zero medical training (but lots of time logged watching medical dramas on TV and in the movies!) has buttloads of uneducated advice for the afflicted. I lost track of the details of most folks' 'helpful' advice over the years. It's just best to smile and nod and say things like "Wow, I'll check that out!" whenever the ludicrous advice is proffered. They might as well just say "Have you tried NOT being crippled/sick/such an amputee?"

Well then. This was a rather long post. It did occur to me that three "Getting Legless" chapters weren't too "absurdity rich" ... so this encapsulates some of the stuff that was going on during all that. 

Next up: the 'firewood rule' for camping and how it applies to other things!