Step Back From The Abyss, Please...
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My faerie Godmother has a twisted sense of humour... In case you haven't noticed, I haven't been around for a while. Well, break's over and I'm back. Last month, on the 10th, I tried to see my doctor about severe abdominal pain. He was too busy and told me to check in at the hospital emergency room. We have two hospitals here - one close, the other about 15 miles away. But the last few friends I've seen admitted to the close one never came out, so that was a no brainer. The emergency folks only kept me waiting for about an hour - much better than most hospitals in the US - then hustled me immediately into a room without a bunch of silly paperwork. I was impressed! Then they left me, without treatment or painkillers for half a day. Okay, so I'm less impressed... Once a doctor saw me he quickly surmised that I was having an attack of appendicitis and ordered saline and morphine - bless the man! Then the wait began. Two days of waiting because they couldn't decide for sure whether it was the appendix, since my vitals were all perfect and unvarying, and nothing showed in the blood tests to indicate an infection. On the third day of screaming agony (if you think morphine kills pain, you've never had it. At best it knocks the sharp edges off, but the agony continues), the doctor told me in the morning that they were sending me home with painkillers and antibiotics if they couldn't find anything specifically wrong. At noon the nursey came by with her toolbox and took the vitals again, and right off I noticed that everything had just gone to hell. I was obviously leaking like a sieve inside - BP plummeting, and VO2 hovering at 82% instead of 99%. About a half hour later a surgeon walked in and asked, "what have you got planned for 2:30 this afternoon," with a silly grin. By 6:00 that evening I was back in my room, minus one silly-looking, unnecessary organ, and a dandy slit across my belly to boot. The next day they sent me home. Now one would think that this would be quite enough for one fine Spring month, and I was ready to go back to work the next week. But no, on my follow-up visit to the surgeon's office he waved me immediately into the office for a chat, skipping the usual forms to be filled out. He said, "This is very serious; the lab results came back and the appendix had an active cancer at the attachment point to the large intestine." Apparently this is extremely rare, and usually fatal because it doesn't have symptoms and rarely is detected until it's too late to trea
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1. I am very glad you are back. 2. I am even more glad you are all right after what nearly happened. 3. Is healthcare that bad in the US?
Cheers, Vikram.
The hands that help are holier than the lips that pray.
Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:
Is healthcare that bad in the US?
I honestly don't know - I've never needed it before. Growing up I was used to the doctor finding a way to see ill patients somehow, but today they schedule 8 patients an hour and give priority to the well ones. I don't understand. The treatment in the hospital was horrendous, though the people were almost all wonderful. The first time I spent the whole time scrunched at the bottom of the bed because no one would help me adjust the bed and I couldn't reach the controls. When I asked for a bedpan, the nurse brought me a urinal ( I was on a catheter). I almost laughed, but it hurt too much. When she finally brought the bedpan, the magic moment had passed, so she left taking it with her instead of leaving it in reach. Later, when the moment came again, I called twice for assistance and no one ever came, leaving me to my own devices. It's hard to judge by one experience, but I think I could run a hospital better than this with no experience. I wonder how they treat people who don't have insurance? :sigh:
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Welcome back Roger. It's always good to have you around. Do you have a timeframe on when you will be killing wild fowl with your evil power lines?
Roger Wright wrote:
Like I said, my faerie Godmother is twisted. What are the odds of finding this, or having a surgeon with such credentials happen to be on call the day I needed one? As the doc told me, "appendicitis saved your life."
Life is funny like this sometimes. Reminds me of a fist fight I got into when I was in the 8th grade. Without getting into the juvenile details lets just say I won pretty good. My opponent had to be taken to get a cat scan because of the fight and .............. they found a tumor. Funny how something as stupid as that fight may well have saved his life.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - -Lazarus Long
Chris Austin wrote:
Do you have a timeframe on when you will be killing wild fowl with your evil power lines?
The executions are scheduled to begin at midnight, April 30th, though the line has been smoke tested and approved for use. My untimely absence hasn't slowed things a bit, but unfortunately I will probably not be remembered as the project engineer who made it all happen now, despite my two years of hard work pulling all the critical elements together to make this moment possible. :(
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Holy crap that's amazing! :omg: I don't know what to say. Good on you! :rose:
Don't, like, criticise the way I talk. It's, like, so unfair.
Blessings come in many strange forms, I guess... :-D
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Wow :) Glad to have you back ;)
xacc.ide - now with TabsToSpaces support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 3 out nowThanks!
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Good to hear that they seem to have gotten it all. My Nan found an extremely small lump on her lower leg a few weeks ago. Went to the Doctor who did needle biopsy due to family history. It came back as a cancer (Melonoma), but since it was under 1mm most has been taken by the biopsy. She's booked in next Wednesday to get the rest done. Two Grandfathers, Father, Mother and Younger Sister all died from cancer, two Aunties have survived it and my Nan beat Stomach cancer a few years back. Seems being related to me is not a good thing cancer wise.
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
Michael Martin wrote:
Seems being related to me is not a good thing cancer wise.
My family doesn't "do" cancer, as my mother said. We do heart attacks, yet that seems to be the last of my worries. By the way, the day before this all started, I finally found a 6-pack of Cave Creek Chili Beer. I look forward to recovering enough to try it.
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Get well and Stay Well.....This world needs all the good it can get! And there should never be any hurry to go quietly into the night...Hang in There and Fight Along With The Rest of us
Just trying to keep the forces of entropy at bay
:laugh: I'm done with fighting - I won. Now I just have to gain some weight and strength back.
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Welcome back from the abyss Roger, we've kept the place clean for you while you were gone. I had appendicitis as a child that went undiagnosed until about 10 minutes after my appendix burst flooding my system with poison. If what you experienced is anything like that pain-wise I can attest that to this day 35 years later I can still say it was the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life and I've broken, burned, severed, punctured and crushed a lot of me over the years. My experience was also a bit faerie godmotherish: No one knew what was wrong with me, on day one the doctor said "give him some flat pop to settle his stomach" on day two I was in screaming agony and my parents drove me straight to the hospital where I lay in bed in even more agony four hours and hours and was examined by all manner of "experts" until a surgeon was finally brought in as a last resort and the pain had just stopped 10 minutes before. He said "it's his appendix, it's burst, get him into surgery immediately". Apparently I was in a sort of coma after surgery from the blood poisoning which turned my skin all black and it was touch and go for some time. All I remember after the agony is endless dreams about birds, finally waking up and being forced to eat green jello with frozen vegetables embedded in it and coming home to a new house a month later as we had been just about to move when it happened. Good luck with your recovery and enjoy that new lease on life feeling while it lasts!
"The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying." - David Ogilvy
You got Jello???? All I got was something they called broth, but smelled (and looked) like pond scum. You're right about the pain - it's indescribable, and in my case when the thing burst there was no relief. The pulse went up, pressure dropped like a stone, and suddenly the blood count went ballistic. I was expecting the doc to use laprascopic ( I have no idea how to spell that) means, but woke with an 8" slice across me. He told me later that they needed the large opening to flush and vacuum the toxic stuff out of the abdomen. One thing (of many) I don't understand is, why don't they use the ultrasound technology more. I would think that any operator who can resolve an image of a baby growing inside a woman could have run the sucker across my belly and seen immediately whether the appendix was distended or burst. Why don't they use that more, especially for things involving soft tissue?
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Roger, glad to see you are ok ! Best wishes for a quick recovery.
Thanks! :-D
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Glad you're with us Roger :love: Whoever did the followups in the path lab must have done their job right - score one for the back room! PS I've got a spare troll if you'd like a snack :-D
Visit http://www.notreadytogiveup.com/[^] and do something special today.
Trollslayer wrote:
I've got a spare troll if you'd like a snack
Mmmmmm.... I'm starved. Can you send along a troll or two, and your favorite recipe? :-D
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Wow. You are one lucky guy. ("Developers, developers, developers, developers..."). I've never been close to death myself, but as a volunteer firefighter, I've seen my share. Weve had a case where a car (BMW) with 3 occupants was crushed between two heavy trucks. You heard NOTHING from inside the car except for heavy breathing, and that only after we removed most of one trucks front. We thought that noone could survive that kind of crash. No, they just were unconscious. Injuries? Two bloody noses, one broken arm (basic broken bone, no splintering) and a bruised lung that took a week to heal. The car collapsed and failed just around them, and because the third guy was seated in the middle of the back seat, he had no shoulder belt, and could "fold" between the two other guys. It took us three hours to get them out. Talk about using up all your alloted luck at once...
Cheers, Sebastian -- "If it was two men, the non-driver would have challenged the driver to simply crash through the gates. The macho image thing, you know." - Marc Clifton
Wow! :omg:
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Hey Roger, that's great news. I wanted to ask you a couple of things because I had a similar experience of sorts. I had 5 pre-cancerous lesions removed about a year ago and I only knew something was wrong because I had lost quite a bit of weight and once or twice I had noted a small amount of blood in the toilet. Did you have any prior signs that something wasn't right? In my case it was very subtle, no appendicitis - just some vague weight loss and like I said, the blood. Do you have to have follow-ups? I have to keep going back every year (for life) which is highly unpleasant. Also, it would probably be of interest to you to follow a Mediterranean diet. If you need advice/recipes let me know!
And when the sunlight hits the olive oil, don't hesitate.
No, there were no symptoms, and never would be with this sort of cancer. No pain, no weight loss, nothing. The weight loss is strictly due to being contrained in a bed with nothing but saline for nourishment. It's always been very hard for me to gain and retain weight. Heck, it took 7 years of tae kwon do and two years of weight-lifting for me to reach 145 lbs. To be knocked back down to 118 lbs is a hell of a setback - I haven't weighed this little since I was 12 years old. If I'd had any other doctor, the normal course in this area would have been a year of chemo- or radiation therapy after the appendectomy. Both my father and step-father had their bouts with cancer; both beat it, neither ever recovered from the treatment. One had chemo, the other radiation, and neither ever was able to function normally again. Two close friends had cancer in the abdomen recently and received both radiation and chemotherapy. Both died anyway, after a couple years of agonizing treatment. The bottom line to me is, traditional treatments are barbaric, desparate last resorts, not an option if any other choice is available. This surgeon had the experince and wisdom to recommend immediate isolation and removal of tissue that may be affected - about a foot of large and small intestine, plus all the lymphatic network in the vicinity. It worked, and although it's taking a long time to heal, there is no follow-up required or recommended. It's done. :-D I'm no cancer expert, but I'd guess that pre-cancerous is a lot better than the other kind. It sounds like you may have a tendency toward developing these things, and that's why they want to keep a watch on things. It's a pain, but probably well worth the effort to prevent anything from getting out of control. Good luck!:rose: As to a Mediterranean diet, I have no idea what that may be, but if it includes belly dancing ladies, I'm game. :-D
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Me, too! :-D
Oakman wrote:
Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
I just got a dandy Mossberg -
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Whoa. That's incredible. I've just finished reading the book 'Complications' by a surgeon who candidly discusses the problems and uncertainties they have in diagnosis, and the close calls (and bad calls) that can be made, as well as some amazing stories based purely on intuition and gut feeling (scuse the pun) I'm glad you're OK mate. What a life story. Welcome back.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
Thanks, Chris! I'd sooner trust the gut feeling of a highly qualified and experienced doctor than all the fancy lab tests the new generation of quacks can invent. Nothing beats a man (or woman) with a true vocation and the experience to fill the database.
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Wow. I'm glad you are getting better Roger!!!
Current Rant: "Pope Fever!!" http://craptasticnation.blogspot.com/[^]
Thanks! I've missed your rants and "special" holidays! :-D
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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That's nothing short of amazing. Appendicitis really did save you life. Wow!!
"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, `Who is destroying the world?' You are."
-Atlas Shrugged, Ayn RandYeah, but what a twisted sort of luck. Why couldn't someone have just sent me an email? :sigh:
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Glad to hear that you stepped back. Bungee cords wouldn't have helped with the abyss you peered into. And don't worry about your weight and strength. They should return just as you have. Continue to get well, Roger, one day you and I will share a dart board and beer. Best wishes. :)
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] Donate to help Conquer Cancer[^]
Chris Meech wrote:
one day you and I will share a dart board and beer.
Indeed we will, though at the moment I can barely lift a dart, or a beer. Fortunately, scotch is much lighter, and the doc told me that he firmly believes in the healing properties of a fine scotch. Amazing - here I was proudly telling him what good stuff I'd been eating, and how I'd avoided alcohol since the surgery, and he said "Why?" I told him I'd assumed it would be bad for healing. He said, "See what you get for assuming?" He then prescribed a glass of good scotch every night, to ease sleep and improve digestion. Bless his German soul...
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Yowza! Quite the serendipitous - and still thoroughly unpleasant - experience. Glad to hear you made it out alive!
Citizen 20.1.01
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
Yup! You're not getting rid of me that easily! :-D
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:
Is healthcare that bad in the US?
I honestly don't know - I've never needed it before. Growing up I was used to the doctor finding a way to see ill patients somehow, but today they schedule 8 patients an hour and give priority to the well ones. I don't understand. The treatment in the hospital was horrendous, though the people were almost all wonderful. The first time I spent the whole time scrunched at the bottom of the bed because no one would help me adjust the bed and I couldn't reach the controls. When I asked for a bedpan, the nurse brought me a urinal ( I was on a catheter). I almost laughed, but it hurt too much. When she finally brought the bedpan, the magic moment had passed, so she left taking it with her instead of leaving it in reach. Later, when the moment came again, I called twice for assistance and no one ever came, leaving me to my own devices. It's hard to judge by one experience, but I think I could run a hospital better than this with no experience. I wonder how they treat people who don't have insurance? :sigh:
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
That sounds like a terrible experience. :(
Roger Wright wrote:
I wonder how they treat people who don't have insurance?
In India, they are turned away. Govt hospitals (as opposed to private, aka supposedly better ones) are supposed to treat patients for free (I think) but they are more like a rest stop on the way to the cremation ground.
Cheers, Vikram.
The hands that help are holier than the lips that pray.
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Chris Meech wrote:
one day you and I will share a dart board and beer.
Indeed we will, though at the moment I can barely lift a dart, or a beer. Fortunately, scotch is much lighter, and the doc told me that he firmly believes in the healing properties of a fine scotch. Amazing - here I was proudly telling him what good stuff I'd been eating, and how I'd avoided alcohol since the surgery, and he said "Why?" I told him I'd assumed it would be bad for healing. He said, "See what you get for assuming?" He then prescribed a glass of good scotch every night, to ease sleep and improve digestion. Bless his German soul...
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
Towards the end of my father's life, the doctor's were constantly amazed that his heart kept on beating and kept him alive. My dad always said it was probably the whiskey before dinner and the whiskey before bed time that did it. Next fall I'm going to Scotland for a week and I expect to learn first hand all about the medicinal purposes of scotch. :-D
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] Donate to help Conquer Cancer[^]