Sometimes I Felt Like This.
But it’s getting better. I can eat soft solid foods now. Things like eggs and soft bread. I even have had a little bit of Spaghetti–but the meat sauce is a little coarse.
I can say with certainty, that physically, this is the worst thing I’ve had to endure in my adult life. Liquid diets and medication do not bode well for my delicate constitution.
The first days were the worst. The second evening I fell asleep but I did not remain in an elevated position. This caused some blood from my throat to seep into my upper chest. The following morning I coughed up a bunch of blood and went to the bathroom to spit out the rest. Things in the small room began to spin and I suddenly felt as if I needed to go to the bathroom. I hurridly sat down on the toilet and the room brightened. I lost consciousness for a moment on the seat. When I came to, I yelled for Heather with barely a voice. She was luckily still home–but was unable to hear me. I began pounding on my bathroom door with my fist. She came running in to find me in extreme pain clutching the vanity and the wall to hold myself up. My ears were now hissing like two speakers with the treble and volume cranked to maximum volume. My whole body felt weak. My ears ached, the room was bright white, I was sweating and I was certain I was going to pass out again. Heather asked me if she should call 911. In my shocked condition I of course said, “Yes.” I was very afraid. Instead, she opted to call the nurse on call. The nurse asked what my symptoms were and Heather repeated them back as best she could from what I described. By this time I was starting to feel better and had sat down on the bed with a pen and paper. I was describing the best I could what I thought happened.
The nurse said that everything that had happened can be very normal. She said to continue to monitor me. She also said that I had been sufferring from something called the “vasovagal reflex.” It usually happens when someone faints while giving blood or receiving a shot.
This condition is known to manifest itself given a stressful situation such as–say–me coughing up blood or the sight of a needle-bearing nurse . As your anxiety level grows the nerves that control the heart rate and the blood pressure send an inappropriate signal to your heart. Your heart slows down and the blood vessels dilate so your blood pressure drops. The reason for passing out is there simply isn’t enough blood going to the brain to keep you conscious. Now, I’m not afraid of needles–but I’ve never seen that amount of blood come from my body–let alone my mouth.
I slowly recovered that morning.
Things slowly have been getting better since the first few days of torture–I mean recovery. My diet has been awful. I miss not being able to eat regular foods. At one time I was feeling so much self-pity I wrote this not so friendly note to my beautiful wife while she sat eating pizza next to me:
In fairness to Heather, she did ask me if it would be OK if she ate in front of me. I had indicated it would be. But I was cranky the second day and watching her eat Pizza made me salivate. My apologies to my wonderful wife. She really is quite thoughtful and caring. I just thought this was humorous.
Though raspy and a bit hoarse, I am able to speak. Jon Jackson commented I sounded like an old man. I really dislike not sounding like I normally do–but it’s better than not sounding at all.
I had visitors last week–just like a hospital! Ben and Rob stopped by and we watched Time Bandits. Rob also brought me Finding Nemo–both the game and DVD. I have not played the game yet. I had not seen Nemo–so we watched it. I must say it was thoroughly enjoyable. I particularly enjoyed Ellen’s character–the absent minded fish. In addition to my movie viewing I watched all of The Greatest American Hero Television Series, part of the Incredible Hulk marathon, MacGyver and Star Trek was on 4 hours a day on Spike TV. I didn’t watch all of the Trek but it was nice to know it was on. I also had time to finish reading the Conan comic that my friend Adam Vernier loaned me months ago.
Heather has been a great help as usual. She brought me all kinds of soft foods. Even though I had stocked up before the operation it was nice to have a variety. The applesauce has been my favorite. I don’t know why we don’t just keep that on hand. It’s so good!
So I still have a sore throat but I’ve been able to scale back the medication which is great because it’s a narcotic called Roxicet. Roxicet is a cousin to codeine and this stuff has liquid tylenol in it to boot. It makes me woozy. Oh it kills the pain too… but I don’t like the side effects. So better off than on.
I’ve seemed to heal more in the last few days than in the first week. I haven’t had my ice-pack on in three days and I’m able to have enough energy to do some things around the house. I still get tired fairly quickly and my voice is very tired by the end of the day if I’ve used it.
To top off my physical woes, I also decided to give my computer a virus this week. I spent two days getting rid of a nasty little self-replicating worm. Actually, I was pretty proud of myself–I was able to get rid of the virus entirely. However, it left quite a bit of corruption once it was gone. Windows update would no longer run and my quicklaunch bar would not retain it’s settings. So after battling and trying to fix the OS issues I finally gave up and reloaded. It’s probably about time I reloaded my machine anyway.
So that’s how I’ve been. How are you?
-Adam