I Am Back

[Doc]

Somebody, not sure who, brought me a laptop to use in bed. Wonderful.

I am hooked up on oxygen and all sorts of tubes and wires. Any sort of movement involving my torso makes me see big blue-white spots in my vision.

Surgery went well, only died for about a minute or two. Nothing a big needle full of juice rammed into my heart can't fix, as well as a little voltage. Doctors say everything went much better then expected.

I might be able to breathe better after I heal. Doctors blasted some of the big hunks of scar tissue in my lungs with the laser to break them up and give my lungs more surface area to work with. If it heals right, I should be able to do well with what I have. If not, I will need something to help me breathe. Right now I am breathing from one lung. I have about 1/4 of the other lung left. It is filled with a little balloon like thing to make it stretch. If all goes as planned, I will have enough lung power to keep me running for a long time.

Got home last night. Was to doped up to try and do anything. Somebody needs to do something about pot holes on public roads. Ouch.

Feels good to communicate in some fashion. Can't really talk to well right now. No voice for the time being.

All of this is making me tired.

[Ozymandous]

Glad you made it back to us.

From your message I assume the tumor had spread rather far, eh? Sorry to hear that.

Do the doctors think they got it this time, or will this be a reoccuring thing? I hope they got it all...

Hope you feel better soon.

[ShadowHM]

Glad to know you are at home again, Doc.

[Zed-F]

Good to hear from ya, Doc!

[Lemming]

Well, gee whiz, I didn't know you'd gone off and died again. That's not healthy, you know. My parents always told me, "If you keep playing with Death, you might come back undead instead."

... only died for about a minute or two. ... Doctors say everything went much better then expected.

I don't think I'd like having your doctors.

-Lemmy

[Doc]

Lemmy, I have some of the best doctors money could buy. With out them, I might not have lived at all.

Being dead aint so bad. Staying dead, that's bad. I have been dead now probably more times then is healthy.

I spent a few days in a type of comatose coma like slumber. Snoozed till Saturday morning. They kept me in the hospital a few days and sent me home. I have a few good nurses that will spend 24/7 with me on shifts.

My arms feel 20 miles long. I am telling my fingers to type and it feels like it takes hours for the message to get to my fingers telling them what to do. Very strange.

I have to get artery sticks every few hours to check blood gas levels. OUCH!! Feels sorta like being nailed to a cross. I think. Artery sticks hurt like bloody hell. The nurse is giving me the evil eye right now. I think she thinks I am doing to much. But I am bored to tears. They wont even let me out of bed to go out to the barn and say hello to the goats and horses and chickens and all my friends. And I can't even muster up the breath to curse at them or fire them. I typed out "GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME IN PEACE!!" in big bold letters in Simpletext on my puter and had the computer say it for me even. The nurse came over and deleted it for me and told me to stay out of trouble or else. She said she would serve me tomato jello if I did not cooperate. I can only have one animal visitor at a time in bed with me, and only for a short time. I am so miserable. I am so miserable and bored and the nurse is reading everything I am typing right now and she is making these mad clucking noises with her tongue. She don't mind me reading and browsing the web but somehow she is under the assumption that it takes to much effort to type. I am a hostage in my own living room. And the nurse is going "Mmm mmm mmm tomato jello."

This is worse then being dead. Something out in the universe does not like me and has conspired for me to continue living.

[Lemming]

Lemmy, I have some of the best doctors money could buy.

Ah, I gotcha. Mercenary physicians always sell out to the highest bidder. The Doc must be loaded.

She said she would serve me tomato jello if I did not cooperate.

Ewww.

I can only have one animal visitor at a time in bed with me ... the nurse is making these mad clucking noises with her tongue.

I thought you said you could only have one animal visitor at a time?

Something out in the universe does not like me and has conspired for me to continue living.

(All is going according to plan.)

-Lemmy

[Hawkmoon]

Hey Doc,

Very happy to hear that you are at home! As far as being bored goes, there is only so much to surf on the web - why not get out a few good books and go on a reading spree? (but nothing too funny, as I'm afraid laughing might hurt your chest too much right now)

I'm (finally) reading Stephen King's Dark Tower series at the moment, and am enjoying it immensely (would you believe that I had never read any of his works before?). Before that I read the series by Orson Scott Card beginning with Ender's Game, and I'd recommend that as well.

Anyone else have reading recommendations for Doc?

Hope you have a speedy recovery!

[Ozymandous]

I guess it would be really horrible to say you cracked me up with that post Doc, but I'll do it anyway.

I hope in a few days/weeks/months you'll go back and read this and see it in a different light and think it is funny as well.

The pain isn't funny but your description of the nurse is.

Oh, one last thing. Don't upset the nurse because she can do something worse than the tomato jello, she could always stick the bedpan in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes to 'perk you up' a time or two. If you're not using one then nevermind.

Hope you feel better sooner rather than later.

[Doc]

At 6 am this morning I had the unique experience of feeling just about the worst pain a human being is capable of feeling.

At 6 am, a nurse grabbed one of the many plastic and rubber tubes sticking out of my chest. This one was clear and had this nozzle thing at the end of it. She stuck what looked a bit like an enema bulb, only it had a pressure guage on the end of the tube. She told me to brace my self and then squeezed the bulb.

At some point in my life, I have felt more pain, but I can not recall when, where, or why. I am a tough man. I have faced some terrible things with out flinching, crying out, or even making a peep. I could not do that this morning when the balloon in my lung got inflated.

The pain was so bad that for the longest span of minutes in my life, I contemplated suicide so the pain would end. I went completely blind from the pain. All I could do is lay here in this damn bed, writhing in agony, and whimper like a kicked dog.

Inner organ pain, where you have little to no tolerance because you seldom feel your inner organs, is PAIN. And getting what is left of your seared and chopped lung stretched by a balloon is a type of pain I lack descriptive words to express. To be perfectly honest, I think I would rather be flogged with a cat o nine tails again. And I get to experience this every morning for about the next 90 days or so. I would rather have be stabbed in the stomach again and be left holding my own intestines rather then face what I felt this morning.

It's going to be some long days ahead. For once in my life, I am not sure if I am man enough, or tough enough to face something. I am not sure if I can go to sleep tonight knowing what I must face in the morning. I survived the surgery but the events of this morning has taken the wind from my sails.