Oh Nurse… I’m in here.
On the myriad of TV medical dramas the trauma patient comes in by ambulance and everyone is ready to jump right on his case. He goes to surgery after a split second diagnosis and a skill surgeon from the ER saves his life. That’s TV; its as real as FOX, CNN, or MSNBC news is. Pure Fiction my friends.
In real life the man with a crushed back is flown in to the trauma1 center and wheeled into a room where he waits until the meds wear off and then resorts to screaming for a nurse for an hour. Then his wife arrives after her 90 mile drive. Yes, this happened.
From the Helipad I was wheeled into another E.R. room with another curtain door. I could hear all the commotion of the E.R. in the hallway. I had talked to an E.R. doc and a nurse as they quickly brought me in from the helicopter. They would be the last persons I’d see until my wife showed up better than an hour later. I was expecting at least a little attendance in my room occasionally until maybe the surgeon or someone with the surgical team would come in and tell me what was next or have papers and releases to sign. But no one came. No one checked on me. No one told me to shut up, go to hell or anything.
Then the medication wore down and pain, the unimaginable pain, eased into my body like a snake slithering up to a baby rabbit. Slowly coming with nothing to stop it. I started calling for a nurse. I had no call button. There was nothing I could throw or knock over to get their attention so I resorted to yelling as loudly as I was able, “NURSE.” But nothing. I could hear their conversations as clear as day beyond the closed curtain, but it was like I was dead or in a dream. Who knew those curtains were one way sound proof materials? No one would hear me, or at least no one listened. So lay there I did and waited alone in agony.
The next face I saw was my wife. By this time I was near tears from not only the pain but from pure fear… I didn’t know what the hell was happening. She went immediately to the nurses station. I was given attention shortly thereafter. I won’t go into details about what I could hear being said to the nurse from outside the soundproof curtain, but the nurse got an education in those few moments and likely will never forget the lessons she learned… or my wife for that matter. But I hold no ill feeling for this instance. I have no understanding of what was really going on outside my room. I just was hurt and alone and very afraid at that time.
Fassil B Mesfin… My newest friend
All my life I never knew I had a neurosurgeon but I met mine. I wonder if that is like having a fairy God-Mother? A Fairy God Neurosurgeon??? That’s another post altogether. Dr. Fassil Mesfin leaned over me and smiled as he spoke. I have to say my first impression of him was pleasant. He was soft spoken, and looked straight at me. I trusted him completely from the start. What choice did I have? He was my neurosurgeon. Now I call him friend.
He spoke with an accent I couldn’t identify the origin of. I liked it. In our conversations later he told me he was originally from Ethiopia. He has family there. I’d like to tell you I remember the details of the first conversation but I’ll get them wrong if I try. My body broken, in pain, and heavily medicated I don’t remember but bits of the conversation. My wife says I was eventually taken to a room until the next morning.
Anesthesia, Incoherence, and Phone Calls in Another Language
I don’t remember pre-op or post-op. In fact it wasn’t until I was in my room, a cold room on the 7th floor much later that I can recall anything. Occasionally bits and pieces of those first days come back. What I do know is I know I clung to my phone like it was gold. I can remember thinking it was my only way of communication if I was alone, as if there wasn’t constantly someone checking on me. But as I have said before, I wasn’t in my right mind. I was being given serious medication. Apparently I made a lot of calls when I was incoherent. Friends, co-workers, even old classmates I hadn’t called in a long time all got to hear me mumble a language created by opioids which only I understood.
Surgery one went well… I guess. The plan was Fassil and his team would go in and fuse me as necessary. They expected to find L2 was bad as well as L3 being burst so I’d have rods and screws from L1 to L4. Expect the unexpected with me. My L2 was actually fine and so I was only going to have hardware from L2 to L4 . Good news! Bad news. Once inside Doc discovered the thecal sac or dural sac that surrounds the spinal nerves was ruptured… shredded actually. This meant they had to spend extra time trying to rebuild it. By his account they basically has a glue or caulk that was made for this. Go figure. So I’m screwed and glued at this point.
Dr. Mesfin was very concerned about this repair. The issue was if the new synthetic membrane wasn’t right, I’d leak spinal fluid…Not good. This however, was not the real problem I had yet to overcome. Satisfied the next morning that the repair was good, they tried sitting me up to stand. On came the second time I screamed, convulsed and nearly passed out. I was sedated and taken to X-ray, poked prodded and questioned like an FBI bank robbery suspect. I was going back under the knife. Something wasn’t right. I obviously wasn’t going home anytime soon. I honestly didn’t want to go anywhere at this point. It was suffering pure and simple.
