Where I’ve been…or not been

Every time things seem to be going along great, in terms of work, personally, future-wise—anyway you want to look at a life, something…happens. At least to me. Healthwise, I’ve been doing well for months, maybe too well. I was walking a lot, swimming every work day, and feeling able to snowblow a neighbor’s driveway as well as mine.

As I say to my doctor all the time, “I felt so good, I hurt myself.”

A little over a week ago I wound up in the ER with my left leg swollen and painful. After eight hours, they said why yes, you have something: it’s called hemarthrosis. Be a good boy and go home now. So I was a good boy and went home to suffer in not quiet silence.

Hemarthrosis means a joint has filled with blood. That’s what happened to me. With the anticoagulant I take, I have to monitor my clotting times and somehow it got out of whack and were too high, thus my blood was so thin it looked for a weak point to sneak through. Of course it got worse and worse over the weekend such that I couldn’t stand it anymore. My doctor trusts me with his cell number (I’ve only used it now twice in eight years). I reached him and he said to go back to the ER and see about getting admitted.

It was now Super Bowl Sunday morning, and fortunately, the ER was pretty empty yet, since there hadn’t been any serious drinking done. At first they merely observed my grotesque limb, saying that if the pain abated, then they would send me home again. My leg was so sensitive that any touch sent me to the moon. This one aide grabbed my ankle to “help” me down off the gurney. I didn’t quite scream (for that would be unmanly) but I calmly told her to put.down.the.leg. She looked at me as if I were nuts, but she complied. I said that’s it, I can’t go home, and so it was after another eight hour session, they reluctantly admitted me.

During that second ER stay, a succession of nurses criticized each other for how the last one gave me pain shots. “What? That’s not right. Here’s how you do it”—JAB. Soon I was a gibbering mass of dry mouthed gratitude. Morphine was the drug of choice for the rest of the night.

They moved me to a room right after kickoff. After that, I was moderately interested in the game. Kathy got to go home after her own ordeal, and I wound up with a room to myself after all that.

Monday morning, an ortho guy came in and drained 60 cc of blood from my knee, and I started to feel much better immediately. Now I’ve been at home all this past week, trying to get my range of motion back in the joint. I can get to a ninety degree angle now. Those of you who are perched on a computer chair in a lotus position—stop it right now. You’re hurting me.

Tomorrow I see the ortho guy again and try to return to work. This is a super critical time in the office, so of course it had to happen now. Kathy and I now pray that everything clears up in a month, when we leave for our cruise. I ask for your prayers too—that’s the best way I know to heal.