Feckless Fabiform Fistula, Batman!

The Fredster and I made an incredible team today:

• We left the Manor on time for an 11:30 appointment to have my port flushed (still a questionable sounding activity, in my opinion... I hear someone hiding in an alley, wrapped in a trench coat, hissing, "Wanna get yer port flushed, Lady?"); 

• Traversing the entire length and most of the width of the hospital campus, we scored a quick, if over-priced, spicy chicken sandwich which we ate in record time under the atrium sky, all whilst recounting amusing anecdotes, Steve Jobs' last words, and providing reconnaissance for one very confused old woman in search of her wayward nephew ("He's my ride!");

• We arrived for the second appointment early, an integral part of the plot to make the office manager feel guilty, and therefore I was seen at 1:10 rather than 1:30;

• After some minor difficulties remembering where we parked Ruby, the Honda CR-V, we loaded the wheelchair and zipped down the road about half a mile, pulled into some primo gimp parking, then made nice with Paindood's Evil PA, who was, as anticipated, her usual bitch self;

• I grabbed the Rx, Fred called for the elevator, and we finessed the pharmacy's minefield such that I owed nothing for meds (and scored free parking, too!).

There were some perplexing moments, like the three identical compliments I received for an ugly toxic lime scarf -- chosen to conceal part of the old lady embroidery on my "wearable art" old lady sweater.  Oh, and the homicidal looks we got from our fellow waiting room denizens as we incessantly commented on the CNN closed captioning.  Hmm, and that smart remark by the PA about "admiring [my] spunk." 

Spunk?  I have spunk?

What is she trying to do, confuse me?

image from microscopesblog.com

The most perplexing of moments, though, may be the one to come.

The only appointment that really mattered to me was the second one, at the pleasant and efficient office of my MDVIP Go-To-Guy.  I cannot remember if I shared the excitement over the development of a FISTULA (woo hoo!) on the inside of my left upper arm... If I didn't, please feign excitement: now!

Look, you would be excited, too, if the only other way to culture the stuff growing in your shoulder joint and humerus were to let the orthopedic surgeon yank your prosthesis in exchange for an antibiotic-laced surgical cement spacer.  (Say that 10 times without taking a breath;  Think that once without abject weeping.)

Because the filthy low-down pathogen in my shoulders has thus far refused to grow in the laboratory, and has returned despite 42 weeks of intravenous antibiotic therapy using potent gorillacillens, despite seven major surgeries, heck yes, I hope that a clear culprit might emerge from today's relatively painless procedure!  My surgeon would love to have an advantage for once, before he has to give the reverse replacement a try -- something that's likely to happen before the end of the year.  If we identified the bacteria and found the correct antibiotic therapy to zap it?  Before the surgery? Happy dances of profound joy!  (Now with actual arm movements, too!)

But.

However...

My MDVIP Go-To-Guy's nurse may not have used the best of techniques when she swabbed the thick, yellow pus (with occasional bloody streaks... What?  You're trying to eat?).  For instance, she may have set one of the swabs down such that the tip was on the counter top. If there is growth in the lab, how can I trust that it isn't a contaminant... and do I bring that possibility up with anyone?  What if it comes back staph?  I have a MRSA history and spent most of ShoulderMan's hospitalizations in strict isolation.  Medical settings are purportedly rife with bugs...

I just went blank while it was going on.  She had to do a fair amount of physical cajoling and basically bullied the thing to get the samples she wanted, so I was sort of lost in Biofeedback Land.  As she was packing up the samples, my shocked mind replayed the images.  Is there a 15 second rule for bacterial culture swabs?

I must add that she's the best nurse I've ever encountered, that I respect her immensely, and even more appreciate the many ways she helps me -- over the phone, in person, and with an awesome and unerring eye for veins-that-will-give-blood.  For all I know, she had scrubbed that counter top just prior to my arrival such that it harbored not a single microbe.

So anyway... we did it, we made it to every appointment, and *early*, too.  I made a kick-ass roasted red pepper soup last night -- meant for the usual Wednesday Festivities that Fred enjoys with the Militant Lesbian Existential Feminists, except that only one of The Gang showed up, and she had to leave early for a dance class... so the soup came home with Fred.  Or that's the story the boy told, anyway.  

Soup with dark rye toast.  A bed.  Purple, swollen legs.  Purple swollen fingers.  A good book with just enough vision left to read it. The satisfaction of having made a dent in my "to do" list.  The hope of something identifiable and treatable growing in the lab.  The hope that nothing grows in the lab except what is in *me*!

Fred was heroic.  Fred is always heroic.

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Oops.  Almost forgot.  Something did happen that I am working hard to forget but probably should work to understand:  Before we acquiesced to the sexiness of the spicy chicken sandwiches and the hard benches under the hospital atrium sky, we went to the cafeteria.  It was my suggestion, even, born of a fond recollection of their fine frozen yogurt.  Surrounded by medicos in uniform, covered in badges and stethoscopes, with pen lights and bandage scissors peeking out of huge utilitarian pockets... I kinda freaked out.

First, it was incredibly loud and busy.  Remember that I stay in the protective confines of the Haddock family's ancestral home, Marlinspike Hall, except for these exciting blitzkrieg-type forays into the Metro Lone Alp area in central Tête de Hergé.

Remember, also, that this is the hospital where the Sentinel Event (that pretty much ended life as I knew it) occured back in May, 2002.  Yes, it does seem ridiculous to say a Sentinel Event of such magnitude "occured." I never thought I'd lend it a passive voice.  Progress?  Regression?  Denial?  Basic bad grammar?

When I dress Fred in the adjective "heroic," this is what I mean:  He was ahead of me in the cafeteria, carrying two of everything without being asked, when I veered my chair to the one vacant area (by the salad bar, of course).  He must have sensed my distress.  That, or he heard the clunka-clunka of my defective left front wheel stray from his plotted course.  In just a couple of short, well-constructed sentences, he diagnosed my malaise and recommended an immediate exit -- which, I am convinced, saved both the day and my sanity.

I've long suspected that I have PTSD, as embarrassing as that is, given that what I went through is precisely nothing in comparison to the terrors behind the disorder in military and rescue personnel, in people who have been traumatized by real violence.  It was much worse early on -- back in the summer of 2002, I would relive the fall in the hospital ICU every time Erin, my physical therapist, tried to help me stand up beside the hospital bed we had to rent.  I was left with a huge fear of standing -- exactly what I had been trying to do when I went down in May.  Then, until my courage and physical strength was reestablished, I lived with unexpected fears, too -- of fire, of being trapped, of being alone.  It was truly ridiculous.  Let us say that to declare Fred heroic will never be an overstatement, so long as the memory of those awful days persists.

Now my "episodes" are restricted to actual visits to that hospital, seeing one of the guilty doctors or nurses, although sometimes just a memory or a dream can do it.

What must have really primed the pump?  Being hospitalized there last month.  Talk about rebirth of terror, rebroadcast of the ridiculous before, during, and after of the Sentinel Event... But explain to me how that brief visit to the cafeteria eclipsed even the admission as a PTSD trigger?

Therapy?  I don't need no stinking therapy... Besides, we'd have to travel outside the confines of Tête de Hergé, as there are no mental health disorders in the native population here.  Well, none they'll admit to, you know?  There is a huge substance abuse problem, in my opinion, but having the new treatment center located in our barn may influence my conclusions.  Most of the residents continue to be carnies and circus folk from beyond these borders.

Anyway, just this brief exposition has helped me put things back into a more proper perspective.  So thanks for allowing me, O Interwebs, to jettison that mental debris...

Therefore:  Good night to all, and sweet dreams!

*the first reading of the cultures, i am told, will be reported late monday or tuesday...