A day which shall live in infamy
forever.... at least for me that is. It was on this date I had open-heart
surgery for a quadruple bypass. At the time it was probably the right decision
and it did save my life. Afterwards in great pain, I told my sister, “I don’t
know what I was thinking, I’ll never ever let them do that again”.
Unfortunately they will probably want to. Looking back I’m not certain they did
me any favors. I had something of a protracted recovery and life has been very
difficult since. I guess I can sum it up best like so:
Tired.... tired of it all. Tired of being broke, tired of
being unemployed, tired of being hungry, tired of being sick, tired of being
without doctors and medicines, tired of rejection, tired of people who don't
understand, tired of being ignored, tired of being unloved, tired of being
lonely, tired of having no hope, tired of going on, tired of doing without many
things......... tired of being tired… Tired!
Well, it all started in November of 2009. My finances that
year were not so good. I had been trying to strike out on my own that year
doing multimedia content, voiceovers, and web work and some part time positions
with Target, Inc and JC Penney’s. After struggling most of the year I decided
to try my hand at a job in a profession I had worked at for about 12 years,
before I got into computer technology, radio broadcast. I had done radio for
the first part of my career starting when I was in college. It was a fun
industry and would not be difficult to fall back into. Like I use to tell
others “it sure beats working for a living”. J So with the help of a
friend I was able to land a position as Program Director with a 100Kw country music
station in Demopolis, Alabama. It did not pay much but it was a start and could
be a ticket to bigger and better things later on and was better than what I was
currently making and doing and came with health insurance. I had always
excelled in radio previously and saw no reason for that to be any different.
The only reason I left the business was due to the sex, drugs, and rock and
roll lifestyle. It was not conducive to what I wanted. I ate, slept and
breathed radio programming, seemed to be good at it. When not doing radio I was
either partying or riding herd on an air staff with gargantuan ego’s with no
reason to be. Most feel like they can do your job better than you, are God’s
gift to women, and cannot understand why no one else can see that. So they look
for every chance to stab you in the back. Now imagine you have moved up through
the ranks fast, are many, many miles from anything and anyone you know
especially home, you are on your own. The only people you really have a chance
to socialize with are those you work with and YOU are in charge. It can be
daunting and unhealthy, especially in a male dominated industry full of
chauvinist bravado. So I’m headed back to small market radio but rather
hesitantly.
So I arrive in Alabama a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving
and am quartered, compliments of the radio station owner, in a cheap run down
old motel. It was a barter deal. I got a free room and in exchange the radio
station would run ads for the motel. After beginning to settle in and trying to
find more suitable accommodations (without success) Thanksgiving was upon us. I
went to spend Thanksgiving with my Sister and other relatives from my mother’s
side of the family in Jackson, MS. I left Demopolis with the sniffles and a bad
headache by the time I returned from Jackson I had a sinus infection. On Monday
I made arrangements to go to the local doctor. They told me I had acute
sinusitis, prescribed some antibiotics, decongestant, gave me a shot and sent
me on my way with the instruction to return the following week if I was no
better. The following week I was worse, laryngitis, badly infected, bleeding from my sinuses, barely able
to breathe, the doctor was very concerned and sent me to the small local
hospital in Demopolis. My blood pressure was 240 over 180 and worse, my blood
sugar had gotten to above 600. I was more miserable than a turkey at
Thanksgiving watching the butcher sharpening his hatchet. Needless to say it
was not good and I was sent to the hospital right away. That was a Tuesday afternoon,
I was admitted, rushed to bed, and given an IV for fluids and antibiotics. On
Wednesday they drew blood, urine and did an EKG. My pressure and sugar were
brought down to more acceptable levels and by Thursday I was released and
instructed to call my doctor for further information and test results. On
Friday the Doctor told me test results were not good and I needed to go to
Birmingham for a heart catheterization. Since nothing could be done until
Monday they told me they would be praying for me over the weekend and could not
explain how I was still up walking around and had not had a stroke or heart
attack and was still functional. All I could think was “UH OH”!!!
On Monday the 14th of December I was admitted to
Princeton Baptist in Birmingham. Princeton is a prominent southeastern regional
medical center and has a very prestigious group of doctors and surgeons. They
are a very recognized heart center. So there I was, feeling no pain thanks to
some wonderful meds and breathing a little easier due to the oxygen, mostly
just sleeping. Of course they could not get to me same day but would take care
of the heart catheterization on Tuesday. Tuesday comes and things are so busy
in the catheterization lab that it will be another day but they said Wednesday for
certain. Wednesday they come to get me and prep me for the procedure, give me a
big dose of something in my IV to make me relax and boy do I. Off we go to some
room where they proceed to shave my groin, I remind them not to slip and take
off anything but hair, not being exceptionally endowed I tell them I need all
that I came with. At some point during the hair removal I go to sleep, my next
memory is waking up in the cath lab with the cardiologist still running a
catheter in me and upon realizing where I was I ask what did he see and what’s
the scoop. He tells me that I am definitely going to require surgery. Two
arteries are 95% blocked and two 90% blocked. I was a little woozy and did not
say anything but he just told me what I did not want to hear. Well I guess it’s
been a good life… I fall off to sleep.
Later I awaken back in my room…hmmm I’m a little sore,
PLEASE tell me that they did not remove anything from there…. whew! Everything
is there, now just what is it everybody is excited about? Oh yeah…they’re going to cut me open with a
saw (didn’t that become the plot of a bad horror movie?). So the cardiologist
gives me the lowdown and I start thinking I want to go fishing…. Anything…. far
from here. Called my wife and my sister and meet the surgeon. I had always
thought to myself that I would never have a serious operation and up to that
point I had never had anything more serious than a bout with colitis that put
me in the hospital for ten days but no surgery was involved. Not sure how I am
going to handle all this, not only are they going to put me to sleep, they are
going to cut me open, saw through my chest, put me on a heart and lung machine,
STOP MY HEART, remove artery from my leg, cut the arteries to my heart for a
quad bypass and then hope they can restart my heart and wake me back up. Hmmm.
There is so much that can go wrong and sometimes does like not being able to
revive you at the end of the procedure, high infection rates, brain damage from
loss of oxygen (guess that explains moi’) and a host of other things I really
did not need to know about until afterwards but that’s the way it is done.
Scare the hell out of you and if you survive that then they will do the
surgery! So the surgeon and I come to an understanding, I believe in quality of
life not quantity of life and if something goes wrong and I do not wake up well
so be it, I have no regrets, and oddly enough I feel little and no fear of if I
should not live through it. Learned a lot about how I would react in the face
of death that day. Late during the night my sister shows up from Jackson. Bless
her she is the only person to show up and stays with me for the next five days.
Nothing else from anyone the whole time I was in the hospital. No calls, no
cards, nothing, not even a go to hell or hope you croak. If not for my sister I
would have been completely alone. Nice to know how much others care. I don’t
think I have quite gotten over that.
Friday morning the
18th they come for me and take me off for surgery sometime that
morning. I remember nothing of that day. I remember little from just after the
heart cath, through the day of the operation. I am told some nine hours or so
later they take me to recovery. I do remember awaking sometime late Friday
night or early Saturday morning, in ICU and not being able to breath. I
remember the person assigned to watch me telling me I have just had surgery and
have to lay still due to the chest incision and all the tubes still in me. I
tell him I cannot breath due to my nasal passages being clogged (bad sinus
infection remember) and I guess they find some way to remedy the situation and
I float back off into la-la land, bet they re-medicated me, I don’t give in
easy to being sedated, never have. I cannot tell you much about the following
few days. I was in an awful amount of pain and they kept me heavily medicated.
Five days after the surgery I was discharged to hospice and
that is a whole story in itself. I could not travel and was taken in by a man
and his wife that I had just befriended when I started working at the radio
station in Demopolis just less than a month earlier. He worked for them as
well. He and his wife offered so I went home with them and spent two months
recovering with them. I owe them much that I cannot repay. They deserve the Lord’s
blessing for what they did. I’ll write more on that at another time. Prior to
finishing my recovery and trying to go back to work the owner at the radio
station had stopped making payroll and there was no work to go back to. Since
then the radio station was sold in foreclosure. I came back to Texas in March
of 2010. Life has been a difficult struggle ever since and still cries out for
a sense of normalcy. I have tried in vain to find a job especially one that I
can actually do given the fact that I still have health problems. I live with
heart disease, diabetes, severe hypertension, arthritis, clinical depression,
impaired vision and lack of teeth; I won’t bother you with the rest. I was told
I might easily live another twenty years and may not need any kind of a
procedure for at least ten providing I take care of myself and follow my
doctor’s advice. Well I’m caught in a catch 22. I don’t have money for a doctor
and medicine and without doctor and medicine my health continues to decline but
without a job I cannot afford my health needs so I am battling diminished
capacity. Diminishing capacity will keep me from working and … well you see
where this is going. So at the end of the day I have to ask myself if nothing
is going to change was it worth it? I mean after all I have been through for
things to get no better is kind of sad, not to mention sort of a comedy of
errors or misfortune. I sometimes laugh when I think how surreal it all
sometimes seems. You would think it’s a fitting story for a movie plot or book,
no one has this kind of bad luck, but they do.
So that is the story of how December 18 now figures so prominently in my life at least for whatever time I have left to be here with you AND why I always wake up feeling as though I lost a knife fight… wonder if I could have the scar tattooed with a dotted line with the words “Cut along dotted line to open”…
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