TMI

Tonight in class, while discussing an essay about tattooing and body piercing, a student announces that her friend “had her clit pierced and can now have an orgasm just by walking!”  Sometimes I long for the days when students were embarrassed by such things. 

Super Tuesday

I live in one of the 24 states, and I am voting for Barack Obama today. I’m also staying home from work  

Unplanned Hiatus

I wish I could say I’ve been on vacation, or I’ve been so happily busy that I’ve had no time to blog.  In fact, my absence of the past three weeks or so stemmed from my body, once again, giving out on me.  On Thursday, January 17, after winning my weekly poker game, I developed the most excruciating pain in my head I’ve ever experienced.  Headaches are nothing new to me, as my regular readers know.  I’ve been a long-time sufferer of migraines.  But what happened to me on the way home from poker that night was new.  I felt like an evil giant was cracking my skull open like a walnut.  It was so bad I told the Sig Other he had to get me to a hospital, but we were in Buttfuck New England on a country road in a snow storm, so he pulled off the road and called 911.

Paramedics, firemen, cops–they all arrived the way they do only in small towns where there is nothing to do. They gave me oxygen since I was on the verge of passing out from fear and pain.  In the ambulance they kept asking me if my heart rate was always low, and they had a conversation about the color of my fingers (which I learned later were blue).  It was a long, scary ride to a hospital one hour from my home, and they immediately took me to CT scan where they found nothing wrong with my head. But they had pretty much forgotten my headache by that point.  Once they found out I wasn’t hemorrhaging in the brain (which they suspected because I am on anti-coagulant drugs), they only cared about my “dangerously low” heart rate and decided they were keeping me in the hospital overnight so a cardiologist could see me. 

Now, as some of you know, seven years ago, I had my aorta and my aortic valve replaced to correct an aortic aneurysm.  I have a congenital disorder called Marfan’s syndrome which affects the connective tissues of the body, causing them to lose their elasticity.  Most people who have heard of the disorder associate it with Abraham Lincoln and with professional basketball players, since its most visible characteristic is excessive height.  Having a mechanical valve means taking anti-coagulant drugs, and nearly everything health-related that happens to me is affected by that.  I am also always at risk for another aneurysm somewhere in the aorta. But back to the story.

They give me a room on the observation floor.  They have meanwhile pumped me full of some pretty powerful IV pain killers to deal with the headache (which no one can explain).  At about 6 am a cardiologist fellow (it’s a teaching hospital) comes in to tell me that I’m going to have an ultrasound of my heart, but he’s pretty sure he already knows what has happened: my natural pacemaker has failed and I need a new one.  Now, I’m frantic.  I’m in a hospital an hour from home, and I don’t know these guys.  He tells me the real cardiologist will be in to see me and leaves me to the two teenagers who arrive to do my ultrasound.  They seem to have a bit of trouble doing the ultrasound (maybe because they are busy eyeing each other the whole time), but they get it done eventually.  Shortly after they leave, the “real” cardiologist comes in with the bad news.  The fellow was right; I need to have a new pacemaker put in ASAP.  Until the procedure, I’m on total bedrest in ICU. 

This is happening way too fast for me.  I tell the doctor I’ve got my own cardiologist, I’ve seen him for thirteen years, and no disrespect, but I’m not having anything done without his involvement.  He hears this without his feathers getting too ruffled and goes away to call my doc.  About an hour later he comes back and informs me that I am “Ms. Controversy,” as my doc has said that they have to contact a pacemaker specialist from a particular hospital to come up and do the procedure.  He also informs me at this time that he and his partners are a bit concerned now that they have examined the ultrasound further.  Something doesn’t look right around the valve.  It is possible that scar tissue has formed and is keeping the valve from opening and closing properly, and while they are scheduling the pacemaker procedure, they want to do some more tests.  If the valve isn’t working properly, they may just forego the pacemaker and ship me off to Very Prominent Hospital where I had the valve done to have it done again.  This is the worst possible news they could give me. 

So back to CT scan, this time for the heart.  They find the valve is opening and closing properly though there is a build-up of scar tissue that must be explored further at some time.  I’m just so happy now to be getting away with just the pacemaker.  I’m sent back to ICU to get my blood ready and to receive IV anti-biotics, since my condition also makes me susceptible to infections.  By the time they have my blood at the proper clotting level it’s 4:30 pm.  I have since met the pacemaker guy; he’s tall, dark and handsome, and the nurses are ga-ga over him.  He doesn’t do much for me; I’m too sick to care. 

My “one-hour , painless” procedure takes three hours and hurts so much I am crying.  They try to insert it on the left side, but the veins are blocked so they have to start over on the right.  But they tell me it goes well, and when I get back to ICU they give me enough painkillers so I sleep a few hours.  I spend the next day in ICU while they try to get my blood regulated again.  And I’m not allowed to get out of bed for twenty-four hours.  This means I have to learn to pee in a bedpan.  I’ll spare you the details. I’m pretty tired until the next evening, when S. and I watch the Giants win the NFC Championship in the regular hospital room I’ve been moved to.  During the night, my neck starts to hurt, enough so that I can’t get comfortable enough to get any sleep.  

By the next day, I’m in complete agony. A parade of doctors see me and puzzle over why my neck hurts.  They give me five different pain killers, ending with two shots of morphine that don’t even touch the pain.  Finally, one of them diagnoses me, and tells me I have one of the most painful injuries possible, a trapezius muscle strain, probably caused by the hospital bed.   He orders the most powerful pain killer they have, and they decide that though my blood is now right, they can’t possibly send me home in the state I’m in.  I’m actually relieved.

I go home later the next day, what is normally a twenty-four hour admission having taken five days.  That night, I develop a terrible migraine headache, which lasts for the next several days.  I eat muscle relaxers and  Percosets like candy for three days, which are now a blur.  I miss the first week of classes. For the past week I have mostly just read, slept and watched TV.  I go back to work–to meet my classes for the first time–on Monday. I saw my cardiologist yesterday, and he is satisfied with my progress.  I start seeing yet another cardio-specialist in two weeks who will monitor my pacemaker.  The artificial parts are multiplying. 

Oh, and one of those drug-induced days after I got home, we closed on our house.  S. and our lawyer had to keep pointing me where to sign.  For all I know, I’ve signed a confession to the Kennedy assassination.  We are having some work done: painting, floors being refinished, carpeting replaced.  We probably won’t move for at least another six weeks, but that isn’t a problem since our condo doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.  On March 1, we’ll pay two mortgages for the first time.  But I’m in love with the house.