More than just alive

The mind is clear, it's free of drugs that cloud the intellect and dull the senses. Stitches come out tomorrow.

Oh, I never told that tale, did I?

Welp, you see, I've been suffering under a myriad of odd bodily malfunctions, specifically high blood pressure, and I've only recently (like, a year ago) learned which medication will bring it down properly. Otherwise I'd be pumping corpuscles at an average systolic/diastolic 260/140, which for lesser mortals means you pop a gasket in your head and explode like a tomato. Fortunately, I am not constructed as weakly as most. But it does take it's toll...namely in creating stress, just sheer physical stress, and that would come out as extreme anger and mood swings. While I would be able to maintain control and never actualy harm anyone, you'd be hard pressed to tell that I wouldn't do something violent, because the sheer force of my emotions at full blow is something best to be avoided. (It's cost me a lot in relationships. When I finally got it under control, I realized just how much it really did cost me, and it costs me still, but that's another story.)

So now that I've got the proper meds and a competent doctor to poke and prod, we've investigated various abberations in my system. I've learn I have a touch of diabetes, (that comes from my mom's side, thank's mom!) and a thick heart that pumps a dark ichor (which comes from my dad's side. Thanks dad!) and interestingly enough, low cholesterol and triglycerides. That's suprising, given the amount of cooked beef I consume, but I'll take anything. I also had a high level of calcium in the blood, which was probably jump starting my kidney stones. Associated with that was a way higher than normal parathyroid serum level, which was causing the increased calcium. No pills for that, so the parathyroid woild have to go.

Fortunately, everyone has four parathyroid glands located along the thyroid itself. Maybe I could lose one or two and still maintain proper production. The theory seemed sound, and I was referred to another doc, this one an EMT. (and Navy surgeon!)

Attempts to properly image my parathyroid failed for the better part of a year. I was poked and prodeed by all sorts of medtechs. I had ultrasounds, CAT scans, xrays, and even injected with radioactives to try and find the little bastards. No go...they steadfastlky refused to act as diseased tissue and remained invisible.

Thing is, we were looking for a tumor, benign perhaps, but some sort of neoplasm that would be different than the rest of the parathyroid tissue, but none was forthcoming. That's why modern medical imaging failed to find anything....most of the stuff is calibrated to find differences between body parts.

The only way to find the damn things would be to go in. And that's what we did.

I'd been dreading the entire affair for weeks. I don't particularly enjoy the thought of being unconscious and having faceless people cut open my skin and...and DO THINGS to me on the inside. It had to be done, though, because too much calcium in my blood would lead to more and more kidney stones, and THAT was just too much for me to contemplate.

So I did it. I went in early on the Monday before to fill out paperwork...it felt like clearing post. (If you don't know what that is, don't worry) I met people here and there, some of which knew me personally by the virtue of my stepmom who used to run the recovery room I would be in after surgery. I scribbled down "turn off breathing machine if vegetable" after some consideration in the living will boilerplate and subjected myself to more bloodletting. And then I was free until Wednesday morning at 6:30AM.

Naturally I went out drinking. Not much, I was very careful in how much I drank, and followed my surgeon's instructions exactly, even the bit about no food or water after midnight. I spent my Tuesday in a Zenlike daze, not really thinking about what would happen the next day.

And then the next day arrived. I got up on time, rode the DangerTrain to the hospital and presented myself for dissection.

It went smoothly. I was taken care of by the St. Luke's hospital staff, and were friendly all the time. I joked with them all, as I was clearly nervous. I dared the nurse to use the biggest gauge needle she could find to start my IV, because I would be wanting my morphine at a fast drip, so cram a hose in there. When being wheeled to the OR, I would wave at everyone and say "Hi! Good morning!" which disturbed a few passerby. They parked me just outside the OR and proceeded to use me as a desk to write on, but I didn't care as the This-Will-Not-Let-You-Care juice started running through my veins. I saw my doc, he shook my hand and said we'd have a wonderful time.

I guess we did. I don't remember any of it. They wheeled me inside and transferred me to the table, and proceeded to strap me in. I would be having my head pushed as far back as possible, but I didn't know that juet yet as the anesthesiologist came by and started talking with me. I was having a great time, counting the surgical instruments and telling nurses "open those packs outward!" who would nod and say "don't worry, we will". I aske dthe anestesiologist if I could have something with visual and somatic hallucinations, but she assured me that they didn't have any in stock, and would this do? I turned my head, blinked at her and said "What?"

...and then I was in awful pain. It felt like someone had been sitting on my head for a long, long time and just stood up. I couldn't move, every tendom, muscle, ligament, bit of catilage from the base of my neck way down the torso was on fire and was refusing to respond to commands. (I had been hyperextended, GREATLY hyperextended, with my neck thrown far back and wieghted down, for all I know, to expose the upper torso.)

There was a voice. "Jason? Hello! Wake up!" It sounded entirely too cheerful, so I concluded I must be in the recovery room and everything was over. Good. I missed it. But damn...I hurt.

My firstr words were "morphine" and "more morphine" which was delivered in the IV, and that made me feel better, at least enough to use my hands to rotate my head. I was redused to grabbing the back of my skull and turning my head forcibly so I could see what was going on around me, which wasn't much, I kinda had the place to myself, aside from the busybodies of the recovery room nurses.

This lasted for about a decade. I had no time sense whatsoever, and was more than a little disoriented. I couldn't see my chest, all I knew was that *something* had been rummaging around in the upper torse, I could feel it. Was it a success? Did everything go well? how long was I out?

FOUR HOURS? HOLY SHIT!

It seems that my neck and upper torso are large cavernous spaces tha ttake time to explore. I eventually talked with my surgeon at the end of the day in my room once they finally wheeled me up there, and he told me that he had to spelunk his way around the thyroid, on all sides, looking here and there in crevices to find my parathyroid glads. He got two of them, small, useless things when suddenly the 3rd one, a monster, tried to escape and squirted out of a fissure. That was the culprit, because when he came out my calcium levels dropped to normal, along with the parathyroid serum levels. Success!

Spent the night there, did nothing but watch television and click the button every four hours for my pain medication, partly because it was entertaining to do so, and mostly because it friggin HURT. I got a little sleep, not much, always interrupted every so often by some tech wanting to take my blood pressure.

They let me out the next day. Whee! I was really tired, and spent the remaining few days of my impromptu vacation resting on the couch watching television. I had only one bad day, when I just slept and woke up feeling all kinds of ill, and I knew that it was because I hadn't eaten anything, but I didn't want to get up to eat, and I felt sick, who wants to eat, ugh, and this went on for hours till I finally summoned up the courage to actually get and and fix something to eat. Else I would have just lay there wretchedly.

Tomorrow I get the stitches out. Yay! And then all I'll have left is this little scar.

Iyt's stil too early to tell what the lasting physiological effects are, but I've been feeling a lot better, stronger...mostly recovered from the ordeal. We'll see what the blood tests say next week...as soon as I can afford to pay for them.