Detour from Normal (7 page)

"Let's do it."

Maggie left and returned a while later with some tubing that was larger and harder than I had envisioned. "You still want to do this?" she asked. I didn't know if that was a question or a challenge, but I envisioned a gallon of liquid gushing out and the instant relief that would bring—exactly like when they put the catheter in me.

"Yes!" I exclaimed. With that, she lubed up the tubing and started sliding the gooey thing up my nose. That was tolerable. Then it rounded the curve, I imagined somewhere behind my eyes. "That was very weird," I said.

"Are you OK?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Now I need you to swallow for me, and don't stop until I tell you to." With that, she drove the tube home. When the slimy tube slid past
the back of my throat, it was awful. I followed Maggie's orders to keep swallowing, but it took everything I had not to vomit the tube out. "OK, you can stop swallowing; it's in." It felt huge and hard, as if I had a jumbo pencil lodged permanently in my throat. It hurt and there was nothing I could do to make it feel better.

Just then I felt warmth as the contents of my stomach came up, went somewhere behind my eyes, and then out my nose. I looked cross-eyed at the green liquid flowing through the tube and anticipated the relief I was going to feel when my belly deflated. Maggie had connected a bag to the end of the tube and it was slowly filling, or so I thought. But in no time it was done, after only draining a few ounces.

What? That's it? All that trouble for that?
I thought. "Can I take it out?" I begged.

"No, let's leave it in for today and see what happens. Besides, the doctor has to approve taking it out."

"Agggh," I responded.

"Sorry," Maggie said.

I felt like strangling her, but I knew I'd never do that. She was too nice. Instead I just suffered with it the best I could. That was the last bad thing to happen to me at Desert Hope, aside from waiting for sounds of life from my belly. It was April 23. My insides had been shut down since April 16. On the different shifts, nurses Maggie, Joan, and Yasmine came by with their stethoscopes to listen to my belly, smiling as they came in and shaking their heads as they left. Yasmine gave me a body wash, which felt very nice after everything that had happened, and I'm sure I was desperately in need of it. Joan told me that if I walked, it would stimulate my bowels to start working. So walk I did. I'd like to think I burned holes in the carpet of my tiny route around my wing, but
the truth is that I probably staggered like the sick man I was—inches from death's door, my cheeks hollowed from the all the weight I'd lost mostly from starvation but a little from the section of colon I was missing. With my sickly colored bags of fluids and all my contraptions and hoses, I'm sure I would have scared off any children in my path. The tube of vile green fluid dangling from my nostril alone would probably have been enough to send them off screaming.

I was weak and could only make a few passes around the hallway at a time. It was difficult pushing my heavy rack of fluids and pumps, which operated on their backup batteries as I walked. Everyone knew I was coming because half the pumps on my rack beeped in complaint from not being fed wall power. Even the MJP alarm gave an occasional chirp. I was a sad sight to be sure, but I told myself everything was going to turn out just fine.

Nothing worked to switch my insides back on, so I had to resort to desperate measures: praying. Prayer is something that doesn't come easily to me. I've always felt there was a cost for anything I received through prayer. For instance, if I prayed for a person to be nicer to me, they'd have something terrible happen. After months or even years of suffering, they'd end up being nicer as a result of all their suffering—to everyone except me. When it came to prayer, nothing ever seemed to come out as I wanted.

Prayer seemed a bad risk, but what else could I do? That night, as I lay on my back and listened to the late-night sounds of Desert Hope, I closed my eyes and asked God to please turn my bowels back on the next day, Easter Sunday. Then I picked up the large remote by my side and pressed the button to turn off my light.

It was Easter morning, April 24. I lay in bed wondering if the kids were running around in their pajamas frantically searching for hidden
plastic Easter eggs full of candy at that very moment. As I thought it, I knew it was true—my sickness wasn't going to get in the way of that tradition. As I lay there, I unconsciously swirled my hands around my belly. I realized from firsthand experience why pregnant women did that all the time: not only is it particularly soothing, it's hard to ignore such a prominent feature. Just then, Maggie came in with her stethoscope. It was no mystery what her intentions were, so I cleared everything off my big belly to make way.

"Happy Easter," she said.

"Happy Easter to you, too. How are you today?" I asked.

"Wonderful. Let's see how your tummy's doing today." I jumped a little as the cool stethoscope touched my skin. She listened, moved it a little, and listened some more. Finally, a big smile spread across her face. "You've got a real party going on in there today," she said.

"Hallelujah!" I yelled. My prayers had been answered, and my insides were working once more. Things happened quickly after that. First of all, my catheter was removed. I can imagine that a lot of people might wince at the concept of catheters. I can tell you that as long as they use generous amounts of lubricant, getting one put in isn't a big deal. On the other hand, taking one out is a different story. All that nice lubricant was dried up and long gone, so I just had to tough it out. After the saline bulb was deflated inside my bladder, Maggie gave a swift pull on the catheter. After a few moments of pain, it was over. The good news: part of my body worked just fine again.

I still wasn't out of the woods: I had to relearn how to eat real food. The first thing to do was one of the best things I've ever experienced: removing the NG tube so I could swallow better things. When Maggie pulled that hose out through my nose in one fell swoop, I swear it was
like having an orgasm. I can't think of many things that have felt better in my life.

Then it was time to eat. I could hardly wait to eat and drink again after ten days of being unable to do so. At first I was given clear liquids: beef broth and Jell-O. I never realized just how wonderful beef broth and Jell-O could be until that day. When that hot, salty, beefy broth passed my lips, I could feel every salivary gland in my mouth leap into action. As the broth met my tongue, my taste buds let out a mighty scream of joy. The broth was pure heaven, but the cool cherry Jell-O with its sweet, fruity taste and comforting texture was the real icing on the cake. Nothing could have been a more pleasing contrast to the hot beef broth. Sometime later I tried regular food but vomited it back up. I had to go back to clear liquids for a while longer. It was a stop-and-go process helping my insides relearn their job, but soon I was able to eat a regular meal again.

After that the IV bags disappeared one by one until there was nothing left beeping and whirring beside my bed. I was down to one last tube that I didn't even remember having—my Jackson-Pratt drain. The Jackson-Pratt drain was used to remove blood, puss, and other fluids from inside my body around the area of my surgery. It consisted of a tiny, clear plastic squeeze bulb on one end, a drainage tube, and a kind of foam drain on the other end. The foam drain was placed inside my abdomen at the end of surgery before they sutured and stapled me closed, and the tube exited through a small hole cut in my skin on the lower left side of my belly. When the squeeze bulb was attached, it was first squeezed to create suction. The suction pulled undesirable fluids from the wound area through the foam drain. The fluid collected in the squeeze bulb. Color and quantity of fluid was constantly monitored to make sure everything was OK in the area of the surgery.

It was time to remove the Jackson-Pratt drain. There is no science to removing the drain—you just remove the bandages around the cut in the skin and pull it out. But over time the drain had adhered to the tissues in my body, making it difficult to remove. Maggie made a vain attempt at removing it and then called for someone more experienced. Another nurse, Denise, made a go of it next. She was likewise unable to make any headway.

"I'll go get Mark," Denise said. "He can always get these out." She left the room and returned with a male nurse. He wasn't much to look at, just a thin guy of average height with sandy hair and light green scrubs. I guess I was expecting that only someone larger than life was going to be able to remove the stubborn drain.

"Hi, I'm Mark," he announced.

"I'm Ken. So you're the king of drain removal, huh?"

"Well, there hasn't been one yet that I couldn't get out. Let's see what we've got."

He cleared the other nurses out of the way and began fussing with it. He pulled firmly to no avail. He tried twisting it a little and pulling harder, still without results.

What he did next shocked me beyond belief. I have a hard time believing that it's in any medical book in the world. He put his foot up on the side of the bed, grabbed onto the tube with both hands, and yelled to me, "Hang on to something!" With that, he gave a mighty pull, and it felt as if my entire insides were being ripped out.

"Jeeeesus!" I screamed at the sudden burst of fire across my abdomen as the drain tore free of all its connections to my tissue. Mark stumbled backward and the soggy drain nearly whacked Maggie in the head as it flew by. There was a moment of strained silence, and then, unable
to hold back, we all burst into laughter. It was such an outrageous scene that none of us could help it. That night was my last at Desert Hope. I was finally myself again, free from all the hoses and contraptions and working as good as new. My sleep that night was one of silence and comfort.

Chapter 5

HOME AGAIN

I was released from Desert Hope on April 25. I was so excited to be well again and able to go home. Beth had come to pick me up and walked beside my wheelchair as the patient transport person wheeled me from my room. I waved good-bye to Maggie, Denise, and Mark at the nurses' station as we passed them. I then rode in the public elevator for the first time ever at Desert Hope. It was strange to go down an elevator I had never come up. As I was wheeled across the huge entryway toward the exit, I looked up three stories to the steel and glass dome that was meant to mimic the dome of a cathedral. It looked so much grander from that angle than from the 202. Having entered through the emergency entrance, everything I was experiencing was brand new to me. It made my exit seem much more special.

Once outside, Beth went to get the van, leaving me at the entrance for a few minutes with the patient transport person. In front of me was a grand circular drive made of concrete and paving stones. Across from me was a beautiful garden with a water feature comprised of several tall, irregularly cut granite stones with water flowing over their surfaces from hidden plumbing. Behind the garden stretched the exit from the hospital grounds with date palm trees lining its length on both sides. I felt it beckoning and couldn't wait to drive through and past it.

After I had been in the hospital for twelve days, it was hard to explain what it's like to be outside again, totally separated from all the people, machines, sights, and sounds of the hospital. Over time they had become a part of me. I suddenly felt as if I were naked without them. It was a strange yet hopeful feeling that perhaps I would do just fine on my own again—that my job would be waiting, the kids would remember me for who I was before I got sick, and my pets would still recognize me.

I didn't want to feel like fragile glass that everyone had to protect, so as Beth approached, I slowly pushed myself up from my wheelchair and stepped away from it. Those first few steps without help, without machines or tubing connected to me, were more freeing than anything imaginable. I stood up, straight and strong, and then turned back to look at the hospital that had been my home for what felt like an eternity. I would never look at it the same way again. Instead of just a building off the freeway that I had given no consideration to whenever I drove by, it was now forever a part of the story of my life. Before I knew it, I was looking at Desert Hope through the rearview mirror on the side of the van, watching it get smaller and smaller as we drove home on the 202.

Arizona had never been my dream place to live, or Beth's. I had come to Phoenix for a job and to escape the painful memories of a divorce, and she came for me (although to hear her tell the story, she came for a job opportunity as well). It's hard to believe that that was twenty-one years ago and we had barely started dating. At that time I couldn't imagine that we'd be married, and have a home and a family together. You'd think the worst thing about Phoenix would be the summer heat. It's so hot that three of every four people who move to Phoenix eventually leave because of it. Personally, I think the dust storms, or haboobs as they are called, are the worst. They rise from the desert and then roll
like gargantuan, mile-high tumbleweeds across the city, leaving a coating of dirt on everything. Just when you've cleaned up from one, another one blows through. Though Phoenix had never been our top choice, we learned to accept the bad with the good, and surprisingly, we've lived here longer than anywhere else.