In Recovery Mode

Awhile ago in an earlier post, I briefly mentioned under going testing to get my hiatal hernia examined for potential surgery. I have had GERD and acid reflux my whole life and it was mainly caused by this sliding hiatal hernia. Years of stomach acid bubbling up into my esophagus has turned into me also having Barrett’s Esophagus! I have been controlling this with medications, but learning about the long-term effects of such medications, we decided to get this fixed. So after a few consults with my doctor, on April 14th I had surgery, my first in my 54 years on this spinning planet. There are two common procedures in fixing hiatal hernias and I had a combination of the two, called The Hill-Nissen Hybrid Repair which is a fairly new procedure developed to reduce the failure rate of each of the procedures done individually. I had it done at our brand new high tech hospital just a few mile away, Swedish Hospital Issaquah by my highly competent and respected physician, Dr. Ralph Aye. It was done laparoscopic with five small incisions into my abdomen. The pain wasn’t too bad, but the medication in the pain pump gave me a horrendous headache, so I had to take something less effective orally in a liquid form……bummer! I was up walking a few hours after surgery and did quite well. The biggest problem after a surgery like this is the inability to get anything into the stomach through the repair area as it is very tight and inflamed. Getting anything in liquid form was very hard and I had to do it very slowly. This also caused me to stay an extra night in the hospital until I was able to start getting fluids and nutrition.

I am home now and the recovery begins. It will take 4-6 weeks to get back to work, which boredom may set in, it is very nice to have the time off!! I am on a full fluids diet for the first two weeks…..jello, pudding, broth, juices, thin smoothies and I am dropping weight like crazy and every other commercial on TV seems to be related to food in some way! The only exercise I am getting is just some short walks in the neighborhood and fatigue is easily achieved. I’ll go back for a follow up appointment on the 28th and may be able to start eating more foods, yaaaaaa! It will 6 weeks and beyond before I will return to a “normal” diet, but I have a feeling I will be seeing a new normal from now on. We’ll see how much weight I will lose and will I be able to keep it off. Below is a video I took after coming home which is kind of funny! My voice was screwed up from the surgery and Debbie thought it was funny. Apparently, so did I. Don’t worry Swedish, I was just kidding about suing!

 

 

 

 

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A Challenging New Year

Well 2014 hasn’t started very well for us in the Givens household! Granted, everyone in the Seattle area were partying with the Seahawks winning their first ever Super Bowl and that was a helluva party and something to cheer for!! And except for a couple of bumps in the road, thing are still going good for us. Now for those bumps! Back in August I did something to my right heel which created a knot on the inside of where the Achilles tendon inserts itself in to the heel bone. Deb and I went on an easy three-mile, level trail run and I felt fine. No holes or rocks were hit and no trauma was experienced. I had been breaking in some new Brooks Adrenaline shoes and they just never felt right! When we were through, my foot felt fine, but the next day I noted some soreness in my heel. I gave it a day or two then tried another run, and barely got out of the neighborhood and had to turn back. Haven’t run since!!! I kept it quiet for a while and finally gave into going to physical therapy! They worked on it for over a month and it wasn’t getting any better, so I resorted to seeing my foot and ankle sports medicine guy. We have worked on it with anti inflammatory, ice, and six weeks in the below walking boot! I remained working, but I did have to remove the boot while I drove the bus! It was a pain, but after a while, I was used to the boot and it actually felt good when I had it on. There has been improvement and I am back in physical therapy to strengthen the tendons and try to get back to normal. I am just trying to avoid surgery, because it will be major and I will be out of commission for three months!

My Walking Boot

Speaking of surgery, our poor little boy Cordell had to have some to remove a small tumor discovered during his last physical. We were very worried about our little guy and luckily the test results came back benign. He is on the mend and has almost fully recovered, although he still has a hairless patch on his side. He was a real trooper through the whole thing!

Poor Cordell has an oowie!

Now while all this was going on and we didn’t have enough to worry about, the scumbag in the photos below hacked our debit card account and ripped off almost $10,000 out of our bank account!! We presume he somehow phished our information by a fake reader or something because we still had possession of the card. Since the debit card was linked to all of our accounts, he took from savings, checking, and also a personal line of credit. What a hassle it was getting it all sorted out and changing bank account numbers and re establishing bill pays and etc. We are no longer going to use a debit card in such a manner for the future. We opened a local account that we will transfer a limited amount of money into and use it. Below are photos captured from multiple ATM’s he was using and while they are not the best, if you see or know this piece of shit scumbag, contact police. He used ATM’s at only Seven Elevens in the following places: Bellevue, Factoria, Kent on Meeker Street, Seattle on Denny Way, Woodinville, Crossroads, and once in Marysville.

Finally as things have slowly returned to normal I am going through tests to possibly get surgery to fix my GERD I have lived with for years! I had multiple tests done which included a manometry, endoscopy, and a Bravo pH study done. I go back shortly to have a consult on where to go from here! Wish me luck, I will need it!

When Your Life Flashes Before Your Eyes

Has your life ever flashed before your eyes? Have you ever faced your own mortality either because of your own actions or things beyond your control? Have you thought about death and dying and what you’ll do when you are facing the end of your life? We all die, some sooner than later. Some will have to prepare for death and wait for the end to come. Some will be knocked down unexpectedly, unprepared but unknowingly! I don’t know about you, but I would prefer the latter! In youth we think we are invincible and death is the furthest thing on our minds. Death is for the old, grand parents, great grand parents, aunts, uncles not us or our friends. We sometimes tempt death by doing stupid things because we feel we just cannot die! Did you ever run up to a neighbor’s house, ring the doorbell and run away not ever getting caught? I did that quite a few times to the door of the Grim Reaper, but never got caught. I did stupid things when I was young and a few times narrowly escaped my stupidity.

There was the time when I took two hits of windowpane acid with two other friends. That’s eight individual hits my friends! I did it under duress and peer pressure and sheer stupidity. Luckily my Mom was out of town for a week and our next door neighbor who was supposed to be keeping an eye on us, really didn’t! I don’t know what happened for three days of my life. All I know is that one friend got arrested and disappeared for three months, and the other friend was never quite the same mentally again. I returned to reality virtually unscathed! I was in the 10th grade. Then there was the time I left a keg party totally whacked and met up with another one of my scumbag friends at an A&W who had two doses of morphine and two eye dropper needles. I said hell ya and we went to the bathroom and did them up. Again, luckily I was too drunk to hit a vein and hit a muscle which didn’t do much more than get me even really drunker which lasted way into the next day! I had no clue what I was doing and was soooooo stupid! That was the one and only time I ever used a needle. Again, I was in the 10th grade. I can’t forget the time I developed some red spots on my legs and under my arms. I had no idea what they were, but I felt just fine. As the days passed, the number of the spots increased but didn’t bother me so I just ignored them. I had an after school job and on a Friday evening I was loading a truck and stepped between the dock and the back of the truck severely hurting my right leg. When I woke up the next morning, my leg was black and swollen from my knee to my ankle and the spots had literally covered my body. My stepfather called his doctor and I was in the ER in less than half an hour. The doctor, a brilliant man whom no doubt saved my life, didn’t even focus on my leg but asked me how long I had the spots. While every other doctor who saw me wanted to immediately treat me for leukemia, he wanted to wait until a bone marrow test was done to verify it and started treating me for mononucleosis. I do remember laying there hours after I was admitted, my Mom bawling her head off, and the doctor telling me I was a very sick young man who was on the verge of death and may not make it! I knew I must have been scared but I couldn’t fathom dying because I just did not feel sick! The first night I was awakened every hour on the hour for a blood draw. I later learned that yes the hourly blood draw was needed, but the nurses were also making sure I had not expired. The next morning after a very obese male nurse climbed on my while I was on my stomach and painfully and forcefully inserted a huge needle into my hip bone to draw bone marrow leaving with the sample drenched with sweat, it was discovered I did not have leukemia. My doctor was right and I recovered ever so slowly. I spent the Thanksgiving of 1976 in the hospital. I was in the 11th grade.

Oh yeah, then there was the time right at the end of my first year of college, classes were basically done and the dorm I was in was a rocking party. We were nonstop and I had gotten a hold of a bag of Valium of every color and strength and was popping them like candy washing them down with whatever alcohol was put in front of me. I was just asking for an overdose! And again, one time some friends got together for an afternoon of revelry and I snorted what was supposed to be a whole nights worth of crystal meth in two fat lines all at once. I thought it was cocaine. My friends stared at me in disbelief when I did it. It was two full days before I could either eat or sleep. Thank goodness I was in the best physical shape of my life, but I still could have stroked out or blown my heart apart. I was then in my 20’s. Oh and then there was the time when a bunch of us went camping in the mountains of central California. We trucked our bicycles to the top of a paved mountain highway and was to ride down the mountain back to camp. I decided to see how fast I could go. I had no helmet on, no shirt, just a pair of swim trunks and off I went blazing down the highway. At my fastest I was passing every car I came upon. Then came the curve I was not able to make at the speed I was going. I went off the road and over the cliff. I had no idea how big the drop was or how steep. I just saw blue sky and figured my life was now over! I came too in a cloud of dust and a broken collar-bone. I was taking off the mountain in an ambulance. I was 30 years old at the time. Ok now DON”T YOU JUDGE ME, it was a long time ago and I am just making a point.

Now I have approached the age of 52 years. How I made it, I have no idea. I am a card-carrying AARP Member, having to wear glasses to see at night, taking meds for high cholesterol and acid reflux disease! I no longer run to the door of the Grim Reaper, knock, then run away. Nowadays, he is the one lurking outside my door waiting, watching. I have to see doctors for things like colonoscopies, prostate exams, and recently an endoscopy. It was this last procedure that had my life flashing before my eyes again. I have had GERD for many years but of which I have under control by taking meds. My doctor recommended that I get an endoscopy just to make sure things are okay down there. I had the procedure done on a Thursday and was not unpleasant. They give you good drugs! The results showed evidence of acid reflux and some biopsies were taken to be examined and the results were to be provided to me in a week or two by mail. I thought nothing of it until I received a call the following Tuesday from his nurse that he wanted to see me about the results and could I come in the next morning. She didn’t convey the message very well and my heart sank. We had a neighbor when we lived in Laurelhurst who was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and died a horrible death just months later. I was mortified. It was a long night of worry, not being able to eat or sleep, and wondering how Debbie would handle bad news if it were such. She took the morning off and went with me to my appointment. My life was again flashing before my eyes. This time I didn’t have that feeling of invincibility as in youth. My mind may still reside in young wistful ways, but the reality is that my body is no longer as young as my mind. Age creeps year after year after year. The doctor came in and was a bit surprised that Debbie was there with me and said there was no real concern. I did have damage to my esophagus and proceeded to diagnose me with Barrett’s Esophagus! While the news isn’t great, it isn’t a horrible death sentence. It will have to be monitored and I will have to maintain my daily regimen of Prevacid, but nothing else needs to be done. I am going to voluntarily make modifications to my lifestyle and tweak my daily supplement intake, but I am grateful for now! I am not ready to leave behind my lovely and wonderful wife and I am not ready to die. I love life! Stay away from me Mr. Reaper, you asshole! Do I have any regrets? Yes I do have regrets about not have done some of thing things I wanted to! Would I do everything all over again if I had the chance? Hell yes…..I have had one hell of a time so far!