The Mayor Had An Interesting Christmas
Interesting and then some. It has been one hell of a week.
Let’s back it up to December 24. On the morning of the 24th, I was writing up The Mayor’s Christmas message, when I felt a tinge of pain in my tummy. No problem, I thought, I’ve been eating rather solidly the last week, it’s most likely just a little indigestion. This was 7:20 am.
At 8:30 am, TLDG and I jumped into the car and drove to the mall to pick up a few last minute things. By this time my tummy was hurting more, but TLDG thought I had the stomach flu that’s going around, while I thought I needed to have a dump. We did our shopping for a couple of hours and drove home, we we going to TLDG’s folks place that afternoon and night to celebrate Christmas.
We got home at about 11 am and I decided that I needed to take a nap, my stomach was officially in pain and I thought maybe I could sleep it off. An hour goes by and nothing, I feel terrible. I got up out of bed a few times, went to the washroom and puked. Yup, sore tummy, puking, I have the stomach flu.
Or do I?
It’s now 1 in the afternoon and TLDG cancels me out from her parents place, takes the boys and leaves me at home to rest. I’m sick as a dog, but something in the back of my mind tells me I don’t have the flu. A few more hours go by, I can’t sleep, Ican’t crap, I can hardly puke, but one thing is constant, my stomach is in knots. And not funny knots, like Don Knots, but hurting and stupid knots, like Knots Landing.
At 3:30 or so I couldn’t take it any more, I decided I had to go to the hospital. I jumped in the car (all crouched up in a question mark) and drove to the hospital. The admitting department said I was first priority, they didn’t like what they saw. Two hours later (yes, 2 hours) I got to see a doctor. The doctor took some blood, I gave a urine sample, and then he strapped on a glove and decided to give me a rectal exam. Thank God he had fingers like a girl.
Move along to 7 pm. The results of the blood and urine tests come back, my white cell count is 21, it should be between 6-11. I have a bad appendix.
The doctor said I need to get operated on immediately, everything looks pretty bad. Usually a person can go 24-48 hours with a hurting appendix, but my stage was advanced, I needed surgery now. The problem is, there were no surgeons at this particular hospital to do an appendectomy, I’d have to be transferred to another hospital. The problem is, the hospital I was at were plum out of ambulances.
The doctor asked if I could get someone to drive me to the other hospital. So, TLDG and her dad come by (from an hour away) and drive me to the other hospital, 45 minutes away, where the surgeon comes in and tells me they can’t operate until the next day because she doesn’t have the proper crew with her. Two hours later, at about 12 am Christmas day, the surgeon came in to see me, and says that she can now operate, everybody is coming in.
Three hours, and about 40 mg of morphine later, I get wheeled into surgery. Everything is cool, right?
Not quite.
Between the time I was waiting and the time the operation took place, the appendix had ruptured. Not only that, but apparently I have a *rare* appendix, so it took the surgeon an hour to even locate it. A 45-1 hr operation ended up taking 2.5 hours, and what was routine was, as the doctor said, *something I have have never seen before.*
The appendix was a mess, so it took forever to fix. My stomach ended up as swollen as Barack Obama’s (pbuh) head. The oinly cure now was rest and morphine…and morphine.
Typically, when someone has this operation, they stay in hospital for about a day, many people get sent home the same day. I got home last night.
To top it all off, I have developed a cold. Yipee! so every time I cough, I get to tear into my stitches. Man, what a great feeling.
Anyway, my white cell count is still high, but I had to bolt from the hospital, I was bored senseless. I mean, take away the morphine-induced high I was in, and there’s really nothing a hospital can offer me. However, i’m able to type this because I am so high right now I could get hit by a truck and i wouldn’t feel it. I am seriously high. Ya, stoner high, man.
I suppose what I’m looking for here is sympathy, loads and loads of sympathy. Things like, “Wow, Mayor, I’m sorry you missed Christmas and nearly died”, and, “You got shingles for Thanksgiving, an appendectomy for Christmas, what are you going to get for Easter, Lupus?”
Remember–sympathy here, looking for the sympathy.
December 29th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Sympathy? Fuck that, my Christmas turkey was dry! Where’s my fucking sympathy?
Isn’t it funny how a normal man can go to the hospital with a very serious problem that lesser men would have been shitting in their purse over? The pain to you was so slight that it went on for over a month before you noticed it. Are you sure that you are Canadian?
December 29th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Damn, Mayor! That sucks fairly significantly.
When mine went south (when I was 17, eons ago) I tolerated the pain for…oh, I’d say…3 hours before going to the hospital. Loved the Demerol, though…
You are Da Man…
December 29th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
BTW: where are the answers to last weeks brain twisters?
…Or did I miss ‘em?
December 29th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I was shocked to hear of your illness and subsequent wait in hospital. Thank god for national health care or you might have gotten really ill. You should have called coach Marinelli hes got a lot of free time could have given you a ride anywhere. But seriously I’m glad your doing OK, so your probably on a soft food or liquid diet…………pass the Molson’s please.
December 29th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Oh my dear Mayor,
You’ve told some tall tales before, but this one is the best
“crouched up in a question mark” …rectal exam..
that’s funny, man….FOTFL..I’m in stitches here
No really, your painful Christmas experience penetrates my heart like a fing..er..like a scalpel.
seriously friend,
morphine and sponge baths = comfort and joy
December 29th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
I had four days off work and the best 7 layer dip ever. I almost feel guilty for enjoying it all so much. Almost. Get well, Mayor.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
So sorry to hear of your trouble, Mayor. I can only hope that we get a similar, efficiently run, government medical system here in the states real soon.
Seriously, I’m really glad you’re O.K. and getting better. Makes for a rotten Christmas though…
December 29th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
You are one tuff dude Mayor, this story is worthy of an Oprah episode although they may want to spike that bit about the doc’s girl-like fingers…the rewrite may become the “doc’s banana-like fingers”…make that studio audience cringe…or smile.
December 30th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Canada’s socialist health care system at its best. What a pack of scoundrels. Glad to hear you survived the bandits in health care.
December 30th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Thank you for the well wishes, folks.
I’m with Cudgel though, I should have altered the story to say the docs fingers were bigger…like he was wearing hockey gloves or something.
I’m awake, stoned, and ready to blog into 09. Let’s git ‘er dun!
December 30th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Oh heavens.
I’m so sorry, Mayor. How frightening. Fortunately you are ok.
And yes, you have my sympathies.
December 30th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
You sly dog, what a foolproof way of skipping out of dinner with the outlaws.
In all seriousness, I hope you had a Merry Christmas otherwise, and I’m glad you survived your finger-probing, scalpel-wielding encounter with rationed socialised medicine.
December 30th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
I hope you’re feeling better, Mayor. You should certainly feel grateful that you were able to recieve such prompt attention over there in the Great White North and weren’t subjected to the horrible, horrible medical care here in the US.
December 30th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
First hospital can’t take out the appendix? The second one doesn’t have the right “crew” and the appendix bursts during the wait? Another Socialized Health Care success story!
Feel better, and drink lots of booze as soon as you are able.
May 25th, 2009 at 5:01 am
[...] hospital efficiency would become if Canadians would stay at home and do their own minor surgeries. Like that appendix operation I had on Christmas day in Ontario. Seeing as though they didn’t have any ambulances and made us drive to another hospital [...]
May 26th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
This is very much like when I spent my 18th birthday in the hospital for a ruptured ovarian cyst. Had to drive 45 minutes to a neighbouring town, waited hours in pain, and got butt raped by a horrid bitch of a nurse. Analgesic is not an instruction for route of delivery!
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:20 pm
How much did all of this end up costing you? Do you live in a fairly rural part of your county?
June 27th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
It costs about $5000 a year in taxes for each and every Canadian to support socialized medicine.
And I live about an hour outside Toronto.
June 27th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
[...] gets misdiagnosed for free, you get turned away from hospitals because they have no beds for free. Remember the hospital I first went to at Christmas last year? Remember how they didn’t have any doctors that could perform a simple appendix operation, or [...]