Detour from Normal (4 page)

"Why didn't it show up on any tests I've had? I just had an ultrasonic body scan only a few months ago."

"The pockets don't have to be very big to cause a problem, so they can be hard to spot. In addition, you can live your life with those pockets and never have a symptom. Something just happened to one of yours. The pockets can plug with food or seeds and become infected or even rupture. If a pocket becomes infected, the condition is called diverticulitis. That's what you have now."

"Can you remove infected diverticula?"

"The infection generally spreads beyond the diverticula. We're trying to treat your infection and see if the diverticula will heal on its own. If it doesn't heal, we'll have to surgically remove part of your colon."

I thanked Dr. Bonjani for being my cheerleader and for the detailed explanation. He left with a smile, and I waited for a nurse to come to my rescue and install the catheter before the pain returned.

I felt embarrassed again as a pretty young nurse came into my room to perform the procedure. I wished that there was some way I could do it myself. It was one thing to listen to Dr. Bonjani describe the procedure and quite another when I was faced with the reality of it. Once the catheter was finally in place, however, all feelings of embarrassment vanished as I experienced instant relief. It was unbelievable how wonderful it felt to let go of almost a liter of urine in only a few seconds. I could actually feel my belly shrink as the Foley bag filled. "That's the best thing I've felt in days!" I exclaimed to the nurse.

The next two days were a blur of misery. After my extraordinary pain on April 16, my body reacted fiercely. My white blood cell count shot up to 17.3, and I spiked fevers as high as 103. I hadn't been allowed to eat or drink anything since April 14; I was starving and thirsty all the time. The doctors continued to flood me with chemicals, and by April 18, my fevers subsided, and my white blood cell count returned to 10.3. No longer was anyone talking about me going home. Instead I was scheduled for surgery on April 19. The doctors needed to open me up and see what was going on. It was a certainty that I would lose part of my colon.

On April 18, four days after I had been admitted, I was to prepare for surgery by drinking Golytely Dr. Bonjani returned and explained to me in technical terms how Golytely draws large amounts of water into your bowels to quickly and thoroughly "wash you out." All I could think about was how badly my gut was going to hurt every time I went to the bathroom.

I had to drink eight ounces of Golytely every ten minutes until I polished off a gallon of the evil salty, metallic-tasting concoction—the
same as drinking four of the big thirty-two-ounce Big Gulps sold at the convenience store.

It took an hour and a half before the Golytely kicked in. At that point things got a little chaotic. It was a nightmare trying to snake through all my various tubes and make it to my potty before having an accident. There were many close calls as I negotiated the vinyl spiderweb every ten minutes or so. Sure enough, the pain was miserable, and I needed a fresh shot of morphine before I was halfway through. After a few more hours and a raw behind, I was finished, ready for surgery. Or so I thought. My surgery was postponed until April 20. The next day I got to do it all over again: another round of Golytely, dealing with the vinyl spiderweb and the pain. My surgeon either wanted to make sure I was extra clean, or he was a sadist.

That night, the movie
Invictus
played on my room television. It starred Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. Morgan Freeman played Nelson Mandela, who, after spending twenty-seven years in prison, was released in 1990. Through a twist of fate, he became president of South Africa. Matt Damon, on the other hand, played Francois Pienaar, captain of the downtrodden and hated rugby team, the Springboks. After Mandela attended one of the Springboks' games, he decided to support the team and met with its captain. He convinced Francois that a victory in the World Cup, then almost a year away, would inspire and unite the nation. He also shared the poem "Invictus" with him, a poem that had been special to him during his trials and tribulations in prison.

What followed was a lot of hard work, broken bodies, sweat, and grunting as the Springboks brute-forced their way up from the bottom of the rugby ladder. Unfortunately, I don't remember much after that. I wanted to watch more, but the day had been just too much for me. Before I knew it,
Invictus
was playing to a sleeping audience of one.

Chapter 2

UNDER THE KNIFE

In a hospital sleep comes in broken pieces. There's always a nurse who wants to check your vitals, an IV bag emptying and setting off an alarm, or a shift change, requiring someone to come in and check off boxes on their endless paperwork. A constant stream of people randomly entered and exited my room, and if I was lucky, they'd close the door behind them. Otherwise I got to listen to the night-shift sounds in the hallway, too. Eventually the night ended, and, although the sun wouldn't ever peek through the north-facing blinds of my room, the light of day shone around them.

It was April 20, the day of my surgery, and I was ravenous. I would have died for a nice breakfast of waffles or pancakes and bacon—maybe some milk with ice, too. I hadn't been allowed to eat for six days, and for two of them, my digestive tract had been completely flushed out. My stomach would have rumbled if it could have, but it was now as equally dead as my intestines. Everything had automatically shut down days ago to protect my body from further damage. Though I still felt hunger and thirst, it would have literally killed me to give in to those cravings at that point.

It wasn't long before Beth arrived to be by my side when they took me to surgical prep. I pressed a button on the side of my bed to raise it so
I could see her better. I couldn't raise it very much due to my distended belly, which had been increasing in size by the day. My intestines were swelling, and, without muscle peristalsis, gas was trapped inside them as well.

"What do you think?" I said. "They say I'll give birth any minute. Do you still remember those breathing exercises?" I tried to make light of my distended belly, but being so close to the knife, nothing could transform something so serious into a laughing matter. Beth made a genuinely good attempt at smiling anyway. I was proud of her. She'd been so strong through everything, and a little dervish in the background making sure no detail was missed and that only the best folks were on my team.

"I always wanted another baby," she said. "Maybe we'll have a boy this time." She reached out from my bedside and patted my belly.

After a moment, I took her hand and held it against me. I looked her in the eyes and said, "I know this looks like crap, but I'm going to be OK. I just know it. I have absolute faith. And besides, we've got Dr. Demarco on our side. He sure went overboard to save your mother when she had her perforated bowel. In my book, he's the best. I can't believe our good fortune having him as my surgeon."

"Yeah, I know," she said, but I could see she was holding back tears.

I squeezed her hand and smiled. We shared an uncomfortable quiet after that. It was difficult to have a conversation in such an unusual situation. Unusual for me, at least—I had been in such good health all my life. What I was experiencing was completely alien to me. If I hadn't already personally known the surgeon, I probably would have filled several tissues with tears and snot. My only experience with surgeries had been sitting at my mother-in-law's side in the intensive care units
on multiple occasions, watching the erratic heartbeat on the monitor and wondering if she was going to die right in front of me. It was never a pleasurable experience, but at least she'd always come around and I could forget about the bad parts. I was hoping that's what would happen with me.

Soon hospital staff began to trickle in: a nurse, an aide, and a patient transport person. The patient transport person was a young girl with blond hair in a ponytail, wearing a black shirt and khaki pants. "I'm Susan," she announced. "I'll be taking you to surgical prep. Do you need to go to the bathroom or anything before we go?" I nearly laughed—one end of my body wasn't working and the other end was hooked to a bag. Before I had a chance to respond, a red glow crossed her young face. "Ah, I'm sorry about that. Let me take care of that Foley for you," she said.

The pumps went silent as they were turned off, and the vinyl spiderweb vanished as all the lines were disconnected. Aside from the Foley catheter, I was soon free of everything and ready to go. Susan released the brakes on my bed, pulled up the guardrails, and reclined it. Before I knew it, the electric bed was moving at a good clip down the hallway with Beth trailing close behind. I could feel a breeze in my face. It was a wonderful feeling that I'd almost forgotten. It's funny how at traumatic times you can still appreciate such simple things. I counted the florescent light banks as we rolled smoothly down the industrial carpet of the hall—thirteen of them. I found it somehow calming to count them as I rolled toward my uncertain future.

When we finally arrived at the entrance of the surgical prep area, Beth joined me at my bedside and smiled; despite her best efforts, it was but a half smile filled with worry and dread. I took her hand and squeezed it. "Thanks for being here with me."

She leaned down and kissed me. "I love you. I'll be waiting for you."

"I love you, too. I'll see you in a while."

With that, Susan rolled me through the automatic door of the surgical prep room. There were no walls in surgical prep, just curtained partitions. We rolled past a few and then finally turned into one. Susan parked me there, wished me luck, and said she'd get Ms. Santos, the anesthesiology technician. She pulled the curtains closed and left.

There wasn't much to look at or do at that point. I tried not to think about what was about to happen. If things went well, I'd have a cut and be done. If not, I'd have a colostomy bag and hopefully be able to come back in a few weeks and have another surgery to reattach my intestines. If things went poorly, I'd be stuck with the external plastic bag permanently and have to dump it and wash out the remaining excrement several times a day for the rest of my life. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it, a family member already had a colostomy bag, so even if I didn't have any experience with it, there was someone in the family who did. I told myself it would be better than the alternative, but I crossed my fingers that I wouldn't need one.

I closed my eyes and tried to think pleasant thoughts: my kids, my dogs, even my kids' pet rats. I thought of all the wonderful memories we had and hoped that that was what everyone would remember if I didn't make it. But then I mentally scratched that last thought. Of course I was going to make it. After a half hour or so of revisiting my life memories and trying to convince myself that I wasn't having a "life flashing before my eyes" moment, the anesthesiology tech arrived. She introduced herself as Mary and explained what she would be doing. I knew what to expect, or so I thought. I'd been under anesthesia a few years before
for a minor hernia surgery, and the anesthesiologist had me count back from one hundred. I made it to about ninety-seven. That's what I was prepared for, so when Mary gave me the shot that was just supposed to make me a little woozy, I thought I still had some counting to do. I thought I'd get to remember a little more. But that was it. I watched her start to inject the drugs into my IV, and I was gone.

According to Beth, a six-member surgical team worked on me for four grueling and tense hours before I was wheeled out of surgery into recovery.

Chapter 3

TWILIGHT

"And what can I do for you today, my son?" someone asked. I knew that voice, but it wasn't my surgeon. I looked over to see a man in a colorful Madiba shirt and black slacks with his back to me. He was washing his hands for surgery. After they were clean and dry, he turned to me, his fingers facing up at chest level. A nurse pulled a white latex glove onto each hand, letting loose a puff of powder as each glove hit home. A surgical mask covered his face, but I recognized those calm, wrinkled, wise eyes: Dr. Nelson Mandela. Well, he was actually Morgan Freeman, but to me he was Dr. Nelson Mandela.