Radioactive

Hospital Thoughts

In My Bloodstream: Regular stuff
On The Stereo: The Boxer,  Simon And Garfunkel 

My first order of business this week, is to correct the spelling of a person's name which I used last week. The lovely, beautiful and serene lady, whose touch and encouragement gave me warmth, is Gail.  I have not spoken to her since my story and I did not ask permission, as I normally do,  to include her in my very personal story.  Her twin sister thanked me for the story and she wrote "Gail" in her note.  One of us is wrong, and I am, in an effort to avoid an argument, letting her win.  Apologies and love to you both.

My second point of disorder is my song this week.  I surmise from your posts, that most of you love music as much as I do.  My library is not terrifically great in number, but does run around 18,000 pieces of music deep, and is peculiarly eclectic.  Songs which I include in my blog usually have some particular meaning to me, personally.  Today's is no exception.  Paul Simon, in my humble, but correct opinion, is one of America's greatest songwriters.  The Boxer is metaphorical, if you listen to his lyrics.  It represents, not just the "boxer", but each of us in the fights we all share.  Very moving.  And it includes a great line which is so true, that a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.  Our current times and troubled days in politics prove that to be so true.

Give the song another try.  Be amazed by the incredible musical arrangement.  And remember, "the fighter still remains".

We saw a coyote slip between the houses this morning, headed for the 6th fairway.  It looked healthy and fit.  I don't know if that is good or bad news.  Called security.  Most excitement I have had since...just realized I can't tell you.  Would cause a domestic.


I am worn out this week.  We have had old friends stay with us and Kathy has continued to be under the weather for over two weeks now.  Between the long philosophical talks with Bill and Sue, which ended sometime every evening around 2am, and Kat's never-ending coughing, we are not getting much sleep around here.  As some of you know, Kath has a very serious auto immune issue, which prevents her from recovery over any disease, including simple colds.  She just keeps getting sicker.  She is still on antibiotics and will, hopefully, improve this week.   The poor girl has struggled.

That said, I had plans to talk, in depth, about head issues.  It is a lengthy and quite difficult story, and I need to be in form, to broach it.  Alas, I am not.  I will gather myself, and come back to it later.  This week's feeding will be Robin light.  Low caloried and easy to digest.

Some readers may have noticed my aversion to hospitals, in past blogs.  I come by that quite honestly.  I will leave you with a couple of short memories, held for a long, long, time.

My first hospital visit was to have my tonsils removed.  I do not know why.  In my youth, it was trendy for doctors to tell mothers that their child's colds were a result of swollen tonsils.  Tonsilitis.   They were inflamed with germs, which I thought were "Germans".  The Germans needed to be removed.  So must be the tonsils which housed them.  Immediately.  It was standard operating procedure.

I was carted off to The Soldiers' Memorial Hospital, in Orillia, Ontario, Canada.  There, I was dutifully checked in and, finding no space for a six year old boy, they stuck me in the infant ward.  There were about eight cribs in that room.  I was the only one whose legs stuck through the bars at the end.  I must have been easy to spot.  Nurses bumped into my legs as they worked between the rows.  How embarrassing.  I stayed there the night.  Babies cried and were fed bottles.  I had no food in preparation for the operation, and had to sleep on my back, as I was unable to fold myself into the tiny crib.  The legs stayed out.

They operated the next morning and I was given my first food, a few hours later.  Ice cream.  Sounds good, right?  Trust me, it was not worth it.  I was sent home, to continue to have colds and a continuum of chronic lung issues.  Forever.  I don't know if the operation helped in any way.  But the medics seemed happy.  The operation was a success.  The patient failed to get better.  In reflection, I am glad they did not do the same to any other organs which swelled up.  Whew.



We have discussed my mastoid operation earlier.  What I did not dwell on, was the length of time I spent in Sick Children's Hospital in Toronto.  As you might recall, I was three full months in a hospital room, after the operation.  Three full months.  I seldom saw my parents, due to work schedules, distance and costs.

Every day with no friends for ninety days.  Think of that.  I guess at that tender age, you simply adapt to your environment.  I did schoolwork on my own, when I felt like it.  There was no organized plan for me.  I was occasionally brought schoolbooks by my parents.  I was on my own.  I suppose my future was suspect, and that was the dominant concern.  I do not think my parents cared whether or not I was the smartest kid in the room at that point.  Having their first child stay alive, might have been on their collective minds.   Other kids came and went.  I was there.  I stayed there, day after day after day.

I was released, with my head wrapped like Boris Karloff, in the original "Mummy".  Summertime.  Still no school, although I was allowed to take my exams, so that I could move on to the next grade.  I was graded second in the class.  Ranking was everything in those days.  I did all right on my own, apparently.  Got me on a lucky day.

We celebrated my eleventh birthday that July.   Quietly, as I was still tipsy from the wound and cavity behind my left ear.  Just over two months of summer, unable to do much physical activity, less than one month back in school, and I returned to Toronto, for another operation, and another full three months in my natural habitat - the hospital.  A little older, but still just as bored.  Days were taken up racing wheelchairs down the hallway and generally just hanging out.  The days were interminable, the food was hideous, and friendship was nonexistent.  The nursing staff tolerated me, in whatever mischief I could create.  I am sure, today, that they all must have felt a sincere compassion for the kid who lived, for half the year, in the place in which they worked.

My evening treat was delivered on schedule, each and every night.  It never wavered.  It never changed.  It was the stuff of my dreams.  I waited all day, salivating.  I suffered every other meal.  But the appearance of this snack would immediately boost my spirits.  One digestive cookie and a small glass of orange juice.  It was my bacchanal.

In all of this, it should be remembered that these six months were entirely due to the surgeries and the time it took to repair the damage.  Recovery time was all done at home.  For a young boy of that age, it was a long year.


                                                     You look lovely today Mrs Cleaver.

I was hospitalized when my leg was broken, playing baseball.  As I have reported, the shin bone was set without anesthesia, as I had eaten shortly before.  When the broken tibia was set in place, the doctor wrapped my leg in bandages and plastered my leg from the groin to the toes.  It was left in place for the remainder of the summer and into the fall, when I rode on my bike, one-legged, to school.  Another summer with medical issues.

                                        Larraine and me hanging out at Target. The original.

I will end this little session regarding a few of many of my hospitalizations, with the bizarre.

My nose has been broken too many times.  Contributive culprits included  football, hockey and a poor record in fighting.  Seven times, in my recollection.  Difficulty sleeping and more importantly, breathing, were the outcome.  Just before Kath and I married, my doctor recommended corrective surgery.

The operation was performed at Toronto General Hospital.  I was anesthetized and a surgeon, having trained for years,  picked up a sledge hammer and had at my bent proboscis.   Smashed it.   He then reshaped the nose and opened up the nostrils.  Perfect.  He then packed them with gauze, soaked in some antibacterial gunk and sent me to my hospital room to recover.

Sometime during the night, I started to wake up.  A nurse told me everything had gone well, and to try not to move, and rest for the rest of the night.  I nodded in and out of sleep.  I opened my eyes to see a man, I presumed, standing over me.  I would normally have said he was staring at me, but he had no face.  None.  Panicking, I felt for the alarm button, and pressed it, over and over, until a nurse came in.  She guided the man back to his bed, beside mine.  I realized, for the first time, that I was not alone in this room.  Who was that man?  I never closed my eyes for the balance of the night.

In the morning, I began to choke on the gauze bandage, which had dropped its end down my throat.  I reached in my mouth and pulled the end out and called the nurse again.  She came, saw what was happening, and told me to just hang on to the gauze.  She would be right back.

She returned, with scissors and I tried to tell her that I did not think this to be a good idea.  With my hand in my mouth clinging to a long strip of gauze, I was not making sense to her, and she cut the strip, saying that should fix the problem.  Of course it did not.

The end of the strip went immediately down my throat again, and we were now in trouble.  Call the resident.  That is when Kath came back to see how I was doing and to take me home.  This was not a good time.  They pulled out all of the packing, as the doctor could not keep it in place.  They would get me ready to go home.  This deal was a failure.

When we were getting ready to leave, I found out about my voyeur.  He had cancer in his mouth, and it had spread.  He had been left with almost nothing of his mouth, tongue nasal passages.  He had a forehead, eyes and a small portion of his jaw.  He had heard me trying to breathe and was worried about me.  He, too, had called for help.  The poor man was a good Samaritan.  And in a far worse place than I.  While I was filling out discharge papers, he was being fitted with his new, artificial face. A mask, not unlike the one in Phantom.  It was amazing.  I had now seen him with and without his face covering.  Even though it did not at all look lifelike, it helped him appear better.  The book with or without its cover, was the same book.  He was a kind and caring man, in an unfortunate situation.  Smoking had been his downfall.

I am a hugger.  Not a tree hugger.  A hugger of people.  Almost everyone I know is much the same.  These days, no one is allowed to touch anyone for fear of offending them.  Teachers are not allowed to touch students for fear of litigation.  Hyper-sensitivity runs rampant.  We all need contact.  Human contact.  Soon, babies will come out of the womb and be put in a baggie for safekeeping.  No contact allowed.

I avoid political discussion as much as possible.  But the far left which has been pressing these issues of past impropriety, now has Joe Biden on the ropes, putting him on the defensive.  If, five years ago, a woman found his actions offensive, should she not have said something then?  If she had said "no", and he persisted, then I understand.  But when he is preparing to announce his candidacy for President, and at this moment in time his reputation is tarnished, something smells rotten.  Conveniently offended, I would say.

This message was the result of this morning's scurrilous media.  Tired of waking up to crap.  We are all doomed if we do not fight back.  Your job today is to deny political correctness.  It is an imaginative figment of weak people and spiteful minds.

Peace and love.  Hug a friend.