All posts by Steve Stern

Home, home at last

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A couple of  thoughts on leaving the hospital and coming home.

First, a hospital is a spiritual place. I used to think spiritual places were solemn. Solemn as in only solemn, solemn as in the hushed silence of going into a church for a memorial service or wedding. Then I spent an afternoon at a spiritual site – it wasn’t a church, actually it was a sort of anti-church that the Catholic church has been fighting for 500 years and temple seems way too grand – dedicated to Maximón.

It was actually a major rite of passage for me, I had gone there to photograph the site and, I am sorry to say, make fun of it. As soon as I got there, I started to throw-up and shake, after a session with the Tz’utujil shaman/priests, I felt great. Sitting around, I saw solemn moments, sadness and pathos, but more laughter and hilarity. It was eye opening on every level.

A hospital is like that: it is over- ridingly a spiritual place where life in all its forms is played out on steroids. The rooms may be filled with people in pain and distress but the hall are filled with joy and humor and that energy comes into each room dozens of times a day. Becky, an astoundingly black, astoundingly gorgeous woman from Uganda, coming into the room at 6 in the morning with a wide, infectious smile, glowing as she gently takes my blood; Sherry, an Indian from Fiji, spreading calm and peace as she takes my vitals; the lead nurse, in her hijab, serenely watching her wards.

If this is the future of America, sign me up.

Second, I have left the hospital and have come home. The hospital has so many advantages, and it isn’t home. Nothing beats my own beddy-bye. Even a great hotel. I look at the calendar and I have been gone almost a week, but nothing seems to have changed. Of course it has, Christmas is gone; time has continued to flow even though it didn’t in the hospital and I am ready to slip back into that flow. Feeling serene and grateful.

 

 

 

 

A thought at 5 AM

Medical, Politics,

After waking up at 5 AM with a throbbing pain in my knee, I started thinking about the Iranian woman who was going to be stoned to death for adultery. It seems the case has now been referred to the Iranian equivalent of the Supreme Court to see if the sentence can be changed to….wait for it now, reduced to, commuted to….hanging.

I am not sure if the court’s thinking – and I am using the term thinking loosely here – is supposed to be based on legal grounds or a religious interpretation of  God’s unboundless Love; either way it seems to me, sitting here in the dark, the decision will really be made by some old man pulling an old, predigested, opinion out of his ass.

And that got me thinking about how arbitrary those in power, even the elected ones, rule. Rick Perry – what an asswipe – can let a man be executed without looking at the new evidence that might show him to be innocent. Like George Bush – or Dick Cheney, if you prefer to see Bush the Younger as weak – going to war against Iraq. Or Bashar al-Assad hanging on to power in Syria.

I want to be outraged, and I am somewhat, but it is really like being outraged that some people have more power, more prestige, more talent. No outrage changes the fact that some people are ruling other people or that the rulers, in the end, are doing what the rulers want.

Boxing Day at Sequoia

Medical

I have been on a pretty heavy duty regime of antibiotics since Friday and it is now starting to pay off. For the first time in about three weeks, I don’t feel punk.

It turns out that I – or my blood atleast – have been the host to a growing colony of Enterococcus – that is its family name, I don’t know the Christian name – that is now being beaten back by heavy doses of Vancomycin HCL and Gentamicin Sulfate given through my new PICC line. How long the colony has been there is up to question as is how it got there

Being in the hospital over Christmas has been fine which is not the say that being infected is fine; that part has been a real pain in the ass. At first, the combination of the novelty, being scared, and feeling punk resulted in my having what I could pass off for having a pretty good time but now the novelty has worn off, I feel very safe, and I feel much better.

Part of why I feel safe, is that when I say My knee hurts, a doctor show up and says Let’s run a ultrasound to make sure you don’t have a blood clot, then, when that  ultrasound shows I don’t have a blood clot, the doctor says Let’s take a blood test to see if your who-haw level is high. In the meanwhile, they don’t want me to walk until they know what the problem is.

Of course this also why I also am getting bored. Everytime I involuntary roll my eyes, a battery of doctors show up to remind me that I have a aorta valve made out of cow parts and We want to be careful.

In the meanwhile, life in the hospital is different. The temperature doesn’t change, the light level in the halls doesn’t change, the sound level – pretty high, with bells, buzzers, and calls for Code Red to Room 274 –  doesn’t change; and the level of good humor and general joy of life is extraordinarily high. I think this is because everybody is in service and it really is better to give than to receive.


 

Christmas at Sequoia Hospital

Medical

A funny thing happened on the way to Christmas, I ended up in the hospital. It turns out that I have a major blood infection and my fever went up to 103 on Thursday night. They took some blood samples, cooled me down with Tylenol and intravenous fluids and let me go home.  At 7 the next morning, they called to say that my blood was growing a culture and I should come back in, “The sooner the better.”

So here I am, getting antibiotics three or four times a day, intravenously. Much better than any alternative I can think of.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 

 

Atrial Fibrillation and Obamacare

Americana, Current Affairs, Obama, Psychological Musings

 

Last week, I had a dizzy, nauseous spell – eposode as I don’t like to call it – and went to my doctor. Then, on the next day, to my cardiologist. It turns out that I have Atrial Fibrillation – and I don’t think that is the right way to put it, although I am or I caught Atrial Fibrillation is certainly wrong – and I am now wearing a new Holter monitor. A   Holter monitor records heart activity over a period of time. In this case seven days, my first one was for twenty four hours and was so big I had to wear it on my belt – this one is just stuck to my man boob and it lasts for seven days. Ain’t progress grand.

 

Speaking of progress, for some reason – maybe because a large percentage of doctors are conservative – the medical profession has resisted computerizing records. I am 71 and my files would require a wheelbarrow to carry around if most of them hadn’t – fortunately – been lost. The file at my cardiologist is probably about an inch and an half thick and I have only been going to her for about four years and she is only one doctor. As an aside; What we really need is a chip similar to the chip our cat has but that is going to be a real fight. I see over at Last Days News – where they tell us that These End Times Prophecies are 100% Accurate! In case you had any doubts- that a The Bible says those who take the 666 Microchip will receive the Wrath of God. I am not a Christian and I am not much of a believer in the Bible as an authority but if it really does mention Microchips, I will be instantly converted. End aside.

Anyway, on to Obamacare and computerized records. This week, both my doctors – well, I have more than two, but both doctors I went to – are deep into switching over to computers and it already seems to be paying off. My primary doctor entered her notes into the computer and my cardiologist has them the next day when I go to her office. I leave the cardiologist with a printed list of instructions rather than oral instructions and an hand scribbled prescription. I have a question about my meds and call the cardiologist, her assistant looks up my files at his desk, and in about fifteen second gives me my answer. Last month, he would have had to call me back.

By the time Obama leaves office five years from now, I suspect that few people will still want to revoke Obamacare.