Happy Anniversary!

One year ago today, I woke up at 4AM and packed a small bag. My little brother picked me up thirty minutes later, my mom was in the car with him, so was my best friend from high school.

They took me to Northside Hospital where I was admitted and prepped for surgery.

Many times I have thought about writing this but I pretty much decided it needed to wait, I don’t know why, I just did. Finally, a few months ago It occurred to me to write about on the one year anniversary, somehow, I think I sensed I would need to.

When I went into the Hospital on February 21, 2007 I knew I was going to have a tumor removed from my spinal cord, I knew it would be a six to eight hour operation, but the kid in me who grew older but never grew up kept saying; “It ain’t no big deal”.

The doctor has explained the risks to me, told me pretty much what to expect but I didn’t really listen. I heard the bottom line, I had a tumor and if it wasn’t removed very very soon I would be paralyzed from the waist down. It wasn’t like I had a choice in the matter.

they prepped me I was making jokes pretty much the whole time, mostly for the sake of my mother, who had already lost one child to leukemia (I was 13 he was 10) I knew she was worried and I didn’t want her to, but at the same time, I wasn’t worried either. It had to be done. When you get older, you sometimes know where you are going, and you know you are going straight to danger, but you simply do it, your legs carry you and you put on your  big girl panties and you face life. You don’t worry about it.

I put all my clothes in a little bag and my brother stayed with me, I put on the gown and laid down on the gurney, the nurse started an IVand they started rolling me down the hall at 5:30AM. I remember a wheel squeaking and thought it sounded like a small dog barking.

Lights out.

In my mind it was only a second later I woke up, in recovery.  In reality it was a tad over eight hours. I remember there were a lot of other people in there and I remember hearing moans and groans and crying. I was in an ethereal state, even though I knew that I was in serious pain, I simply couldn’t focus on it.  A nurse was next to me. I asked her could I go to my room now. I seem to recall her asking me some questions, what day it was, where I was and why I was there. I woke up again and asked again could I go to my room, she said yes they would be moving me momentarily.

Lights out again.

Of that day I only remember fragments. There were many people in my room when I woke up, I remember my Uncle Bob and Aunt Susan because she had made me a big pitcher of iced tea and I wanted some. My family tells me I was happy and making jokes. I remember the iced tea and I remember waking up with Ashley stroking my head and asking me how I felt.

Again Lights out.

I was heavily sedated, the surgery was very complicated and I was on 2 percoset every 3 hrs and a morphine drip that activated every 10 minutes when I pushed the button, I pushed it once a minute so as not to miss out.

I didn’t know it until two weeks ago but the neurosurgeon told my mother and my little brother that there had been serious nerve damage in removing the tumor and there was a only a slightly better than average chance that I would ever walk again.

I was prepared for a three to four day stay. on the 22nd I was back to reality, at least as much as you can be with that much painkiller dulling almost everything.

My Doctor came in, asked me how I felt, looked at the stitches  adn hung around while the physical therapist got me out of bed ( a slow painful process) and had me on one of those walkers with wheels, He wanted me to walk.

It’s a weird feeling knowing whats supposed to happen when your brain tells your right leg to move, you know it’s there, you can see and feel it, but it simply wont respond. And it hurts, bad, like a burning knife from my lower back into my right hip and down my right leg to the knee.

That’s when they started me on Neurontin, you see, painkillers have no effect at all on nerve pain, and thats what I had, all the morphine on earth won’t stop that pain until you take enough to kill you. They get me back in bed.

Every day they try to walk me two or three times a day and every day they up the dosage of Neurontin. Three days pass, then four, I am supposed to be going home but I still can’t walk. The only person who tipped to me that there may be a problem was my father, I saw him deal with my little brothers death and I sensed that he didn’t think I would be walking again, and I started to wonder myself.

Five days passed and I am up to a massive dose of neurontin, 3600mg a day.  I’m also still on the drip and still on the narcotics but they took me off Percoset (too much Tylenol) and put me on Oxycodone, two of them every three hours. I was pretty much null and void.

It’s the afternoon of the sixth day, and I get up on the walker and for the first time my leg responded when I tried to lift it. I finally took my first steps. The relief overwhelmed me, a big burden was lifted. The next day I was checking out.

The doctor told me to expect to be on hydrocodone for about six months but in decreasing doses after the first month. He told me to expect to be on the Neurontin for eighteen months to two years.

I hate taking pills.

My house has an upstairs and I wasn’t yet ready for that so I checked into an extended stay near the Hospital, a handicapped room. It felt good when My little brother and Ashley drove me away from the hospital. My memory is still very spotty, I only remember highlights.  Ashley took care of me, showered me, cooked for me, she stayed with me twenty four seven at the hospital. and she stayed with me at the extended stay hotel, everyday we would walk the hotel’s perimeter, me, with my walker.  I started out on the second day lifting the walker as I walked and by day four I could walk the property and never set it down. Ashley went and got me a four pronged cane and I tackled my last obstacle, the stairs. It was slow going but I could manage it.

She packed me up and I checked out and came home. She stayed another week till I was on my own.  I had a lot of visitors, lots of friends, family and well wishers and I love them all, but nothing compares to the kindness and patience that Ashley exhibited. I will forever be in her debt.

I was driven and I hated taking the drugs, so in time I cut my dosage of the hydrocodone and dealt with some pain instead of covering it up. Thirty days after surgery I was off the pain meds completely.  The nerve pain, however was still very much there but I was noticing that it was radiating upwards until in centered in my hip, then gradually into my lower back and at that point I cut the Neurontin dose in half, the halved it again a week later, after two months I was off of it completely, Yes I hurt a little but to me it beat taking pills, and it was less bothersome by the day.

Now it’s a year later and on Monday I go in for an MRI, to see if the tumor is growing back, and I figure it is. They couldn’t remove all of it, doing so would have certainly paralyzed me from the waist down.  So now I have some apprehension, memories are flooding back and theres a degree of stress associated with it all, I won’t lie about that.

If t is growing back I’m told it can be controlled in various non surgical ways, I don’t know but I’m guessing that means some form of radiation or chemo, something I don’t really look forward to either.

But it’s my lot in life and like I told my family and friends after the surgery last year, One of two things can happen, I can own this or it can own me, I’m not happy being owned.

Many of you reading this can’t identify, many of you are young I thought I was too.  My body now reminds me daily that I am not. But I learned a lot from all this.  I have a friend who ihas gotten into skydiving.  He very much wants me to do a jump, and I have been tempted. But I think about it and suddenly I don’t need to cheat death anymore to feel alive, I don’t need the adrenaline rush to make me feel like a man. Matter of fact I can think of nothing that makes me feel alive more than spending time with a beautiful young girl who wants to spend time with me.

No thrill on earth matches the moment when she gives herself to me.

Well, maybe catching a big fish.

Stay outta hospitals, they aren’t any fun.