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December 29, 2005

Pain control advice by my esteemed surgeon

I had a very rough couple of days since returning home as far as pain is concerned. It seems my surgeon sent me home with a prescription of hydrocodone/acetominophen to control my pain level. This is basically a glorified codeine/Tylenol combination that I am now on after receiving morphine and Torbutol (sp?) by the anesthesiologist in the hospital. That's a little like giving someone clove oil before drilling a tooth as far as the strength is concerned. As a result my healing has been slowed and sleep has been a few catnaps. I called him today about changing the medication to something that might have a chance of actually controlling my pain for the next few days while I become more mobile. He called back and asked about the type of pain and when I had pain. I told him that I had sharp pain whenever I moved. He responded that he wasn't trying to be a smartass but would suggest that I don't move! Of course, this goes against the hospital staff who were constantly getting me to walk the halls and stretch as much as possible. I was too stunned by the stupidity of this suggestion to even give a snappy comeback. He then said he would phone in another prescription. Yep, he sure did that. The new prescription is basically the same thing as the old prescription, substituting hydrocodone for oxycodone! This new prescription is, from the research, a little bit weaker in pain control. To be honest, I can't really tell any difference between perceived pain relief from either of these medications. What he did essentially was to give me about the same thing. I can't believe this level of stupidity. Is it too much to ask that I receive adequate medication to control the pain so my intestines are not constantly tightened against the pain? After the fiasco with the pain meds detailed in an earlier entry I was hoping for something that I could use and monitor to effectively control the pain. Perhaps I am being too critical here but I would think that there were alternatives that would do a better job at pain relief than what I have been experiencing. The real problem here was the cavalier attitude he took in addressing my problem. Though the nursing staff at the hospital totally botched the pain relief issue at least the anesthesiologists did make an honest effort to address it in a complete and modern fashion. I greatly appreciated their efforts and only wish the nursing staff would have followed through with changing the depleted epidural medication bags and arriving with backup support shots in a timely manner. It would have made pain a non-issue.

This will probably add a week or so to my recovery period. I truly despise, as a general rule, doctors and hospitals. The ones I have dealt with during this colon surgery seem to be working at standards I thought went out 100 years ago. In the future I am going to stay as far away from these "caregivers" as I possibly can. If I operated as a teacher at this level of incompetance I would have been fired years ago. Mad? You bet I am!

Posted by at 04:32 PM | Comments (1)

December 28, 2005

Back from colon surgery

It's been a very eventful week here! I went in last Wednesday to have colon surgery for the chronic diverticulitis and abscess I've previously written about. I went through the preop procedure and had to answer the same questions over and over again. They were 1) What is your name? 2) What is your birthdate? 3) What procedure are you undergoing? By the time I was being prepped for surgery I was so tired of answering these that when the nurse asked what type of procedure I said "Sex change". You have to have a sense of humor about all of this! I went under quickly and woke up with two cute nurses standing over me. They affirmed that I was indeed in the recovery room. I said it was a shame that I had promised my wife I wouldn't flirt with any cute nurses. They grinned and one of them said "What goes on in the recovery room stays in the recovery room!" The surgeon then came in and said the surgery went well. They removed about a foot of diseased colon.

Unfortunately the rest of the stay was not this amusing. I was in a lot of pain at times though I had an epidural drip and morphine. It seems that several times when the drip would run out, the nurse would take over an hour to change it. They had the same slowness when giving the supplemental morphine shots. I was pretty miserable part of the time because of this. I also found that the nasogastric tube had to be redone while I was awake because whoever put it in earlier had not done it properly. My bowels were slow to restart after the surgery so I was allowed no food for 5 days. Thankfully all of this has been resolved to a degree. I was allowed to come home Tuesday afternoon and have been sitting here admiring my 5 inch incision with staple since then. I am very sore when moving and it will be awhile before things heal completely. I will probably have to take off the first week of school after the holidays. That's the news for now. I am doing fair and look forward to better days as time goes by.

The rosacea? Well, I've been too distracted to care much about it but I can say that it's kicked up a little after the surgery. I am still moisturizing and taking the Topral daily.

Posted by at 03:27 PM | Comments (0)

December 19, 2005

Colon surgery

I went to see the surgeon Friday. I'm scheduled to get 'cleaned out' tomorrow and have part of my colon removed Wednesday morning. He said that if I did not have the surgery the restricted section of colon could completely close up in the future. Also, the inflammation is still present there to a degree. So...... not much choice but to have the surgery. I went into this pretty much expecting I would be having the colon surgery after reading up on it on the web. I'm in pretty good spirits but am realistic about the difficulties I face. There is a 2% mortality rate and 15% complication rate in healthy people. With my heart SVT the anesthesia will be trickier. Even if things go well it will take a couple of weeks before I am feeling halfway decent again.

I made out a last letter to my wfe Karen telling her all of the things I need to say about handling affairs afterwards and my feelings for her. We have been married 26 years now and she is my best friend as well as my lover. Not to be too melodramatic but there is always the chance I won't come out of this. In that event, I wanted to leave her with some last words.

If all goes well I may need to take the first week after Christmas break off to recuperate. I'll wait and see how I feel at the end of December before deciding. Anyway, I will be in the hospital for several days so I won't be updating this blog for the near future. I hope to see you all again towards the end of the month when I return home. Till then, have a good holiday season and best wishes.

Posted by at 08:14 PM | Comments (1)

December 16, 2005

Surgeon appointment for hemicolonectomy

Yesterday the surgeon's office called and said they had a cancellation this afternoon for my appointment. I'm trying to get in as soon as possible so I can get this surgery over with and have a little time before I have to be back at school. As it is, I may need to take off the first week after the Christmas holidays to recuperate after they take out part of my colon. I want to lose as little school teaching time as possible since I've already had to take off several days this Fall for this diverticulitis/abscess/colitis stuff.

This Saturday my wife and I will be on our own with the Petco pet adoptions since the main woman in charge will be out of town. It won't be that bad except I'll need to arrive early to set up the cages and tables. The screening and adoption procedures are easy to do. It's exhausting staying up there all day but the reward is that we find excellent homes for some cats who would have been euthanized or left to die otherwise. That makes it all worthwhile.

Posted by at 05:33 AM | Comments (2)

December 15, 2005

Winding Down at School

It's Thursday and the exams are over now. I have a few kids hanging around in class this morning who are waiting to take exams in other classes but for me everything is finished except for one student who is coming in tomorow morning to make up the exam she missed. All other grades are in and I really have nothing to do now except decompress for the holidays. Oh yes, my munchkin with the mom who has sent me around 12 emails about her darling, overprotected daughter managed to make a "D" on her final exam. Her average was a "C" for the term, the first "C" according to her mom that she had ever received. I had earlier emailed mom that her daughter needed a 75 C or better on her final exam to maintain a "B" average for the term. Unfortunately the little darling did not take advantage of our review sessions and review questions and did not study her old tests as I suggested. I haven't heard from mom yet, but if she holds true to form I will be getting emails and/or calls shortly after report cards go out, whining about how unfair it is for the little munchkin to earn a "C" in Biology. I'm going to give them the same level of sympathy they deserve after her daughter spent most of the term doing as little as possible in class. Ha!

I'm pretty tired today. We were up last night dealing with a sick bunny, Sir Francis. My wife is taking him to the vet this morning to see what they can do for a respiratory infection and an inflamed toenail. He is a little more than 8 years old which makes him geriatric in the rabbit world. In the course of treating his respiratory infection he has lost around 15% of his body weight so things are critical for our little guy. We are doing everything we can for him but his age is against him when fighting infections like this.

The rosacea, heart problems, and colon problem are basically about the same. I just want to crawl into bed and get some much needed rest.

Posted by at 06:18 AM | Comments (0)

December 14, 2005

Final exams!

I'm sitting in class waiting for the munchkins in period 02/03 to complete their exams. 6th period did pretty well on the test overall so the other classes should be fine with it. This test counts as 20% of their average in this 1/2 year Biology course so it's a stressful week for them. Not so for me. One of the most boring things a teacher does is watch classes while they take exams. It's all I can do not to drop off asleep while I await the munchkin's work.

Monday is the surgeon appointment to talk about having part of my colon removed. Other than that things are ok. The rosacea flared up a little bit yesterday but was brought under control quickly. It probably was triggered by the 'let down' effect that sometimes hits teachers at the transition between school and holidays. I will be SO glad to get a little rest next week. Well, back to the munchkins. I see that most are finished now so I will start grading them momentarily. And they say that teachers don't know how to have a good time!

Posted by at 07:02 AM | Comments (0)

December 06, 2005

Teachers can be the most obnoxious parents!

A few weeks ago we had interim reports go out to keep parents updated as to the progress of their little darlings. One munchkin of mine had missed a week of classes due to illness. Her mom, a middle school teacher, emailed me stating that the "F" I put on her child's interim report had completely torn apart her self esteem since she had never received a grade below a "B" average before. I wrote back, explaining that she was missing a test, a quiz, 2 labs, and a mountain of homework. I also let mom know that she could make these up and receive full credit but that it was her responsibility to see me about making up the non-homework assignments. Mom wrote back again, stating that it would have been more appropriate to give her munchkin an "incomplete" instead of an "F" since this would cause her to be kicked off of the cheerleading squad. At this point I should explain that interim reports are not official grade records and really have no bearing upon their final grade. They are simply reminders of work missed and an indication of the child's standing in class. In the past I have given "incompletes" to a few students who were missing assignments. Invariably they would forget to make up the work and when report cards came out the parents would call to ask why they hadn't been notified that their child was making an "F" !!! By putting an "F" on the interim it seems to motivate the student to make up the work. Anyway, 7 emails later and I a about ready to strangle this teacher/parent. I suggested that I email the sponsor of the cheerleading team and ensure that this student would not be penalized for the missed work until she has had a chance to make up the work. (not that I had seen any indication at that point that she was working on the assignments!) I did this and found out that mom had already talked to the sponsor and had been previously reassured that her child would remian on the team. All I can figure is that mom was attempting to be as obnoxious as possible in an attempt to punish me for putting a well deserved interim grade of "F" on her little saint's paper.

It doesn't end there. Mom emailed me again stating that her child would come to my room at 8 AM the following day to receive extra help so she could do well on the test. The little darling did not appear so I dutifully emailed mom, telling her this. Of course when the little scholar took her makeup test she bombed it. I never did hear back from mom about why her daughter skipped the free tutoring. On a more positive note, the child did finally make up most of the other work she was missing. Of course this was with a lot of extra help and work on my part to set up the labs for her and grade the work.

What all of this is leading up to is this. Today we were discussing the circulatory system when I asked the little scholar with the teacher mother to name a chamber of the heart I was pointing to on a diagram. She said she didn't know the answer, whereupon I asked this honors Biology student if she had read the material (she had 6 days to do this!) I had assigned and had even given class time for them to work on. She responded that she had not read any of the material assigned. I asked her why she had not read the assignment and she responded with the brilliant retort "I don't know". I asked her to please tell me who did know because I would like an answer that would make sense to me. She just sat there sulking in her seat. This is the brilliant student whose mom assured me was a highly motivated daughter. Arrrrrghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!! The question I asked her was one that she should have known the answer to since the 7th grade.

Yes, this is occasionally the type of stupidity teachers have to put up with. We bust our rear ends so the kids can learn to the best of their abilities and along comes a slug like this girl whose mom helps to enable her in slacking off and avoiding taking any responsibility for her lack of performance. You would think a teacher would know better but they can be totally blind when it comes to their own children. I can just imagine what will happen later in the week. This darling will fail the test, bringing her average down to a "C". Gasp! Her mom will be on the telephone or firing off emails to me demanding that her child not be given such an unfair grade. After all, it is MY fault that this munchkin did not understand the material. The fact that she did not even read the material and seemed to not care less about preparing for the test has nothing to do with her low performance. Mom will scream and shout and threaten to bring down the wrath of the school board upon my head. I can defend myself but it takes a lot of effort, time, and nervous energy to do so. This will take away time from teaching the students who actually want to learn.
Lord help me to survive these types of spoiled, obnoxious brats and their stupid, obnoxious teacher parents. There should be a special place in purgatory for parents like this woman to torment them with the type of endless stupid drivel that they subject me to during the school year. I deserve better than this nasty twit of a mother and her spoiled little shiftless darling.

Oh, the joys of teaching!

Posted by at 03:22 PM | Comments (0)

December 05, 2005

Biopsy results and where I go from here

I took the day off and went in for the biopsy results from the colonoscopy they did a couple of weeks ago. The polyp was a benign adenoma about 1 cm in size. It's nothing to worry about since they removed it but in the future I will need occasional colonoscopies since polyps run in the family.

The rest of the news was not quite as good. They found segments of chronic, severe colitis caused by the diverticulitis and an extreme thickening and narrowing of a section of the sigmoid colon near the anus. The area around the former abscess is the worst. It's been strongly recommended that this section be removed so I asked for a referral to their recommended surgeon to have the resection done as soon as possible. Hopefully I can have the surgery during the school Christmas break so I will not miss much teaching. I'm pretty apprehensive about the surgery as I've never had any type of major surgery before. Well, you do what you have to do, I suppose.

Posted by at 06:42 PM | Comments (0)

December 04, 2005

Gaining strength

The antiinflammatory medication seems to be helping and the colon is gradually getting back to its old normal self. My wife and I helped out again at the cat adoption center at Petco Saturday for Goliath and Bebe's World and I managed to stay 5 hours. Last week it was all I could do to stay an hour and a half. Tomorrow I go back to the gastroenterologist for the biopsy results and to make further plans on treatment. I'll keep you all posted on what happens.

The rosacea has been at bay now for 2 weeks. I still have to use cream for dry skin but the flushing and redness have not reared their ugly heads. Possibly the medication I'm taking for the colon is helping the rosacea but my guess is that it's helping indirectly. I believe that the colon problems may have triggered flushing and now that the colon is healing the flushing is not manifesting itself. I've read about a possible connection between digestive problems and rosacea in some people but the research evidence seems inconclusive. I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, whatever the reason for the lack of symptoms.

Posted by at 09:45 PM | Comments (0)