Surgery and Infection

So I've been out of action almost an entire week. I shall summarize it, in all it's gory, too-much-information, detail below. The evening after the pizza challenge I encountered a hemorrhoid problem. Not a get one and it goes away problem, but a 15 minutes of sleep overnight, I've run into something serious, sort of condition. I could blame poor eating habits, but it's probably more accurate to blame, in order, 1.) my father, who had surgery when he was 36 or so for hemorrhoids, 2.) bicycling (you can assume the pizza had quite a bit to do with it, but I doubt it - I suspect the 30 miles in the bike saddle that day was more of a culprit), 3.) my job environment (sitting in a cube or a chair all day. Given who I work for, can I call them hemorreuters?). So Monday morning I called my clinic and got a referral, then called the Fairview system to find someone who could get me in right away. I went in at 1:00 p.m., bent over for a doctor, and he said, "I'll see you in surgery tomorrow. Go get a pre-operative physical." F***. I walked through all the hoops, and the next day at 1:00 p.m. Fairview Southdale attempted six times to get a needle in me to knock me out. The anethetist was getting so frustrated that he demanded the Christmas music in the OR get turned off until he left.

Three hours later I was awake, and Pooteewheet told me the doctor said it had taken twice as long as he had thought it would as there was a crop of hemorrhoids. There's a word you really don't want to hear in conjunction with anything other than agricultural products and scrapbooking.

I went home on percoset and ibuprofen and did fine overnight on the couch (so Pooteewheet wouldn't accidentially kick me). But the next day I fell asleep at around 1:00 and woke up at 4:00 with a temperature of 102.7 (F). So it was off to the ER at Ridges. They moved me to the top of the line (a fever after ass surgery is serious business) stuck several more needles in me, took blood cultures, and several hours later announced I wasn't going anywhere other than to room 200 in the hospital for an overnight stay. Which turned into two overnights. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday until 7:00 p.m. I sat around trying to find some way to keep busy. The next morning the temp had cycled down to 101.3 or so. The morning after that to 99.6. They pumped several ivs of liquids and antibiotics into me, and then finally sent me home with two additional oral antibiotics to make sure everything was gone.

Some highlights:

• They still don't know what it is I caught. Feces in the blood stream? General infection picked up during the surgery? Coincidental cold?
• Having the doc examine your bum while it has stitches in it is BAD.
• Going to the bathroom while your bum has stitches in it is BAD.
• Morphine is worthless (as far as I'm concerned) for general ass pain. Percoset is much better.
• Having access to Facebook can relieve 15-30 minutes of boredeom, but not much more.
• Why doesn't the guy on survivorman ever find anything to eat? He mostly seems to survive by starving for 6 days until he's picked up.
• The oral antibiotics preclude drinking alcohol, so I spilled them all out on the counter to make sure I was going to be able to have a few beers on New Year's.
• I've been told I can get back on my bike two weeks after the surgery. I'm not sure I believe that - I'm guessing three. Pooteewheet thinks I'm crazy.
  

Now I'm home. And not feeling 100%, but I did make it to the office Christmas party yesterday for an hour just to see something that wasn't the inside of a small room. Kyle came over to visit and brought a game to play (I can sit on our new puffy couch - it was almost like my butt could see the future when we decided to buy it) and some food to eat, which was exceptionally nice of him.

The other doc told me I can expect to start feeling better somewhere 7-10 days out, somewhere between this Tuesday and Friday, and I'm supposed to do two follow up appointments this week to make sure my blood looks good. I'm going back to work tomorrow and have a full load of meetings - e.g. a full load of sitting in uncomfortable office chairs - so we'll see how that works out. I told Ming I'll probably be 10 minutes late shuffling my way from meeting to meeting.