Day 4264

After a long day at the hospital, I'm finally home again. This is the longest I've ever been hospitalized in my life. You learn a lot when you are hospitalized during a Covid surge. Hospitals throughout Texas are operating near capacity. I was placed on a Covid free floor but you could tell that the disease was nearby. The hospital did a good job of keeping Covid patients in a separate part of the hospital. I was initialy treated in the emergency room, but couldn't be admited as a regular patient until I was tested and proved I was Covid free.

Not only did I have my first and only Covid test at the hospital, I was intubated twice. Both procedures required that I be on a ventilator. You are never even aware that this device is keeping you breathing. Most people are out cold when it is inserted. Breathing pure oxygen feels about the same as breathing regular air. You are only aware of the sensation for a few seconds though before the anesthesia knocks you out. Being anesthetized is still a very strange experience.

Large hospitals are really small cities. They are self sustaining, with their own power supplies. The hospital employs thousands of people. I was completely amazed at how many different people were involved either directly or indirectly in my care. Most of these people have good, well paying jobs and they know it. One of the guys pushing me around on a gurney said it took him a full year just to learn how to navigate the huge labyrinth that is the hospital campus.

If you want to see diversity in action, spend a week in a large hospital. I've never talked at length to so many black people in my entire life. It was a good experience. The lead surgeon doing my abdominal surgery yesterday was an Iranian woman. Most of my nurses were black. Lots of people with high level jobs were middle eastern or Indian. There were lots of white people too, but they were not a majority. 

It was interesting to spend a week with these people. I learned a lot. There are definite cultural differences, but it was all good. The young white nurses were very serious about diet and nutrition and were quite specific about what I should eat after I was discharged. One nurse had a Vitamix just like mine and we shared smoothie recipes. The black nurses told me to eat what I wanted and be happy. My favorite nurse told me to be sure to order the brisket for lunch yesterday and I did. It was delicious and of course the meat was full of fat. Everybody asks you to confirm your birthday when they do anything. When two young black guys who were transporting me to the operating room asked me for my birthday I said Juneteenth and they immediately smiled and started laughing. "Juneteenth boy," they said. "That's good."

My hospital journey isn't over yet. When the gastrointestinal team did their thing on Wednesday they discovered that something is wrong with my esophasgus. I have Barrett's esophagus, caused by years of acid reflux. They want to do an Endoscopic resection, which uses an endoscope to remove damaged cells to aid in the detection of dysplasia and cancer. This will take place about three months from now. What the hell. I've gone this far, I might as well keep going. I really do have a terrible problem with acid reflux and maybe these guys can fix it.

I became familiar with medicine by taking good care of dogs. Most of the conditions I was treated for this week were very familiar to me. Spot and Dash both had stones that had to be removed surgically. Dawn had stones as well. Dot had major abdominal surgery and almost died. All our dogs needed special diets at one point of another. The whole process of doing extensive blood work before administering anesthesia was very familiar. Every dog we've ever had has been under anesthesia. Our dogs made this weeks experience less scary to me. I'd been down this road before. I'm a grumpy person by nature and you'd think this weeks experience would have made me mad. It was actually kind of uplifting.  I feel a little better about everything today.

Cammy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day