Less than Idyllic Week

Sunday, April 4th, 2004

Words for Today
"In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways."

So observed Edith Wharton, the rich American born in 1862 who went to Europe with her family to be educated by governesses. Married to Boston banker a dozen years her senior who went insane, she had an affair with a journalist named Merton for a few years – he became the love of her life. Best known for such novels as Ethan Frome, the Wharton was in France during World War II from which she wrote newspaper articles and did such charity work as bring 600 Belgian children out before the Germans advanced. She was writing right up until her death in 1987 and left her publisher four novels to be published posthumously. Whether or not Mrs. Wharton (one wouldn't call her Edith to her face, me thinks) believed what she said in "Today's Words," I think that she was on to a glimmer of truth. Of course, it only goes the so far – being deeply involved in the business of this middle world and the needs of our neighbors, the need we ourselves have for leaning more before we are prepared to meet whatever may be coming, cannot not forestall forever an end to our passage here. 'Tis Sunday, April 4, 2003 – five long days four days into the longest journey of my battle with the insidious invader, fraught with near pratfalls and snafus that 'twill take just a bit to recall with much laughter. 'Tis an hour late this early Sunday morning – gotta save that daylight, you know. Last night,Oklahoma State went down in a last-second basket to Georgia Tech – twas back in 1988 that another Oklahoma team was defeated in the championship game for Kansas. Monday night, the end of "March Madness," comes with NAAC Final between George Tech and the University of Connecticut. Oklahoma State went down on something of bizarre day in the history of our troubled social compact: yesterday, a jury acquitted a woman was acquitted of murdering her young sons by beating with a rock – insanity. She says she did it because God told her to. More than a year after his take-off on U.S. Ambassador's famous speech during the Cuban Missile Crisis when he showed photographs of the missiles and stood and said he would wait "Until Hell Freezes Over" from an answer from the Soviet Ambassador – yesterday President Bush' Secretary of State took a fall-guy part in revising history and admitted that his show-and-tell bit before the United Nations was probably based on bad intelligence – his little models of weapons of mass destruction and how they worked were not probably true. California Catholic priests marched in protests against gay marriages, and Pope John Paul's pronouncement that vegetative, brain-dead patients must never be denied food and water inject has turned upsideside the whole question of the right to die once more. 'Tis really time, kola, for the fervently religious believers who believe so deeply in an insure to stop short of making such the way of life for the rest of the society we does not necessary subscribe. 'Tis time for us to arise enmass and say, "We're sick as hell of this and we're not gonna take it any more."

For the last five days, I've been wondering how much of the effort I've been making to stay alive of late is worth it – is the pain worth the gain? My loving' spouse and I arrived at the Midwestern Regional Medical Center on Last Monday noon after a delightful day with my dear daughter-law- Bobbi and her hubby, my son, Albert at their home in Madison. We returned here last night – never have I have happier to reach a more human place than yesterday – not even all of the times we returned to exile from more than a year of traveling to Zion. I had had the usual – weighing in at what approaches fly-weight trim, offer my skinning arm for a blood draw of a gallon, EKG, etc – and then yet to visit with Doc Levin, who more or less said he had good news and bad news – the bad news was that my bile ducts have completely clogged (hence the less that stunningly handsome jaundice) and that the gastroenterologist who had been overselling keeping they open was out of town a week. Noticing that my blood levels were down significantly – and dropping, he suggested that I be checked into the hospital for transfusions – frozen plasma and whole blood, followed by the good news, which would bring relief to the enormous amount of abdominal fluid trapped behind the blockage with was causing the distended stomach of considerable discomfort for a week or so – 'twas'nt just gas of the kind that we used to release from the fourth stomach of cows in the spring when they overindulged in green grass by poking a hole in their side least they explode – although I would have exploded had I not accepted a remedial procedure. I was to have an abdominal prosthesis – I was taken down to the lab, told to lay on my side, whilst a tube was inserted to tap the trapped crap into a big bag – with a little help from a local anesthetic. Drained it did – for about twenty-hour. I literally lost ten pounds of fluid, and indeed feel a bit of relief – not to the extent of being about eat anything or still roll mourned with craps and stomach pains, but considerable relief. All this while – and throughout Friday morning when a Left St. Luke's Hospital in Milwaukee to whence we hied to treatment of the blocked ducts – I was on a constant course of a broad band on antibiotics in an attempt to stave off some little bacteria, know or unknown, doing me in. All Wednesday afternoon, the last day of March, I lay in the bed at the Zion Hospital taking blood and plasma and antibiotics in preparation for a trip to St. Luke's Hospital in Milwaukee where the blocked ducts would be addressed on the morning of April Fool's Day. Even before our departure by ambulance – and no knows who ordered the ambulance or told the drivers to wait for a short procedure – we were perplexed. We had been in Milwaukee two months past to lave the steel stints in the ducts sleeved by Dr. Schamlz, who is one of the country's leading gastroenterologists. He gave us great hope that this could be repaired once by with ERCP. Dr. Levin insisted that we had been sent by the vacationing Dr.Vashi to the radiological interventionist, Dr. Olson. Here's a big snafu – aside from the fact that we rode in the most unfordable vehicles imaginable, a bouncing ambulance we really didn't need – and the attendants had all the papers. The night shift at the Zion Hospital is an energetic team of immigrants who have yet to be more than barely literate in the English language, and they were trying to communicate the transfer.

We arrived at St. Luke's early in the morning and did the usual hour or two of paper work. Then we are told that Dr. Olson has no record of us ever seeing him. Well, surprise, surprise, and surprise! We hadn't -- we had seen Dr. Schlitz. Once that was established (about two and one-half hours), a delightfully downhome, earthy doc named Minor had to order up another CAT scan because I one I had taken the day before was left at Zion -–or was never given to ambulance drivers, whoever ordered them. Finally, Dr. Minor came in and explains that I have indeed outlived my beleaguered bile ducts – they've been plastic-stinted, steel-stinted (steel can't be removed, expanded, and sleeved.When the on gastroenterologist in Bismarck replaced the plastic with the steel last January (2002), he cautioned me that we would last no long than the year. He and I both thought that I would have passed this world by know. Dr. Minor showed Dr. Shmatz the film – no more go with ERCP in keeping 'em open. Dr. Minor, one of the radiological interventists, said that' the bad news – the good news is that he could bypass the stents in a rather painful and complicated procedure involving running wires through the skin from the bottom (including directly through the liver) followed by tubes which are wiggled all the way down to the duodenum, hence getting around the stuck duct. Milnor warned it would be painful, but said I would be mildly sedated. Took two hours, I was awake to hear the curses of the physician in his frustration to get the wires to the two different places. Dr. Olson himself came in to lend a hand, although I did not see him mildly sedated as I as flat on my back with that big old abominable turbo still filling. The prodding and the reaming of that wire and those tubes were, in fact, more excruciatingly painful that the world tooth ache I've add, and I've had some duzzies, including impacted wisdom teeth.

I was then taken upstairs – after a few twenty-minute breaks in hallways because of full room and limited staffs that precluded immediate admittance – and put a bed with two new bags for bile garbage hanging from the front of my abdomen to join that abdominal prosthesis in my side. There was no tossing from side to side, not that one could have stayed awake long enough to think about it – constant (at one point, every fifteen-minutes) taking of vitals. A poor young lass even came in to get me out of bed to weigh me – I dismissed her with perhaps less than kindness. All things considered – including increasing soreness from the procedure, the first couple of shifts went all right, although all those bags were getting in the way. We had hoped to leave St. Luke's to return to Zion by noon, but they I was told I would be having another test to make sure the tubes had hit the duodenum – this time by interventionist Dr. Hurst – they weren't, so they were stuffed, pulled, manipulated, and place once more – with that old mild sedation that doesn't put you under along with local anesthetic. Back with my three bags full to the room, knowing I'm gonna be a hell of a lot sorer. More antibiotics fed through my port. A watch of a couple of hours. Now? Now? We call down to Zion to have the hospital room cleaned there and arrange for a final appointment on yesterday morning to pull the abdominal tube – AND – to pick up extra bags for the biliary tubes and instructions on capping, cleaning, etc. We had waited for two hours in the room at St. Lukes to get them, and than one of the most apparently over-worked shifts finally showed up to say that those would have to be picked up at Zion because they sent us. When we got to Zion, we were told they had no such supplies, and that St. Luke's should have provided as promised. Calls will be made tomorrow. The good news is that I'm down to two drainage bags that actually can be more or less hidden – and that I feeling a bit better in spite of all the stuff that's gone down. I declined chemo on top of everything else this week – enough's enough. Besides this rather irritating business of great inconvenience in terms of keeping alive – including, by the was, a final twiddling of thumbs yesterday as we waited for the on-call physician to discharge us and the fact that a disgruntled ambulance crew came back to get us in spite our telling them otherwise – I really be stuffed in the Subaru for 2,000 miles than ride once more in the back of an ambulance – there were other snafus – I couldn't connect to the Internet at Zion because of phone lines so dirty one could barely hear voice, and the servers at the main office in Bismarck where I usually maintain them both went down – but my good friend Ken Glass went over to get 'em running yesterday.

Let us leave this saga with what has to be funny -- otherwise a grown man might throw a tantrum. The ever-vigilant dietitian at St.Luke's, even though she knew we were trying to leave – kept trying to plan meals for us for a week and to have my fill out an extensive questionnaire. Finally, in exasperation over my long-rang planning, she said, what do you want for lunch? Jello and a Chocolate Shake along with Prosure." We waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, a waiter in a full Tuxedo brought a full-course dinner that, to my sensitive nostrils – seemed to smell worse that the stuff that was coming out of those biliary tube sacks. Anther hour and one-half passed before the jello, shake and Prosure arrived. Finally, our departure from St. Luke's as delayed for two hours because a too-busy nurse could not find time to simply unhook the IV the empty antibiotic bottle in spite of more than an hour and one-half of my fervent pleadings. Oh, yea, there was the constant mistaking of the abdominal tube for a catheter – and great wonderment about passing so much urine. To one who insisted I was wrong, I bared my chest and genitals long enough so she could see the source of the tube. Then there was the air-headed young nurse who came to work with an enormous hangover and never did follow through on a single request – she would wander into the room and watch television for a couple of hours.

'Twas five days I'll never forget – I come away with new visible and tactile reminds of my morality – tubes and bags for the rest of my life.

But, for a time at least, I'm free at last, free at last. Getting back to beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuufiul Bismarck this trip will be among the most delicious ever, methink. I awake this more less sore. Most important, I awake by almost a conscious choice that this little interlude of unpleasantness shall not defeat – 'twill be set behind in continued quest to get on with those things in life most important – you, my dear kola, my family – and all those neighbors traveling with us here in the middle world who need our help. Have the greatest of days,

Ev Albers