BIG day
I have another day to talk about. Few people know what actually happened this day, and only a couple of people outside of my family have an idea of what occured. I'm not even sure exactly what went down, but it was a year ago November 12, 2003. The day of my biopsy.
I hadn't eaten anything since midnight. Nothing was allowed in my system before surgery. Skipping breakfast and school, I headed to pre-op at the hospital. As usual, nothinig could begin until I waited a couple of hours in the waiting room as I played Mario Party on N64 with some 8 year olds, watched some 8 year olds play with a magnet under a sand box thingy, and listen to some 8 year olds at the fish tank saying repeatedly, "hey daddy, daddy... daddy a fish... daddy look, a fish... a fish in water." and then finally some little girl who I could've swore was checking me out. I'm sure she'll be hot in a few years. So point for Dbwa... total tally as of now = 19.3 billion, trillion and 82
My name is finally called for the first step before surgery. When I see who called my name, I am pleasantly surprised to see it's my awesome nurse from the time I was in the hospital after my cliff diving screw-up. He, yes it was a he, recognized me and wondered if I was better...I think I responded with just a "fine thanks" but obviously not actually the case. He leads me to a room to meet my anathesialogist for some standard procedure required for all operations. Then some annoying lady came in who wouldn't shut up. The day for me was not a day for socializing. She asked some standard questions and warned me that she would have to take some blood as if I couldn't handle it. By then, I had experienced plenty of needles from CT scans and would be faced with countless more in the days ahead with chemo.
After that, I had to wait some more and then finally I was taken in to the pre-op room to change into a robe, get weighed, temp taken, and blood pressure measured. The nurse had to retake my blood pressure, because I was very nervous knowing that surgery wasn't far away. I had to wait for awhile on my operating table as other crying kids were taken into surgery before me. During my wait, I was given a gameboy advaced to play that had pretty boring games. I don't know how much time passed, but another nurse came in to give me an echocardiogram (echo-cardio-gram). It's like a sonogram when a mother looks at her baby in her stomach, only this was done to my heart to see how the heart and ventricles and sorts were working. This procedure was repeated after I finish chemo so my oncologist could see if my heart suffered any damage from the chemo (btw, when the image of my heart was taken after chemo, my heart had actually shown improvement, because I had chosen to run track during chemo). After that, it was about time for my biopsy, but first a nurse gave me a horrible tasting medicine designed as pre-anathesia so that I would feel out of it going into surgery. However, the doctors would learn later that the legal limit for this medicine proved to be too low for me to show any affect. It was mainly designed for little kids, but I was 17, making me the oldest "child" at a children's hospital. I was just too big for the medicine to work on me. So I ended up heading into surgery fully aware of what was happening.
Now for the biopsy. I get knocked out cold by a bubble gum flavor gas that I think I chose. The rest is based squarely off of the story my parents and sister tell. It is a commonly known by all doctors that the best way to conduct surgery is with the patient breathing on his or her own. In my case, after the anathesia shuts off my body, the weight of the tumor in my chest causes it to collapse on top of my windpipe. This means I can't breath on my own. As a result the doctors have to stick a tube down my throat in order for me to breath. Aside form the doctors being uncomfortable about me not breathing on my own, the biopsy goes well without any hiccups. A piece of my tumor is taken, examined, and deterimed that same day that my tumor is infact Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Then the tricky part arrives when the doctors must remove the tube and hope my body breaths on it's own... it fails. The worst case scenario that the doctors feared would happen just happened. Combined with the weight of my tumor on my windpipe, and the severe cold and cough that I had, my body would refuse to breath on it's own. The doctors struggle with me so much to the point that my mother even calls my sister to tell her things are not looking good for me, and to prepare for what could be the worst. During the struggle to breath, I came very dangerously close to flatlining.
...now for the part that I can recall and was conscious, although everything is fuzzy... after the operation I was supposed to be waiting in the recovery room to get well and go home that day, but with the emergency I had during the procedure I was taken into the IC (intensive care... and if there's an extra word in this then it's ICU for units... can't remember). I woke up when the anathesia finally wore off. As I did, the struggle was still going on to get me to breath. The tube was out, but I was coughing profusely to the point that I couldn't breath on my own. The doctors had to place a breathing mask on my mouth and tubes up my nose... although I remember strongly resisting the tubes in my nose. So the doctors remove the nostril strips and just leave me with the mask. Eventually I settled down and went to sleep with the mask on, not fully aware of the events that occured that day.
I have a feeling even worst things happened that my parents would rather not tell me. I get this impression, because after the surgery my sister told me that mother called her and told her that I did indeed flatline for a short time. However, my parents insist that I never flatlined. Either way, that day will be the closest I'll ever come to dying without doing so...
I hadn't eaten anything since midnight. Nothing was allowed in my system before surgery. Skipping breakfast and school, I headed to pre-op at the hospital. As usual, nothinig could begin until I waited a couple of hours in the waiting room as I played Mario Party on N64 with some 8 year olds, watched some 8 year olds play with a magnet under a sand box thingy, and listen to some 8 year olds at the fish tank saying repeatedly, "hey daddy, daddy... daddy a fish... daddy look, a fish... a fish in water." and then finally some little girl who I could've swore was checking me out. I'm sure she'll be hot in a few years. So point for Dbwa... total tally as of now = 19.3 billion, trillion and 82
My name is finally called for the first step before surgery. When I see who called my name, I am pleasantly surprised to see it's my awesome nurse from the time I was in the hospital after my cliff diving screw-up. He, yes it was a he, recognized me and wondered if I was better...I think I responded with just a "fine thanks" but obviously not actually the case. He leads me to a room to meet my anathesialogist for some standard procedure required for all operations. Then some annoying lady came in who wouldn't shut up. The day for me was not a day for socializing. She asked some standard questions and warned me that she would have to take some blood as if I couldn't handle it. By then, I had experienced plenty of needles from CT scans and would be faced with countless more in the days ahead with chemo.
After that, I had to wait some more and then finally I was taken in to the pre-op room to change into a robe, get weighed, temp taken, and blood pressure measured. The nurse had to retake my blood pressure, because I was very nervous knowing that surgery wasn't far away. I had to wait for awhile on my operating table as other crying kids were taken into surgery before me. During my wait, I was given a gameboy advaced to play that had pretty boring games. I don't know how much time passed, but another nurse came in to give me an echocardiogram (echo-cardio-gram). It's like a sonogram when a mother looks at her baby in her stomach, only this was done to my heart to see how the heart and ventricles and sorts were working. This procedure was repeated after I finish chemo so my oncologist could see if my heart suffered any damage from the chemo (btw, when the image of my heart was taken after chemo, my heart had actually shown improvement, because I had chosen to run track during chemo). After that, it was about time for my biopsy, but first a nurse gave me a horrible tasting medicine designed as pre-anathesia so that I would feel out of it going into surgery. However, the doctors would learn later that the legal limit for this medicine proved to be too low for me to show any affect. It was mainly designed for little kids, but I was 17, making me the oldest "child" at a children's hospital. I was just too big for the medicine to work on me. So I ended up heading into surgery fully aware of what was happening.
Now for the biopsy. I get knocked out cold by a bubble gum flavor gas that I think I chose. The rest is based squarely off of the story my parents and sister tell. It is a commonly known by all doctors that the best way to conduct surgery is with the patient breathing on his or her own. In my case, after the anathesia shuts off my body, the weight of the tumor in my chest causes it to collapse on top of my windpipe. This means I can't breath on my own. As a result the doctors have to stick a tube down my throat in order for me to breath. Aside form the doctors being uncomfortable about me not breathing on my own, the biopsy goes well without any hiccups. A piece of my tumor is taken, examined, and deterimed that same day that my tumor is infact Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Then the tricky part arrives when the doctors must remove the tube and hope my body breaths on it's own... it fails. The worst case scenario that the doctors feared would happen just happened. Combined with the weight of my tumor on my windpipe, and the severe cold and cough that I had, my body would refuse to breath on it's own. The doctors struggle with me so much to the point that my mother even calls my sister to tell her things are not looking good for me, and to prepare for what could be the worst. During the struggle to breath, I came very dangerously close to flatlining.
...now for the part that I can recall and was conscious, although everything is fuzzy... after the operation I was supposed to be waiting in the recovery room to get well and go home that day, but with the emergency I had during the procedure I was taken into the IC (intensive care... and if there's an extra word in this then it's ICU for units... can't remember). I woke up when the anathesia finally wore off. As I did, the struggle was still going on to get me to breath. The tube was out, but I was coughing profusely to the point that I couldn't breath on my own. The doctors had to place a breathing mask on my mouth and tubes up my nose... although I remember strongly resisting the tubes in my nose. So the doctors remove the nostril strips and just leave me with the mask. Eventually I settled down and went to sleep with the mask on, not fully aware of the events that occured that day.
I have a feeling even worst things happened that my parents would rather not tell me. I get this impression, because after the surgery my sister told me that mother called her and told her that I did indeed flatline for a short time. However, my parents insist that I never flatlined. Either way, that day will be the closest I'll ever come to dying without doing so...