20230112 : amusing...

A very amusing experience yesterday. ~ 7:00pm.

When I am given a bath, after cleaning the face, hands, chest, abdomen, legs , etc., I am turned to the side (left side) so that the back and backside can be cleaned. After cleaning, washing, wiping, applying cream, massage, powder (phew! feels like a spa for the backside!). 

Anyway, after all that, they insert a bedsheet (drawsheet) below me from the back and I am turned to the other side to pull the bedsheet out.

In recent times I have been trying to kind of help with this - basically I try my best to turn myself. Haven't really succeeded bur try anyway.

To turn around, I have to put down and exert force on my left elbow down on the bed .

Yesterday was the same. Except, I had managed to get the PEG tube underneath the elbow. I don't have such fine sensations in my arm, so couldn't make it out.

So I turned to the other side - sans the PEG tube which was lying stranded below the elbow.

Here I was lying in the middle of a bath, with a hole in my stomach! 🙂

It reminded me so much of a scene from "Mask" where Jim Carrey is chased by a couple of goons. He runs and jumps over a bar counter and hides. The goons fire away for a few seconds and stop. Jim Carrey jumps on top of the bar counter and says "did you miss me?". Then he gulps down a drink which fountains out from all the holes in the body!

How I wished I could drink something orally and recreate that scene in real life 🙂

The nurses panicked of course. I tried a lot to reinsert it. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't shove it back in. There is a inflated bulb at the end which wouldn't get back in. It is inflated with a special fluid, in a special inlet using a special syringe. The tried to deflate it with a normal syringe. Couldn't do it .

Finally, we gave up. I had a gaping hole staring at me.

Luckily, my last feed was 2h back (~5:00pm). Everything had left the stomach and gone to the intestine. There was nothing to come out.

In hindsight, it was so foolish of me to try and reinsert it back. If I had succeeded, it would be disastrous. They have to do an endoscopic operation to reinsert it. If I had put it in, it would have gone in through the hole in the abdomen only. The stomach and it's hole would have moved. I would be pouring feed into the abdominal cavity and not into the stomach sac. It would have been disastrous and would have been sometime before we realised what is happening!

Anyway, we were left with a hole. Some residual stomach fluids came out, which was cleaned away a gauze bandaid was prepared and we realised there was no micropore (sticky tape in the world of meds) to stick it! Finally we found some leftover kinesiology tape (for my sublexed shoulder), cut it up and pasted it. A "bandaid" solution for a bandage! Hip hip hooray to the "Jugaad" mind of my nurse.

After making a few SOS calls (sos messages), some quick help from friends and well-wishers to schedule a procedure, it is scheduled for this morning (they don't do anything in the evening/ night). Anyway I need to be on a empty stomach for 6-8 hrs prior to administering anesthesia. 

I am usually refueled every 2h (very low mileage - old rickety machine this one). My last feed was 5:00pm. It was 9:00pm now. I was hungry naturally (feeling hungry I am told is good). Anyway, 9:30 and the stomach rumbled. Normally we don't hear it. It is muffled. This was like a Power bike without its silencer!

It lasted for about an hour (the hunger hump I guess), after I vas over the hump, it went away.

Its 9:00am now. ~ 16h since my feed. I have not felt hungry after crossing the hump!

Anyway, going to the hospital now. Not afraid or anxious of the procedure. Very worried thought for my teeth. The last time they did an endoscopic operation, they put me asleep and knocked out a tooth 

More later... 

20230112 : 1:00pm

I am back home. Came back by 12:15pm.

It was the shortest visit I have had to any hospital after the stroke.

We got to the hospital around 10:15am.

Took sometime to check in, change, transfer to waiting room.

I was taken in to the procedure room around 10:50am - again the shortest wait before a procedure.

My wife's cousin is the head of neurosurgery in a hospital. He had suggested we come here.

My wife's good friend and a well-wisher is a practicing Dr. She has a lot of clout in this hospital.

It looked like everyone had spoken to everyone any everyone was in the procedure room.

The weight of big-wigs was heavy in the air of the room.

I was worried. Usually the juniors do most things. When there are so many eyes watching them, they are usually under the pump to perform and nervousness is predictable.

Luckily the 2 guys who did the procedure were cucumbers.

I was waiting for the prep for anesthesia. I was surprised to hear them talking to each other that endoscopic operation was not necessary and just an insertion is sufficient. I was wondering how they will do it - happy that my teeth would be intact.

They took about 5m to clean up the around the hole. Looked like spirit, then betadine, then a different spirit a few times an it was like they show ads for dishwashing soaps - sparkling new!

Then they inserted a very thin metal wire into the hole (kinda a very very thin version of a brake cable). They poked around for a bit till it started sliding in further - they had found the hole in the stomach. They slid in the new peg tube using the brake cable like a guide wire. More betadine and some gel, little pinch when the tube was pushed inside, injected the special fluid, through the special inlet using the special syringe to inflate the bulb and secure the tube. And that was it.

Took exactly 2 min after the 5m cleaning. I know because there was a big clock in the room - unlike most hospital rooms I have been to which were like the casinos in Vegas.

I was in and out of the procedure room in less than 10 m!

After that, back to recovery (I don't know what I was recovering from), more wait, billing, clearance and out. It was 11:50 when I got back into the car. Luck favoured us today and traffic also was non existent. Back home by 12:15pn.

Definitely the quickest.

I passes urine 3-4 times last evening/ night after my last feed at 5:00pm. Didn't have to wake up the nurses last night. Peed again at 6:00am. That was the kidneys wringing out the last drop and drying the body completely. Haven't had to go after till now (8h now). A record as well..

I was fed at 5:00pm. Was fed again at 12:30pm. 19.5h! Another record!