June 2011 Update
Here is my June 2011 update.
Since the first surgery wasn't done right, the University of Washington Hospital has decided to redo the surgery. Of course I have to pay for the second, third and forth surgery, as they say,
"These things happen".
It's not like doing a plumbing job, messing it up, and then turning it into my insurance and fixing my screw-up.
No. Not so simple. It's a good thing that "my" insurance covers most of it.
I can't imagine though, messing up a customers home, and then telling them that there is a co-pay.
"my mistake. Oops!"
Don't you love it.
So anyway, this Fall I go in for Surgery number three, and if all goes well, Surgery number four to put me back almost, but then wait.........there's more. I asked about a little bump in my stomach that nobody had mentioned to me, and yes, the doctor knew right away what it was.
"That's a little perforation with a stint. That can be fixed after we are done with the rest."
So that is why they were asking me with worried faces about that part of my body?
They knew there was a problem, but weren't going to mention it?
So anyway, since they fried me with so much radiation, they've been waiting for about a year for that to heal before they can redo their mistake. Happy thing for me, I don't have to pay for everything; just the copay. It does kind of suck missing work and having to take pain meds for a while. I hate pain medication. I'm so glad when I don't need it. At least in the last year, I've taken only a few pills, but just for skiing or softball. Otherwise I can go months right now without pain meds. I really don't like em anyway.
There was a period of time in the Winter of 2010 though, when 8:30 at night meant I would be crying from the pain. That sucked, and the doctors kept telling me I shouldn't be in that much. But then they found that the stitching had failed and I had an infection. That was the second surgery. Thank God I was at SCCA and the doctor there could see I was fading in and out of coherence and sent me to the emergency room. There they added the ileostomy since the lower colon was useless at that point, and pierced my right buttocks with a rubber tube that collected puss from the interior that had been filling up with the infection. Needless to say, when you have a tube piercing your skin, right where you would like to sit, it hurts. It hurts a lot.
But then I noticed that the bag collecting the puss started to smell, permeating the bag and making my home smell. When I asked the doctors about the smell, they argued that plastic is impervious to smell. Funny. It made my entire home smell, and when people came over, they would start opening windows and doors in the dead of Winter and start airing out the home with frigid outside air.
After a month of that nonsense, I begged the doctors for a new bag. They said I could use the old bag, plastic bags are expensive you know and don't bother them. But I bothered them until I got the new bag. They sent me downstairs for the bag, and the guy there told me the same thing. Bags don't smell. So I told him, that he could keep my old bag and hang it on his kitchen wall for decoration. By the way, smell this ridiculous thing.
"Oh wow! Yeah, that smells."
Okay, give me an extra bag then, and when this one starts to drive people out of my home, I can change the bag myself. I'm a plumber and I should be able to unthread the connection and rethread the new one. It's not like I'm a doctor, I can do these things.
So anyway, If I treated my customers that way that I get treated, I wouldn't have any.
It will be nice though if the next three surgeries turn out okay.
I think my new doctor is supposed to be the best.
It's a Russian technique and I think he's Russian. I have a good feeling this time about it.