Where do I begin?
Some sick humour or humorous sickness
John Mycroft's blog about Multiple Myeloma
A note to my reader(s)
Welcome to my blog in which I intend to document my path
through treatment for multiple myeloma and back to full recovery, or at least
remission. I intend to “tell it like it
is” so if you’re easily offended, please stop reading now and go and do
something else. If I make a wry comment,
I will not add “only joking” after it.
Figure it out for yourself. It is possible (likely) that I will make pointed remarks about politicians, community leaders, clergy, doctors, insurance companies and the idiot who always takes the last parking space. I claim my first amendment rights. I will also use what some may consider crude or common language - again, if you find it offensive, go watch Sesame Street.
Where do I begin?
Dunno, quite honestly.
It’s not like a sore throat where you wake up one morning and say,
inaudibly, “Sod it, I’ve got a sore throat.”
But I have, on and off, felt like crap for about the last year. I attributed it to my advancing age (three
score and half a dozen for those who have trouble with the decimal system), my
habit of overdoing it in the garden, on the soccer field and in any other
physical activities I undertake and to my less than sunshine-and-lollipops
relationship with my boss (who had halved my salary and taken away my health
insurance, among other things).
It all came to a head on Tuesday January 19th,
2016 when I was sitting in the chair I am sitting in now, writing an email to
my brother-in-law in Dallas. Susan
(my wonderful wife) informs me that I nodded several times while she was
talking about moving furniture and then passed out.
When I came to a wee while later with a huge desire to review my lunch
(which I managed to do in the bathroom), she was talking about calling 911
(typical woman) and I was saying I was all right (typical man). She, of course, won and a few minutes later a
couple of burly ambulance men came and helped me up off the bathroom floor,
stuck me in the back of an ambulance and filled my left arm with the first of
many many needles, this one containing dopy juice. I spent the trip to the A&E gently
barfing into a plastic bag. Once there,
I was trotted off to emergency where they came and talked to me and did other
stuff that the dopy juice has erased from my memory and then left me to
doze. I was woken on a number of
occasions by a gentleman further up the corridor announcing very loudly that he
“%^&*ing didn’t %^&*ing want to %^&*ing be here etc.” I didn't much want him there either. Apparently he had been stabbed so that part
of the hospital was locked down and Susan wasn’t allowed to come and see me
until about 10 pm by which time I wanted nothing more than to go to sleep.
It was decided that I should spend the night in hospital (I
later learned that did not mean I had been “admitted” – this apparently makes a
big difference to your bill) so they trundled me out in to the icy night and
drove me across the road to the hospital proper. There I got hooked up to a thing that went
beep, had an armful of blood taken along with my blood pressure and, after
eating a rather good turkey sandwich, I finally went to sleep – not for the
night as they had to come and prod me every few hours but it was pretty
restful. The nurses were amazingly
pleasant, always a smile and an apology for waking me up and always willing to
tell me what they were doing though I still think they were trying to see how
much blood they could get out of me before I shriveled up. That's Mission Hospital in the picture.
Next morning I was visited by “the doctor” who turned out to
be a friend – the father of one of Sam’s schoolmates – and I think I shocked
the nurses by calling the revered figure Steve.
He for some reason bestowed an honorary doctorate upon me and referred
to me throughout as Dr Mycroft. He it
was who had the nice job of telling me I had multiple myeloma and that my life
was about to become an endless stream of bills and good luck getting my health
insurance to pay them. And so, after 2
nights of beeping and having blood sucked out of me, I was able to have a
shower, put on some clean clothes that Susan had brought in (I’d been wearing
“fix up the basement” clothes when I was taken in so they probably thought I’d come
from a bench in Pigeon Park) and go home.
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