Scars II
My apologies to anyone who was actually reading my blog, I've been side tracked lately.
Scars II
Left Kidney – This is the grand daddy of all my scars. When I was 8 it was discovered that I had an infection in my left kidney, normally under these circumstances the doctors would have recommended removing the entire kidney but as it turned out my right kidney was not functioning as it should have been so they decided on removing half of my kidney. So in a I went to the hospital first for 5 days for a series of test to make sure they knew what they were doing and then later for the actual surgery.
Needless to say I was a bit scared, I mean they didn’t say anything but I knew my parents were worried. Now I know, of course, that kidney surgery is a very big deal and if it was my son I’d be terrified for him. So off I went to the hospital, when the morning of my operation came they gave me a nice little drug cocktail of Demerol and Visterol that made my ride to the operating room quite pleasant.
This may be the time for a quick side story, as a child I was terrified of needles. I don’t know why but they scared the crap out of me. I particularly hated having blood drawn. I was completely irrational I know, but what can you do. Well, I knew I was going to need a bunch of shots during my 2 week stay at the hospital and that scared me worse than the surgery. My dad struck a deal with me, for every shot or blood draw that I remained calm for he’d give me a dime. Now this is 1978, a buck was a pretty big deal to me (I think my allowance was 2$) 10 shots = 1$? I knew I’d probably make that pretty quickly.
So into surgery I go…the first thing the anaesthesiologist did was give me a quick jab in the arm and he covered my face with a gas mask and asked me to count backwards from 100…99…98…97…gone. Seriously. The next thing I know I’m in the recovery room looking up at my parents. “How are you doing Josh” they asked “Dad, you owe me a buck fifty”…stunned silence. By the time I got out of the hospital I think he owed me something like 26 bucks. I think it was in part because I became a bit of a junky while I was there. I was getting pain meds like 4 times a day and I really liked whatever shot is was they were giving me because I was practically begging for that thing right before bed time.
Back to the scar. Actually for this surgery I got a total of three scars. The smallest is a small scar from the tube that was jammed into my kidney through my back. It just looks like a little dimple. The second is a scar that is about 8 inches long in my lower abdomen. They figured while they were there they’d clean up some infection they spotted in my bladder. And the big one…it stretches from about 6 inches to the left of my belly button and goes all the way around my back (while rising diagonally) to about 6 inches below my left shoulder blade. All tolled it must be nearly 16” long. They claimed it would fade with time but it’s still visible today.
Scars II
Left Kidney – This is the grand daddy of all my scars. When I was 8 it was discovered that I had an infection in my left kidney, normally under these circumstances the doctors would have recommended removing the entire kidney but as it turned out my right kidney was not functioning as it should have been so they decided on removing half of my kidney. So in a I went to the hospital first for 5 days for a series of test to make sure they knew what they were doing and then later for the actual surgery.
Needless to say I was a bit scared, I mean they didn’t say anything but I knew my parents were worried. Now I know, of course, that kidney surgery is a very big deal and if it was my son I’d be terrified for him. So off I went to the hospital, when the morning of my operation came they gave me a nice little drug cocktail of Demerol and Visterol that made my ride to the operating room quite pleasant.
This may be the time for a quick side story, as a child I was terrified of needles. I don’t know why but they scared the crap out of me. I particularly hated having blood drawn. I was completely irrational I know, but what can you do. Well, I knew I was going to need a bunch of shots during my 2 week stay at the hospital and that scared me worse than the surgery. My dad struck a deal with me, for every shot or blood draw that I remained calm for he’d give me a dime. Now this is 1978, a buck was a pretty big deal to me (I think my allowance was 2$) 10 shots = 1$? I knew I’d probably make that pretty quickly.
So into surgery I go…the first thing the anaesthesiologist did was give me a quick jab in the arm and he covered my face with a gas mask and asked me to count backwards from 100…99…98…97…gone. Seriously. The next thing I know I’m in the recovery room looking up at my parents. “How are you doing Josh” they asked “Dad, you owe me a buck fifty”…stunned silence. By the time I got out of the hospital I think he owed me something like 26 bucks. I think it was in part because I became a bit of a junky while I was there. I was getting pain meds like 4 times a day and I really liked whatever shot is was they were giving me because I was practically begging for that thing right before bed time.
Back to the scar. Actually for this surgery I got a total of three scars. The smallest is a small scar from the tube that was jammed into my kidney through my back. It just looks like a little dimple. The second is a scar that is about 8 inches long in my lower abdomen. They figured while they were there they’d clean up some infection they spotted in my bladder. And the big one…it stretches from about 6 inches to the left of my belly button and goes all the way around my back (while rising diagonally) to about 6 inches below my left shoulder blade. All tolled it must be nearly 16” long. They claimed it would fade with time but it’s still visible today.
posted by jwebb at 6:28 AM
1 Comments:
Welcome back! I thought you had abandoned the blogosphere forever. Glad to see that you haven't.
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