Protocols
Four weeks ago (Tuesday, April 28th, 2015) Yrs Trly visited his urologist in Rochester (NY) for his every-six-months prostate assessment.
I have an enlarged prostate-gland, fairly common for men my age (71). The prostate pumps semen during intercourse — well beyond me at my age; plus my wife is gone.
So we do a PSA test. That’s to determine the amount of prostate-specific-antigen in one’s blood, which if elevated may indicate prostate cancer.
My PSA has run fairly high for years, but this most recent PSA test was my highest ever, 12.9.
My urologist suggested a biopsy — I’ve already had two, both negative.
But if I needed one depended on whether my PSA came down after treatment for prostate infection, which can also cause high PSA.
This happened before. A high PSA was reversed after treatment for prostate infection.
So my urologist asked if I was allergic to sulfa-drugs, the antibiotic she would prescribe.
“Not that I know of,” I said, forgetting that 65 long years ago when I was age-6, and sulfa-drugs were all the rage, it was determined I was allergic to sulfa-drugs.
None have been suggested since, so I forgot my allergy.
60 gigantic horse-pills, two tablets per day for 30 days.
I began taking them.
A day-or-two after I started, my forearms and legs developed a rash after mowing. And then a day-or-two later I got an even worse rash on the backs of my hands after mowing.
It was like poison-ivy; I had to treat it with calamine lotion.
I continued taking the pills, so I guess things were getting worse.
At about 2/3rds of my way through the pills, I remembered that 65 years ago my allergy to sulfa-drugs was determined, so I stopped taking the pills.
That was Friday May 22nd. But I set out to work out at the Canandaigua YMCA. To do so I hafta daycare my dog, which I do with an old friend whom I worked with at the Messenger newspaper in Canandaigua.
“You should go to the hospital,” he said. I had explained my sulfa-allergy, and my face was all puffy, as if I had been stung by bees. I hadn’t noticed.
“Well, if you say so.” I drove straight to Thompson Hospital in Canandaigua, skipping the YMCA.
I was directed to their Emergency-Room.
“How many times did I bring my cancerous wife here,” I said, as I was led to a booth.
“Welcome to the medical-establishment,” I thought.
At least Thompson is not like a Rochester hospital, where you might die waiting in the Emergency-Room.
The questioning and testing began.
I learned I can’t serenade my doctors with my anti-smoking tirade. I threw the poor guy off. Don’t forget you’re just a peon in a holy place, and the hospital-staff are saints.
Good as Thompson is, all hospitals are like this; you have to follow their protocols.
A hospital makes you feel worse than you really are.
“Remove all your clothes, and change to this flowered gown.”
A nurse installed an IV in my right arm.
Various treatments were applied to reduce the rash, and they were gonna do “Benadryl,”which makes it impossible to drive.
I asked if we could delay the Benadryl until after I drove home.
But then “We think you should be admitted for observation.”
I called my doggy-daycare friend. “They wanna hospitalize me,” I reported.
“I think you should,” he said. “I’ll take care of your dog. She can stay with me.”
“Suckered by the medical establishment,” I thought. “Good luck on ever escaping.”
Memories flooded back of my time 22 years ago in the hospital after my stroke.
If you’ve been to the hospital you know sleep is difficult. They have you in a motorized bed that can toss you on the floor. The staff seems to think you want to sleep sitting up. Perish the thought you make the bed flat.
Then there is the blanket problem. Things don’t tuck in, so you pull a blanket up over yourself.
Then you turn over, tossing the blanket on the floor. Without the blanket you freeze. You often awake to rearrange the blanket.
Beyond that your gown also makes a mess.
Turn over and it does a boog-a-loo. You have to awake to rearrange things.
Beyond that, I was wearing a wireless heart-monitor; except it wasn’t wireless to me. I had at least seven sensors attached adhesively.
So if I rolled over in sleep, wiring would pull off the sensors, triggering Armageddon and the hospital’s “Rapid-Response Team.” Camo-clad baldies manning HUGE military-issue flashlights would storm in at 3 a.m. turning on all the lights.
“Sorry to wake you, Mr. Hughes, but it’s that red terminal again.”
Oh dear; penitence for a cardinal sin. In hospital I’m required to sleep face-up — which I can’t.
At least the food-service was pretty good.
After my stroke I had to struggle to get skim milk. I’d order it, and whole-milk would arrive. “Take it back,” I’d command; “I ordered ‘skim.’”
Skim milk wasn’t a problem at Thompson, and I got pretty much what I ordered.
There were exceptions, of course. Once I got a lunch that seemed who-knows-what. It was edible, so I didn’t say anything. Saying anything seemed to muck things up.
And once I ordered sliced strawberries as fruit, but got canned peaches instead. I pointed that out; they brought me a dish of sliced strawberries, but didn’t take the peaches, so I ate both.
And then there is the bathroom problem “See this button? Ring up your nurse if you have to potty; we don’t want you to fall.”
I related a story from my stroke days. I rang up the nurse, and after a half-hour I said “I’m goin’ to that bathroom myself. I can’t wait forever. If I hafta hold the wall (my balance was bad because of the stroke), I will.”
“He’ll be alright,” they said. “Ornery as Hell.”
“You won’t have that problem here. Ring up your nurse, otherwise we gotta put an alarm on ya.”
Part of the reason I was hospitalized was because a blood-test indicated possible congestive heart failure.
WHA-A-A-A.....? I supposed that was possible. I hadn’t been able to aerobically work out for months due to my left knee, which is bone-on-bone and will be replaced.
A cardiologist had just performed a battery of tests to clear me for surgery. He said I was fine, that I didn’t have congestive heart failure.
I’d had difficulty breathing, but I thought that was part of the sulfa-drug reaction.
Ergo, my heart-monitor. After a couple days they concluded I was stable.
My cardiologist weighed in, saying any difficulty breathing was probably the sulfa-drug allergy.
The wheels of the hospital turn slowly.
First I was gonna be discharged Saturday afternoon, but that turned into Sunday morning. Sunday morning came and went. Lunch was served. A bulletin-board indicated I would be discharged that day, and a crew was on stand-by.
Finally I was out, and also cleared to use the bathroom unassisted. But we had to follow protocols.
I would be wheeled out the front door in a wheelchair, where my doggy daycare friend would pick me up. He would then drive me home in my car, per hospital policy, with his wife following in their car.
We went to their grooming-shop to pick up my dog.
My dog was thrilled, and demanded I walk her instead of my friend.
“Free at last, free at last; thank God Almighty, free at last!”
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.
• “Mr. Hughes “ is of course me, Bob Hughes, “BobbaLew.”
• “Free at last, free at last; thank God Almighty, free at last!” is of course Rev. Martin Luther King.
I have an enlarged prostate-gland, fairly common for men my age (71). The prostate pumps semen during intercourse — well beyond me at my age; plus my wife is gone.
So we do a PSA test. That’s to determine the amount of prostate-specific-antigen in one’s blood, which if elevated may indicate prostate cancer.
My PSA has run fairly high for years, but this most recent PSA test was my highest ever, 12.9.
My urologist suggested a biopsy — I’ve already had two, both negative.
But if I needed one depended on whether my PSA came down after treatment for prostate infection, which can also cause high PSA.
This happened before. A high PSA was reversed after treatment for prostate infection.
So my urologist asked if I was allergic to sulfa-drugs, the antibiotic she would prescribe.
“Not that I know of,” I said, forgetting that 65 long years ago when I was age-6, and sulfa-drugs were all the rage, it was determined I was allergic to sulfa-drugs.
None have been suggested since, so I forgot my allergy.
60 gigantic horse-pills, two tablets per day for 30 days.
I began taking them.
A day-or-two after I started, my forearms and legs developed a rash after mowing. And then a day-or-two later I got an even worse rash on the backs of my hands after mowing.
It was like poison-ivy; I had to treat it with calamine lotion.
I continued taking the pills, so I guess things were getting worse.
At about 2/3rds of my way through the pills, I remembered that 65 years ago my allergy to sulfa-drugs was determined, so I stopped taking the pills.
That was Friday May 22nd. But I set out to work out at the Canandaigua YMCA. To do so I hafta daycare my dog, which I do with an old friend whom I worked with at the Messenger newspaper in Canandaigua.
“You should go to the hospital,” he said. I had explained my sulfa-allergy, and my face was all puffy, as if I had been stung by bees. I hadn’t noticed.
“Well, if you say so.” I drove straight to Thompson Hospital in Canandaigua, skipping the YMCA.
I was directed to their Emergency-Room.
“How many times did I bring my cancerous wife here,” I said, as I was led to a booth.
“Welcome to the medical-establishment,” I thought.
At least Thompson is not like a Rochester hospital, where you might die waiting in the Emergency-Room.
The questioning and testing began.
I learned I can’t serenade my doctors with my anti-smoking tirade. I threw the poor guy off. Don’t forget you’re just a peon in a holy place, and the hospital-staff are saints.
Good as Thompson is, all hospitals are like this; you have to follow their protocols.
A hospital makes you feel worse than you really are.
“Remove all your clothes, and change to this flowered gown.”
A nurse installed an IV in my right arm.
Various treatments were applied to reduce the rash, and they were gonna do “Benadryl,”which makes it impossible to drive.
I asked if we could delay the Benadryl until after I drove home.
But then “We think you should be admitted for observation.”
I called my doggy-daycare friend. “They wanna hospitalize me,” I reported.
“I think you should,” he said. “I’ll take care of your dog. She can stay with me.”
“Suckered by the medical establishment,” I thought. “Good luck on ever escaping.”
Memories flooded back of my time 22 years ago in the hospital after my stroke.
If you’ve been to the hospital you know sleep is difficult. They have you in a motorized bed that can toss you on the floor. The staff seems to think you want to sleep sitting up. Perish the thought you make the bed flat.
Then there is the blanket problem. Things don’t tuck in, so you pull a blanket up over yourself.
Then you turn over, tossing the blanket on the floor. Without the blanket you freeze. You often awake to rearrange the blanket.
Beyond that your gown also makes a mess.
Turn over and it does a boog-a-loo. You have to awake to rearrange things.
Beyond that, I was wearing a wireless heart-monitor; except it wasn’t wireless to me. I had at least seven sensors attached adhesively.
So if I rolled over in sleep, wiring would pull off the sensors, triggering Armageddon and the hospital’s “Rapid-Response Team.” Camo-clad baldies manning HUGE military-issue flashlights would storm in at 3 a.m. turning on all the lights.
“Sorry to wake you, Mr. Hughes, but it’s that red terminal again.”
Oh dear; penitence for a cardinal sin. In hospital I’m required to sleep face-up — which I can’t.
At least the food-service was pretty good.
After my stroke I had to struggle to get skim milk. I’d order it, and whole-milk would arrive. “Take it back,” I’d command; “I ordered ‘skim.’”
Skim milk wasn’t a problem at Thompson, and I got pretty much what I ordered.
There were exceptions, of course. Once I got a lunch that seemed who-knows-what. It was edible, so I didn’t say anything. Saying anything seemed to muck things up.
And once I ordered sliced strawberries as fruit, but got canned peaches instead. I pointed that out; they brought me a dish of sliced strawberries, but didn’t take the peaches, so I ate both.
And then there is the bathroom problem “See this button? Ring up your nurse if you have to potty; we don’t want you to fall.”
I related a story from my stroke days. I rang up the nurse, and after a half-hour I said “I’m goin’ to that bathroom myself. I can’t wait forever. If I hafta hold the wall (my balance was bad because of the stroke), I will.”
“He’ll be alright,” they said. “Ornery as Hell.”
“You won’t have that problem here. Ring up your nurse, otherwise we gotta put an alarm on ya.”
Part of the reason I was hospitalized was because a blood-test indicated possible congestive heart failure.
WHA-A-A-A.....? I supposed that was possible. I hadn’t been able to aerobically work out for months due to my left knee, which is bone-on-bone and will be replaced.
A cardiologist had just performed a battery of tests to clear me for surgery. He said I was fine, that I didn’t have congestive heart failure.
I’d had difficulty breathing, but I thought that was part of the sulfa-drug reaction.
Ergo, my heart-monitor. After a couple days they concluded I was stable.
My cardiologist weighed in, saying any difficulty breathing was probably the sulfa-drug allergy.
The wheels of the hospital turn slowly.
First I was gonna be discharged Saturday afternoon, but that turned into Sunday morning. Sunday morning came and went. Lunch was served. A bulletin-board indicated I would be discharged that day, and a crew was on stand-by.
Finally I was out, and also cleared to use the bathroom unassisted. But we had to follow protocols.
I would be wheeled out the front door in a wheelchair, where my doggy daycare friend would pick me up. He would then drive me home in my car, per hospital policy, with his wife following in their car.
We went to their grooming-shop to pick up my dog.
My dog was thrilled, and demanded I walk her instead of my friend.
“Free at last, free at last; thank God Almighty, free at last!”
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.
• “Mr. Hughes “ is of course me, Bob Hughes, “BobbaLew.”
• “Free at last, free at last; thank God Almighty, free at last!” is of course Rev. Martin Luther King.
posted by BobbaLew at 8:16 AM
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