Yes, I was back in the hospital again. When I started this blog I never expected to provide so many medical updates but I continue to have problems and, well, you asked for them so here goes.

This will be a short update as I was in and out of the hospital rather quickly. The problem was that my pancreatic drain tube plugged up which caused the abscess in my back to grow. The result was rather painful and injurious to my health so we had to get the tube replaced immediately.

I was somewhat concerned about the procedure because of this lousy 6 inch blood clot in my arm which requires that I now take blood thinners. Having blood thinners that prevent blood clotting didn’t sound to me like a good idea before surgery but I guess my tube has been in so long that it was a minimal risk. Anyway we contacted the doctor and was told to come into IR immediately.

Fortunately the operation was an outpatient “procedure” but was unscheduled so after we got to the hospital grandma Oddball and I had to sit around waiting for an open surgery slot. This gave us a chance to visit with some old friends we’d formed in our many trips to IR.

While waiting to be wheeled into surgery grandma and I joshed with each other, with the staff and even with other patients (actually difficult to do when you’re in pain). I think that the pain must have affected my hearing because some of the comments I apparently heard turned out to be not quite correct.

In the holding area next to us a man was being prepared for his surgery by a nurse who was double and triple checking his requirements, background, medicines, allergies, etc. As she prepared to leave she suddenly burst out, “Those are quite some set of boobs you have there”.

What? What did she say I thought. And immediately the thought popped into my mind “‘That’s a strange comment”. I was even more puzzled when she asked him, “What are they made of?”.

The answer further puzzled me, “stingray”, he replied.

Calling to a colleague the nurse said, “L…, you need to come and see this”. L… came over and exclaimed, “Boy, that’s some pair. Where did you get them made?” Texas was the reply and by now I was totally and throughly confused. However grandma Oddball had figured out what was going on. She went out and asked if she could see the “boobs” and was also impressed as she came back to tell me about them.

I wanted to know what was so special about a big pair of stingray “boobs” and why. why would anyone have such a pair. “Boots,” grandma corrected me, “boots, they’re a pair of fancy boots!” Ah well, I guess hearing is the first to go when you’re in pain.

Finally I got the operation late in the day and was able to get home by about 7 pm. The operation went relatively smoothly and the new drain seems to be working. After draining several hundred ml of fluid I started feeling much better. Most of the pain is now gone and I expect things will be even better in a few days when hopefully I can start physical therapy again.

I was still home recovering on the fourth of July when my family “kidnapped” me. Spiriting me down to our daughter’s family where I was able to see the family, our grandchildren and try out the new ramp into their house which my son-in-law built for me. It was very tiring but nice. I don’t get out much and really enjoyed the outing.

Anyway, to wrap things up, I’m home again and hopefully back on the road to recovery. Hopefully, it will a long time before I have to write another medical update.

Tags: medical update

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 5th, 2009 at 2:10 pm and is filed under Grandpa Oddball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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