The Avalanche Awaits...

Got my first bill from last month's fiasco. And it appears that the Big Bill from the hospital was the NINTH claim to hit the insurance. What does this mean, friends?

It means that I owe $5,000. I knew that already, I was prepared. What it means is that instead of owing $5,000 to ONE source, I owe $5,000 to EIGHT different sources.

Eight different mouths to feed and they sure as fuck don't want just $25 per month, because they've been bitching about it when I called them. That's $200, folks. I can't afford to pay out more than that per month, I assure you of this.

Plus, there's ol' Gerald to think of. He needs a engine repair and that costs money as well. Can't get to work if my car's fucked up.

If it sounds like I'm going total negative on things, fear not. I was pissed that the hospital didn't come to Insurance to collect first, but what is done is done.

I have a plan.

I'll pay the big ones $25 per month equally at first. They don't like it, they can kiss my ass. As long as you pay them *something*, they can't legally unleash the hounds.

I'll concentrate on trying to scrounge up a little more for the smallest bills. One for $32? No problem. One for $64? No problem, I think.

Heh.

I figure if I pay the little guys off first, I can then take the money I'm not spending on those and throw that towards the bigger fish. I pay off the $32 lab work one this month, I can budget $25 to start throwing at the anesthesiologist starting the next month, for example.

I'm just glad I had insurance. I could be forced to pay the (so far) amount of $32,630. Wouldn't that be fun?

The truly awesome news is that summer is approaching. Plenty of time to enjoy life outside again! Yaaaaaaay! :)

Hospital Hijinks...

There was a bit of hilarity during my stay in the hospital that I will now share. It's a bit NSFW, so do not say that you were not forewarned!

When one comes out of surgery, typically there is a bit of a checklist that follows to ensure that things are going well. I'm giving the abbreviated version, but it starts out like this.

Is the patient:

Breathing on their own?
Conscious?
Able to move around some (arms, legs, fingers, etc.)?
Able to communicate?
Able to take a piss?

The general rule of thumb is that barring certain medical circumstances, one should be able to relieve their bladder by a certain time. Anesthesia tends to require the body to essentially reboot itself in regards to several functions, and believe me They are keeping track of everything.

At Surgery+6 hrs, the nurses began their quest for information in earnest.

"How you feeling?"
"Are you feeling hungry or thirsty?"
"Have you been able to urinate?"
"Do you feel like you need to urinate?"
"Do you feel that your bladder has pressure building?"

My answers were usually a more diplomatic variation of:

"I'm high, I feel nothing."
"Thirsty! I demand water! Gallons of it!"
"No."
"NO."
"No, now please fetch me a pitcher of your finest water, kind lady/good sir! I THIRST!"

Around S+7:30, another nurse returned to ask the magic questions again.

"How you doing?" High.
"Are you hungry or thirsty?" Yep, still thirsty.
"Have you urinated?" Um, no.

"It's been almost eight hours, Robert, don't you feel the slightest urge to relieve yourself?" the nurse asked in a concerned tone.

I closed my eyes a bit, and sleepily replied, "nope. I'm thirsty as hell though."

"You know you've had three pitchers, right?"

I glanced towards the side table where three empty water pitchers sat. Math skills eluded me at the moment, but I took a stab at it and guessed I drank more than 64 ounces of dihydrogen oxide over the course of three hours. Just using my understanding of basic river-floating mechanics, I should have sauntered off to a nearby peein' tree by now, surely.

"Huh," I grumbled, "isn't that strange."

The nurse shook his head a bit. "I hate to say this but your time is almost up. Give it a good try because the alternative is... unpleasant."

Having the good fortune of being the son of someone who worked in the medical field for over three decades, I had vivid memories of discussions of treatments that used to pepper family dinnertime conversation.

"Catheter," I sighed.

"Yeah," the nurse replied, a slight glint of male sympathy crossing over his furrowed brows, "I'll be back in thirty to check in on you. Give it your best shot, man."

I laid in my bed, holding the bedpan in one hand, the other hand resting gently on the side rail of my bed. I felt absolutely nothing but I was determined to give this a try. After five minutes of concentration, I fell asleep once more.

"Hey, time's up, man!" I heard the nurse say, "any luck?"

I woke up to find myself holding the still empty bedpan and cursed myself for wasting time asleep when there was important personal business matters to attend to. Lords knew I wasn't in the mood for... the Alternative.

"No. Damnit, no," I swore in frustration.

The nurse sighed, "alright, I'll get the cart. Be back in a few."

As he disappeared, another nurse walked in. "Still no luck?" she asked me as I lay there contemplating my fate.

"Not a whisker," I grunted.

"Need anything while he's getting ready?"

I laid there thinking, 'another pitcher of water would be nice,' but knew that would be futile. Then, I had a bit of inspiration.

"Not to be gross, ma'am, but I'm not used to going in bed. Would you mind helping me to my feet and I'll see if heading to the bathroom will help?"

She smiled, "sure. I wouldn't advise walking that far just yet though. Let's see how sturdy you are on your feet."

She helps me to stand up and turns away as I reach down to make another attempt. I felt absolutely ridiculous having a fellow human being stand there and steady me while I attempt to pop the cork. I'm quite sure that didn't help matters one bit.

"Would you like me to go turn some water on for ya?" she asked softly.

"Yeah, let's try that," I agreed, "I think I can manage standing now as long as I rest against this chair."

She helped me move the few steps over to the big chair in the room and I steadied myself against it. She moved to the bathroom and I could hear the sink taps open up.

A few minutes passed as I stood there. I hadn't realized it fully before, but I was standing in front of the open window, flashing the city of Austin. Fortunately, it was nighttime and the room was dark so my identity was relatively safe.

"Would you like me to sing you a song?" the nurse joked from the bathroom. I'd already established quite a rapport with the nurses working there with my sense of humor so I was relieved that most of them felt more at ease with me.

"Does it help?" I chuckled.

"With some patients it does," she giggled, "I have a good one."

I laughed a bit. "Naw," I said, "let me go into my moment of contemplation."

In the distance, I could hear the sounds of a heavyset cart being wheeled down the hallway. It was time to get to work.

Alright, dipshit, this is serious business.

Think... Think...

OOOO! I know! You're on the river. Mid July.

Twelve pack of Shiner Bock on ice.

Smoking a cigarette and popping open that first beer...

Hell, yeah, drink that sucker. Drink another.

River's flowing down...

Oh, man, I gotta take a...

I had never felt so relieved as to let loose with the mightiest stream of liquid gold as I was that moment. I was a human being again, urinating long and fast.

I let the moment get the better of me and I let out a small whoop of joy. I was proud of this achievement and I was going to by gods savor every moment.

And somewhere, deep within the confines of my restroom, a gentle voice sang out:

"Who's the big boy, peeing in the potty, peeing in the potty, peeing in the potty..."

Who says that hospitals have to be boring...

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"Yeah, it was a pretty close shave there," I said with relief, "but I didn't die and that's awesome in my book."

"Oh, yes," mused Granddad rather casually, "I'm supposed to be next anyway."

I thought about that comment for a moment. While facing my own mortality was a fairly new concept, my grandfather had been facing that end of life for years. As a former fireman for one of the busiest fire departments in the world, he had rolled the bones with the Reaper on at least more than one occasion.

"You know, I'll admit something, Pop. I was more scared than I'd ever been going into that. I knew it was serious but not how serious. Guy told me later that I was on very thin ice there from having that sucker explode on me. Days, maybe weeks if I was lucky.

I suppose it freaked me out because I'd never really faced my own possible death like that before. Maybe you know way more about that since you were a fireman and faced life and death more than a few times on the job."

My granddad grunted, "Well, yeah, I suppose, but never as bad as that. Any situation on the department had some sort of risk to it, but it wasn't like getting sick and having to go into surgery. That's worse, I think. Grandson isn't supposed to go before the grandfather."

I felt strange after hearing that. He was the second person who caught me off guard at this level of discussion that I've had with a small handful of people.

I feel completely humbled in this case is because he faced death in the line of duty. I faced death because I had too many cheeseburgers and let a lot of stupid crap stress me out.

He fought back death with a firehose in his hand. I fought back death by not being stubborn and checking into the ER.

On the other hand, I see his point.

A firefighter has a lot of control in emergency situations. How much hose do we need? Should I go in through the front door or back? Do we ventilate the roof here or further to the right?

When you go for surgery, it all runs pretty much without your input. All you have to do is wait and enjoy the medication while the doctors and nurses do the rest.

The funniest thing about it was it went exactly as my eldest brother said it would when we spoke before I was put under. I remember being wheeled in, put on the table and the surgeon saying, "alright, Robert, we're going to..."

Then, nothing.

I remember always thinking that when one is under anesthesia, one would possibly dream. Possibly about that hot nurse who took care of me in the ER, perhaps. At the very least I hoped I would dream of a bright sunny day on the Santa Monica pier.

Next thing I recall was waking up, much like my 1980 Buick Century used to. *wwwwwWWWhhhHHhhhHHHHIiiiIIiiiiRRRRRRRRR!"

I floated in and out for awhile, my number one thought being "thirsty." I felt like Heywood Floyd in 2010, waking up from hibernation while people fussed over me, checking vitals, asking me general questions.

I half expected to see a 1980's graphic rendition of Europa on one of the monitors with Jupiter in the background.

My first really lucid thought I remember having was, "there must be some kind of way out of here..."

Battlestar Galactica, FTW again...