Sunday, October 16, 2016

INTO HOSPITAL ..... AND OUT OF CONTROL !


 
This may come as a shock to some of my regular readers but at present I am lying in a hospital bed !! … This has come as a bit of a shock to me too. As you know I have a pretty healthy lifestyle, my nutrition is 95% clean... (Meaning very little crap)... And I train 5 to 6 times a week with a lot of intensity and effort, so what the hell am I doing here?
A good question but in my blogs I always try to tell it like it is, good and bad. I am fortunate that at nearly 62 years of age I can train and do things that many younger people might find quite challenging but as I always say, we are all here through the grace of God and sometimes no matter how healthy your lifestyle is; shit happens. In my case whilst having a regular check-up a few months ago they noticed a restricted bladder which normally, with medication, goes away. Anyway I went back last week, they checked me again and the specialist suddenly says :-

’We have to operate’….
What! When? .......
‘Friday’….
‘Excuse me, you mean this week’….
 ‘Yes’…
‘Is it that serious?’…
 ‘It could become serious if we don’t operate’.

This took me aback, as you might expect, especially as I haven’t been inside a hospital ward for over 56 years. Anyway he just said it’s got to be done so that it prevents any future problems.  Fair enough I thought, prevention is a good thing. Apparently I was born with this but it’s never been an issue before maybe because of all the exercise I do and the fact that I drink a lot of water therefore my system is always moving, who knows? However no matter how fit you are as you grow older there is always a risk of infection if it ever gets blocked.
Then he hit me with the cost….  Ouch!  And then he told me what he was going to do… Basically cut the bladder neck and a bit of the prostrate (which is healthy by the way and not enlarged)…. with a LASER!! ….Triple ouch!!  The more I researched this, which was extensive as you might expect, the more serious this operation appeared to be. I mean some guy firing a laser up my sensitive parts is not my idea of a fun time. And it got worse, I am not allowed to exercise at all for a minimum of 4 weeks, or drive, or fly, or even carry any shopping…. and No sex!  Now I said, wait a minute… ‘NO Shopping!’  J
Ok, joking aside let’s cut to the chase here, no sex? I thought he was having a laugh but apparently not. This whole thing was slowly turning into a nightmare and to be fully recovered can sometimes take even longer. Of course by now I am getting second opinions all over the place but in the end I realized I would have to bite the bullet and get on with it.
And so here I am sitting in my hospital bed contemplating life as I look out the window. Mr fit and healthy laid low by a dodgy bladder.
Any operation is serious so I prepared myself as best I could. I might run up and down a 6,000 foot steep canyon in the dark, alone at 5am but going through the hospital doors really terrified me… I just wished I was back at the canyon, so much easier and peaceful and a lot less stressful.
The operation was scheduled for noon the next day. Here I was in the hands of others with everything completely out of my control, not a place I am used to being. (Sue must have thought it was Christmas with all that time to herself). First they took about 5 tubes of blood, which the nurses thought was hilarious because it shot out of my arm like a jet, which normally doesn’t happen apparently and then she said my arms were like a roadmap due to all my prominent veins.  (It’s called vascularity- a sign of fitness which is enhanced by extremely low body fat (usually below 10%)FYI. All great and marvelous but this was not doing me much good now whilst sitting in a hospital bed.
The morning was scary as hell waiting for Dr Evil and his giant laser. The waiting was interminable.  There was a huge thunder and lightning storm outside and I had visions of the laser backfiring and me coming out of the surgery looking something like Wolverine….  Or it could be even more serious and he could accidentally cut the wrong bit and suddenly I’m Catwoman! By now I was delirious even before the drugs, just total panic... The language barrier caused even more confusion, one wrong answer to the wrong question and I could be in a different surgery having a triple by-pass … or breast implants!
Everyone was of course incredibly caring, professional and understanding, then again at these prices they should be, in fact I’m surprised I didn’t get a 2 week Caribbean cruise thrown in. It’s a very strange operation where they paralyse you from the waist down but you are still half awake, sort of drunk, which as you all know is not something I am all that familiar with. Anyway I survived and a few hours later I’m lying in bed with all sorts of wires and tubes sticking out of every orifice feeling like shit. Only last week I was planning my next adventure running for days through the high deserts and stunning canyons of Southern Utah…. and now I can’t even get to the bathroom. This was not good.

For anyone this sort of thing is unpleasant but for people like me it’s mentally, physically and emotionally exhausting. Anyway I spent the next few days just asking when I would be let out. The restrictive nature of hospital is for very good reasons but for a control freak like me it’s like a prison. Poor Sue was forever shuttling back and forth with requests and food parcels. I had already pre-prepared my green drinks and supplements but it still amazed me how nutritionally deficient the food is. Healthy effective nutrition seems very low on the priorities. If this is the norm, which I’m told it is, then people really do eat shit. … And they don’t even know it. I lay awake for hours the next morning awaiting the big breakfast and when it arrived it was coffee and a bread roll! I honestly thought a proper balanced nutritious meal was to follow but that was it. I mean people are recovering from illness and this is what they get… and this is a private hospital. Luckily I had all my green drinks, protein supplements, vitamins, minerals etc… plus a daily chopped salad prepared by Sue the night before because I suspected this could happen.  I know school food is poor but this is a hospital, why do they not have a resident nutrition expert detailing recovery procedure. It seems to be all about drugs, when the nurses saw all my stuff they had no idea, surely this should be taught along with all the other medical qualifications. If more people were engaged in prevention then the hospitals would not be so overcrowded.
On the plus side the nurses and general care and professionalism were of course fabulous and right now this was the most important thing to me and for that I am grateful... Besides I am not used to that many women fiddling around with me all at once.
What an experience, now I know why I have always tried my very best to be healthy and fit. I have been fortunate in that I don’t take any medicines and am never ill which I truly believe is as a result of my lifestyle. Don’t get me wrong, I know many people have far, far worse experiences than this and often through no fault of their own but as I said earlier we are all here through the grace of God so I am eternally grateful for having got this far in pretty good shape.  However statistics show over and over again that a heathy lifestyle can prevent a great many medical problems. It’s astonishing when you see people walking around a hospital with a drip and then going outside for a cigarette… the mind boggles.
I hoped to be out after 3 days but there was no chance of that. Anyway after a few tough nights and a rather painful procedure involving a catheter, which I will not explain as any men reading this will not want to know, the resident Doctor arrived,  he introduced himself as Dr Pee …  I am not making this up, I had to ask him twice.  I would have laughed but by now I was really feeling poorly which surprised me because just after the operation I felt okay. I suspect this whole thing is going to take some time to get over, it’s certainly been a chastening experience. I am only allowed to walk for the next 4 weeks so if you see me running through the park, arrest me immediately. I’ll no doubt be driving myself and everybody else around me nuts. I know some might consider my way of living as a bit extreme but I’d rather be OCD about health than anything else. I am determined to get well quickly and will feel blessed again when I finally hit the open trails on my mountain runs. In the meantime I reiterate my constant refrain.  Don’t take your health for granted , take action now, lose weight, start exercising, stop smoking and cut your alcohol and sugar consumption, otherwise you could be in here with something far, far worse.

Stay healthy everyone.

2 comments:

  1. hey. yes.....hurry up & get back "to it". Say "Hi" to Sue & tell her I feel sorry for her - you need to send her on a nice girly vacation after 4 weeks - she deserves it!!

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  2. Thanks Pam, hope your keeping well xx

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