Before you read this, please note that I am in a weird mood, and will likely say things that are very out of character for me. Please don't use this thread as a place to spew hate and nonsense -- that's what the Jazz forum is for.
As most of you know, I have had quite a ride the last two weeks, and by "quite a ride", I mean "the worst two weeks of my 30 year existence". I'm not sure why I'm writing this thread, other than the fact that I enjoy sharing some of my most intimate experiences with a bunch of faceless strangers. I guess I get off on that? Or maybe it's because I've come to think of you all as sort of my family. I went through my phone the other day and I have over 15 numbers saved that are all people from this site. I've met a lot of you. I've met your families. I feel like we are friends. So there, I guess that's why. Awesome.
Anyhow, I gotta tell you how this all started: There I was, wearing nothing but a loin cloth and a piano wire... On my couch watching UFC reruns on a beautiful Monday night. My stomach was really starting to hurt. Gas. No problem; four TUMS later, a few farts, and I was back in business. Wrong. I just kept getting more and more pain coming from the left side of my gut. Man it was hurting. "Screw this, I'm going to bed." So I popped an Ambian and hoped that it would knock me out enough to just sleep through the pain that should be gone by morning. Wrong. Again. 4:30 rolls around and I can't seem to scrape myself off the floor. I am seconds away from starting to cry as I writhe around on the carpet, trying every position I can put my body into in order to find some shred of comfort. Nope, ain't happening. I gotta go.
I get dressed and tell my wife that I'm driving myself to the ER. She is not pleased by this news, but who cares -- I'm F'ing dying right now. I load myself into my truck and haul *** down to IMC and park in the first available stall at the ER, which was Handicapped. Sue me. I staggered in there and found my way to the front of the line. Amazing how quickly they get you in to see a doctor when you present them with the image of a large fat man who can't stop crying. Blood pressure is off the charts. Pulse is off the charts. Pain... Oh, you rotten son of a sheep scrote, is off the charts. They draw blood, give me an IV and proceed to fill me with Gods gift to *****-boys everywhere, morphine. (at least, that's what I think it was) Ahhh, now you're cookin'. My pain goes from a 10 to a 3 in five seconds. Not bad. But it comes back in a hurry and within 10 minutes, I'm begging for another shot. This time they hit me with Deladid, or something like that, and damn, it burns your nose and face off when they inject it into your body. But man, does it work. Alright, now we've found the way to keep my eyes dry and my drawers clean (unfortunately, that didn't last -- more on that later, if you're lucky). Now I get to wait...
And wait. And wait. And... finally, the doctor comes in and says, "You've got pancreatitis, and it's a bad one. You're lucky you got here, another couple of hours and this could've killed you." "Holy ****!" I exclaim, how do we fix it? "Well, there's really nothing you can do for it." Say what...? "Your pancreas right now is actually digesting itself. The only way to stop that is to stop giving it food. To make it stop working." So, I've got to stop eating for a few hours, no prob doc. Wrong. "We're admitting you to the hospital. Have your wife bring you some things, you're going to be here for a few days." A few days? Wow. That blows. Up I go. I can't eat or drink anything. ANYTHING. I can't have ice chips, a sip of water to wash pills down with, nothing. Lame. So this is how my first 48 hours were spent. Me, doped up on two different kinds of pain killers while starving myself to death. Awesome.
Wednesday rolls around and I am still hurting, but dammit, I have a city council meeting that I simply can not miss. I tell my doctors and nurses that I feel right as rain, and could sprint out of here. I'm a salesman, remember. So there we go, discharge papers at the ready, I head to my meeting. The meeting was two hours of interviews with the head of the Fraternal Order of Police, in which they were deciding what candidate they would like to throw their support to, i.e. who would kiss their *** and promise them the best/most favors. That wasn't me. At any rate, with about 10 minutes to go in the meeting, I start to get hot. I mean hot. Hotter than a two dollar pistol. I'm sweating like SimpleTool at a spelling bee. We're talking real man's sweat. Out of every orifice. And it's coming like a hurricane. I had to pretty much excuse myself to the hall to call my wife and beg her to come get me and take me back to IMC. Man, I was pissed. Back I went.
Same old, same old, back up to the room, back to being hungry. This crap went on for three more days. I was getting tired. Very fudging tired. I still needed pain medication every few hours and I was starving so bad that my hunger pains were kicking the *** of my pancreas pains. I was getting pissed. Finally, they started giving me food, liquids mostly, and then let me head home the next day. Hooray. I lasted two days at home before my pain started up again, and came on harder than ever.
Up to this point, my story has been ho-hum, and fairly boring. But this is where it gets interesting. I had just spent five days in a hospital bed starving myself to an oblivion, so there was NO WAY I was going back to the hospital. I did the only thing I could think of, something that I don't think I've ever done: I called my elders quorum president at 11:30 at night and asked him if he could come give me a blessing. I really do despise blessings. I mean, they're great, and I don't mind giving them, but I really don't like getting them. I feel like I can take care of my own ****, and I don't need to waste other peoples time. But this was different. I was at a brutal function. Either I get a healing blessing, and hope it works -- or I go back to the hospital. I'll try the blessing.
Many of you are Mo's, so you've done or know what these are, so this is old news, but to some of you, this may be a new concept. Anyhow, when my buddy shows up, I am rolling around on the floor moaning and trying to find any position that will give me some sort of comfort. I can't stand it, so I grab a chair, pull it to the middle of the room and tell my buddy that I'm in so much pain, and for him to do his worst. I need to preface this with the fact that my buddy is one of THEE most spiritual people I know. Almost to a fault. He'll often annoy me with it, but I take it in good fun for him just being a little too gung-ho about his religion. Anyhow, he anointed my head and proceeded to give me a healing blessing. It started out strong, but then... I kept waiting for him to talk about healing. He didn't. I kept waiting, and still nothing. In fact, the only thing he really blessed me with was the knowledge to make the right decision to go back to the hospital. I wish I was making this crap up. I got up, shook his hand, bid him a fond farewell, and then went into my wife and began cursing his name. "NO HEALING IN MY HEALING BLESSING?!" And that's when the pain really decided to show up. And it brought reinforcements.
Back to the ER I go, hi ho, hi ho. I'm so freaking pissed off right now, but in so much pain that I really can't tell what's making me more mad. Oh well, it is what it is. Back to IMC and wow, this place is packed. The nurse tells me that it's a 1.5 hour wait. Seriously? I'm dying here lady. "Sorry, we don't have any rooms available." F it, we're out of here. Up to LDS hospital. No wait, they get me straight into a bed, no paperwork, no bull ****, just quick awesome care. They draw blood, get some pain meds into me, and away I go back into the hospital to starve some more. But wait! The doctor pulled some of my charts and started asking me questions. I responded to all of them, but then added, "Doc, I really feel like there is something else wrong. Something really wrong." And like a good doctor, he said, "Alright, let's get you in for CT scan and an MRI right now and we'll see what we're dealing with." Boo ya, finally some action.
This story is running way over long, so I'll skip and sum up. The MRI showed bile stones that were trapped in the ducts leading to my pancreas, as well as my liver. Even though I was starving myself, it didn't matter, the pancreas was still F'd as soon as I started eating again. The pisser was, now that my liver was clogged up, it had gone into full shut down mode. This was bad. Once that bad boy goes down, you're pretty much done for. My skin was turning yellow and my eyes were the color of yellowish apple juice. The whites of my eyes, mind you. I looked like death. I was rushed into surgery, they cleaned that crap out, found a stone that was 6mm clogged in a duct that was barely 2mm wide, and a bunch more little small ones. They also did a Vinylone special, a sphincterotomy on my bile ducts. All of this was done with a camera on a tube that was shoved down my throat. Insanity.
Had I decided to stay home that night, I wouldn't have woken up the next morning. Had I not heeded the advice of a certain blessing that was given to me, I wouldn't have woken up the next morning. In short, if my buddy hadn't been spiritually in tuned, he might have just given me the blessing I wanted to hear, and I wouldn't have woken up the next morning.
Isn't that amazing? For you, the reader, probably not. But for me... Wow. I've never been close to death, but this was close enough. So this begs the question: was my buddy spiritually led or told to say the things he did? Did our minds connect on some weird level that we don't understand? Was it simply his gut telling him that I needed help? I'm no big believer in miracles, and I don't really buy many of the Mo' stories that I hear floating around. I think things happen and sometimes there is a really good reason for them. I'm just not sure what my really good reason was for this one.
Thoughts? Can a man really be that in tuned with God? Was I the victim of the inevitable? Am I really just reaching for a spiritual experience just so I can think that I had one? I'm serious, I don't know what to think.
I think that a higher power stepped up and saved my life. I don't know if it's because Mormon's have the 'keys' to pass that power along on the Earth, or if anyone could've done it for me. Could my catholic grandfather given me the same blessing? Would this higher power tell my wife to say the same things to me as my buddy did? Is this interesting to anyone but me?
I dunno. I'm sorry to have wasted your time up to this point. I guess when a man reaches a certain age and comes close to seeing his end, his brain opens up certain things that have never been there before. Here they are.
Thanks for reading
Trout.
As most of you know, I have had quite a ride the last two weeks, and by "quite a ride", I mean "the worst two weeks of my 30 year existence". I'm not sure why I'm writing this thread, other than the fact that I enjoy sharing some of my most intimate experiences with a bunch of faceless strangers. I guess I get off on that? Or maybe it's because I've come to think of you all as sort of my family. I went through my phone the other day and I have over 15 numbers saved that are all people from this site. I've met a lot of you. I've met your families. I feel like we are friends. So there, I guess that's why. Awesome.
Anyhow, I gotta tell you how this all started: There I was, wearing nothing but a loin cloth and a piano wire... On my couch watching UFC reruns on a beautiful Monday night. My stomach was really starting to hurt. Gas. No problem; four TUMS later, a few farts, and I was back in business. Wrong. I just kept getting more and more pain coming from the left side of my gut. Man it was hurting. "Screw this, I'm going to bed." So I popped an Ambian and hoped that it would knock me out enough to just sleep through the pain that should be gone by morning. Wrong. Again. 4:30 rolls around and I can't seem to scrape myself off the floor. I am seconds away from starting to cry as I writhe around on the carpet, trying every position I can put my body into in order to find some shred of comfort. Nope, ain't happening. I gotta go.
I get dressed and tell my wife that I'm driving myself to the ER. She is not pleased by this news, but who cares -- I'm F'ing dying right now. I load myself into my truck and haul *** down to IMC and park in the first available stall at the ER, which was Handicapped. Sue me. I staggered in there and found my way to the front of the line. Amazing how quickly they get you in to see a doctor when you present them with the image of a large fat man who can't stop crying. Blood pressure is off the charts. Pulse is off the charts. Pain... Oh, you rotten son of a sheep scrote, is off the charts. They draw blood, give me an IV and proceed to fill me with Gods gift to *****-boys everywhere, morphine. (at least, that's what I think it was) Ahhh, now you're cookin'. My pain goes from a 10 to a 3 in five seconds. Not bad. But it comes back in a hurry and within 10 minutes, I'm begging for another shot. This time they hit me with Deladid, or something like that, and damn, it burns your nose and face off when they inject it into your body. But man, does it work. Alright, now we've found the way to keep my eyes dry and my drawers clean (unfortunately, that didn't last -- more on that later, if you're lucky). Now I get to wait...
And wait. And wait. And... finally, the doctor comes in and says, "You've got pancreatitis, and it's a bad one. You're lucky you got here, another couple of hours and this could've killed you." "Holy ****!" I exclaim, how do we fix it? "Well, there's really nothing you can do for it." Say what...? "Your pancreas right now is actually digesting itself. The only way to stop that is to stop giving it food. To make it stop working." So, I've got to stop eating for a few hours, no prob doc. Wrong. "We're admitting you to the hospital. Have your wife bring you some things, you're going to be here for a few days." A few days? Wow. That blows. Up I go. I can't eat or drink anything. ANYTHING. I can't have ice chips, a sip of water to wash pills down with, nothing. Lame. So this is how my first 48 hours were spent. Me, doped up on two different kinds of pain killers while starving myself to death. Awesome.
Wednesday rolls around and I am still hurting, but dammit, I have a city council meeting that I simply can not miss. I tell my doctors and nurses that I feel right as rain, and could sprint out of here. I'm a salesman, remember. So there we go, discharge papers at the ready, I head to my meeting. The meeting was two hours of interviews with the head of the Fraternal Order of Police, in which they were deciding what candidate they would like to throw their support to, i.e. who would kiss their *** and promise them the best/most favors. That wasn't me. At any rate, with about 10 minutes to go in the meeting, I start to get hot. I mean hot. Hotter than a two dollar pistol. I'm sweating like SimpleTool at a spelling bee. We're talking real man's sweat. Out of every orifice. And it's coming like a hurricane. I had to pretty much excuse myself to the hall to call my wife and beg her to come get me and take me back to IMC. Man, I was pissed. Back I went.
Same old, same old, back up to the room, back to being hungry. This crap went on for three more days. I was getting tired. Very fudging tired. I still needed pain medication every few hours and I was starving so bad that my hunger pains were kicking the *** of my pancreas pains. I was getting pissed. Finally, they started giving me food, liquids mostly, and then let me head home the next day. Hooray. I lasted two days at home before my pain started up again, and came on harder than ever.
Up to this point, my story has been ho-hum, and fairly boring. But this is where it gets interesting. I had just spent five days in a hospital bed starving myself to an oblivion, so there was NO WAY I was going back to the hospital. I did the only thing I could think of, something that I don't think I've ever done: I called my elders quorum president at 11:30 at night and asked him if he could come give me a blessing. I really do despise blessings. I mean, they're great, and I don't mind giving them, but I really don't like getting them. I feel like I can take care of my own ****, and I don't need to waste other peoples time. But this was different. I was at a brutal function. Either I get a healing blessing, and hope it works -- or I go back to the hospital. I'll try the blessing.
Many of you are Mo's, so you've done or know what these are, so this is old news, but to some of you, this may be a new concept. Anyhow, when my buddy shows up, I am rolling around on the floor moaning and trying to find any position that will give me some sort of comfort. I can't stand it, so I grab a chair, pull it to the middle of the room and tell my buddy that I'm in so much pain, and for him to do his worst. I need to preface this with the fact that my buddy is one of THEE most spiritual people I know. Almost to a fault. He'll often annoy me with it, but I take it in good fun for him just being a little too gung-ho about his religion. Anyhow, he anointed my head and proceeded to give me a healing blessing. It started out strong, but then... I kept waiting for him to talk about healing. He didn't. I kept waiting, and still nothing. In fact, the only thing he really blessed me with was the knowledge to make the right decision to go back to the hospital. I wish I was making this crap up. I got up, shook his hand, bid him a fond farewell, and then went into my wife and began cursing his name. "NO HEALING IN MY HEALING BLESSING?!" And that's when the pain really decided to show up. And it brought reinforcements.
Back to the ER I go, hi ho, hi ho. I'm so freaking pissed off right now, but in so much pain that I really can't tell what's making me more mad. Oh well, it is what it is. Back to IMC and wow, this place is packed. The nurse tells me that it's a 1.5 hour wait. Seriously? I'm dying here lady. "Sorry, we don't have any rooms available." F it, we're out of here. Up to LDS hospital. No wait, they get me straight into a bed, no paperwork, no bull ****, just quick awesome care. They draw blood, get some pain meds into me, and away I go back into the hospital to starve some more. But wait! The doctor pulled some of my charts and started asking me questions. I responded to all of them, but then added, "Doc, I really feel like there is something else wrong. Something really wrong." And like a good doctor, he said, "Alright, let's get you in for CT scan and an MRI right now and we'll see what we're dealing with." Boo ya, finally some action.
This story is running way over long, so I'll skip and sum up. The MRI showed bile stones that were trapped in the ducts leading to my pancreas, as well as my liver. Even though I was starving myself, it didn't matter, the pancreas was still F'd as soon as I started eating again. The pisser was, now that my liver was clogged up, it had gone into full shut down mode. This was bad. Once that bad boy goes down, you're pretty much done for. My skin was turning yellow and my eyes were the color of yellowish apple juice. The whites of my eyes, mind you. I looked like death. I was rushed into surgery, they cleaned that crap out, found a stone that was 6mm clogged in a duct that was barely 2mm wide, and a bunch more little small ones. They also did a Vinylone special, a sphincterotomy on my bile ducts. All of this was done with a camera on a tube that was shoved down my throat. Insanity.
Had I decided to stay home that night, I wouldn't have woken up the next morning. Had I not heeded the advice of a certain blessing that was given to me, I wouldn't have woken up the next morning. In short, if my buddy hadn't been spiritually in tuned, he might have just given me the blessing I wanted to hear, and I wouldn't have woken up the next morning.
Isn't that amazing? For you, the reader, probably not. But for me... Wow. I've never been close to death, but this was close enough. So this begs the question: was my buddy spiritually led or told to say the things he did? Did our minds connect on some weird level that we don't understand? Was it simply his gut telling him that I needed help? I'm no big believer in miracles, and I don't really buy many of the Mo' stories that I hear floating around. I think things happen and sometimes there is a really good reason for them. I'm just not sure what my really good reason was for this one.
Thoughts? Can a man really be that in tuned with God? Was I the victim of the inevitable? Am I really just reaching for a spiritual experience just so I can think that I had one? I'm serious, I don't know what to think.
I think that a higher power stepped up and saved my life. I don't know if it's because Mormon's have the 'keys' to pass that power along on the Earth, or if anyone could've done it for me. Could my catholic grandfather given me the same blessing? Would this higher power tell my wife to say the same things to me as my buddy did? Is this interesting to anyone but me?
I dunno. I'm sorry to have wasted your time up to this point. I guess when a man reaches a certain age and comes close to seeing his end, his brain opens up certain things that have never been there before. Here they are.
Thanks for reading
Trout.
