The Miracles of Modern Medicine

Let's face it -  I'm not a very religious person.  Right now, our good friend, Dave Heusmann, is laying in the hospital in Iowa City after suffering a heart attack on Friday night.  Dave is a little older than me and in immensely better shape than I am.  While he has a number of friends and family praying for him to recover, my simple prayer is nothing more than a mantra that I've said over and over for a number of years - "The Miracles of Modern Medicine."

I say that whenever friends or family are hospitalized as they wait for a major surgery or are recovering from life threatening situations.  I've been saying that since my brother-in-law, Terry Rose, received a new heart via transplant 13 years ago at the famous Cleveland Clinic.  Given that he was literally up and walking around a week after this very major procedure, I was simply amazed at the miracles of modern medicine.

Hence, the mantra.

This last Saturday morning, Cindy woke me up around 6 a.m. and told me that her stomach was hurting.  And hurting a lot.  She said she'd had a dull pain the night before, but thought it was just something that would go away.  It didn't.

Now, we had a big Saturday planned.  Cindy wanted to go to the Farmer's Market in downtown Davenport to look for new rose bushes to take the place of some that we lost over the winter (we lost 8 or 9 rose bushes this last winter), and to pick up some produce so she could make some side dishes for a Father's Day dinner at her dad's place near Cedar Rapids.   

Then, during the early afternoon, my buddy Randy Adams, who owns the Creekside Bar in Davenport, was having a golf outing in Eldridge, just north of Davenport.  I haven't played golf in 15 years and I've even lent my clubs to Cindy's dad who likes to go out and whack a few balls in his pasture from time to time.  Randy said, "Well, if you aren't going to play golf, can you come out and cook for us after the golfing is over?"  Sure, I can do that.

Then on Saturday night, Cindy and I were going to go down to the annual Sturgis on the River event in downtown Davenport.  I had been offered an on-grounds parking pass from Richie Reaves from the Spike Band.  He was helping out with the coordination of the bands this weekend and he told me that since I've been good to him helping out at events in the past, he'd get me in with no hassles. 

So, that was the plan for the day.  But suddenly Cindy's pain went from bad to worse. 

She ended up vomiting a number of times before she asked me if I would look up the symptoms for a blocked bowel.  I looked it up and asked her if she had the five symptoms listed.  She had 'em all.  I said, "OK, we're going to the hospital."

Well, she didn't want to go to the emergency room and wanted me to take her to the Genesis Walk-in Clinic over in Bettendorf.  It was around 8:45 on Saturday morning when we got over there. 

From the time she left the house, armed with her favorite pillow and The Bear - her teddy bear that she's had since we started to see each other nearly 14 years ago - she was doubled over in pain.  Sitting in the waiting room at the clinic, she was crying because she hurt so bad.  I finally said, "Cindy, I've never seen you in so much pain.  Let's go to the emergency room.  Right now."

She balked.  She said through her tears, "I want to see a doctor here." 

I said, "You know, they do have doctors at the hospital."

I finally went up to the desk and told the receptionist, "Look, my wife's in a ton of pain.  I need to get her looked at right now or we've got to go elsewhere." 

There weren't a lot of people in the waiting area - just two other parties - so the receptionist went back and grabbed a nurse.  Two minutes later, Cindy was in back getting checked out. 

The doctor poked and prodded Cindy's stomach area.  His first diagnosis was diverticulitis, which could be brought on by a blocked bowel.  He said he didn't think it was the appendix because where Cindy hurt the most wasn't in the appendix area.  But he said, "I can't help this young lady.  She's got to go to the emergency room." 

I bit my tongue as soon as he said that.

He called ahead to the emergency room at the nearest hospital - the new Trinity at Terrace Park campus in Bettendorf.  As he did that, I went out and grabbed the car and brought it up front.  Cindy was brought out in a wheelchair.  A nurse helped her into the car and we took off for the hospital.

I set a couple of land speed records on the way to the hospital.  I passed a couple of cars on a residential street (both drivers were wearing hats), I rolled through a stop sign and blatantly ran two red lights - looking in all directions before going through.  We pulled up to the emergency entrance of Trinity and I sort of parked the car cross-ways as another vehicle was situated right in front of the door. 

I got Cindy out of the car and into the emergency admittance area.  The attendant at the front desk was aware we were coming and we had to go through the painstaking admittance procedures all hospitals had.  While all this was going on, Cindy was in severe pain.

They finally wheeled her back to an examination room and I went out and parked my car in the hospital's lot.  When I got inside to be with Cindy again, the doctor was already looking her over.

He had talked to the doctor at Genesis and he agreed that it probably wasn't her appendix.  When he'd press in the area of the appendix, she didn't flinch as much as she would when he'd poke at the left side of her stomach. 

His first diagnosis was food poisoning - salmonella.  In fact, he mentioned they just got a communication from the Scott County Health Department saying a salmonella outbreak was occurring in the area.  But he didn't tell us anything other than that, other than she exhibited all the symptoms. 

He asked Cindy if she'd been out of the country lately.  She just got back from Europe a week ago and she said, "I've been home for a week.  I don't think it would be that."

The doctor said, "Sometimes parasites that are food borne entities can incubate in a person's system for up to 14 days."  Great. 

Cindy was still in tremendous pain and was severely dehydrated.  They hooked her up to an IV and gave her some pain medication.  Whatever it was they gave her, it knocked her for a loop.

They took some blood out of her, and decided she needed to have a CAT scan to check out her internal organs.  Let me tell you - trying to get a drugged out woman to drink 16 ounces of that liquid dye that a person has to drink before going in for a CAT scan is a chore. 

They took her in for the CAT scan around 1:45 p.m. and they told me it would be about a half hour before she would be back.  During that time, I made a few phone calls and roamed the halls of the emergency ward at Trinity.  I observed a few things and learned something along the way:

*I can't believe the amount of sports related injuries I saw on Saturday for kids under the age of 12.  Softball injuries, baseball injuries, soccer injuries - you name it, Trinity saw it that day.  I think I counted seven or eight kids in the emergency room at Trinity during the six hours I was in there with Cindy. 

*The most hideous looking injury was a mangled right food of a Greek ultimate fighter who was in town for a training session with one of the pioneers of ultimate fighting, Bettendorf native Pat Miletich.  Miletich, the injured Greek guy and another Greek guy who served as an interpreter were waiting to get into an exam room.  The guy's foot was sticking out in an awkward way, and it had gauze around it as it was very bloody.  It was pretty wild looking. 

*I overheard Cindy's nurse, Margie, tell another nurse that she has worked the medical tent at the Bix 7 race each year for the last 20 years.  She said the only way to properly take the temperature of a heat stroke victim is with an anal thermometer.  (I actually didn't know they still had anal thermometers.)  With runners falling like sacks of hot turds on the street during and after the race, she has to take their temperatures to determine who are the most likely candidates to be rushed to the hospital.  She said, "Some years, you see more butts than others." 

I just started laughing when I heard that.  She said, "You weren't supposed to be listening." 

They wheeled Cindy back in around 2:15 p.m. and she was sound asleep.  The nurse told me it would be about an hour before they got the results back.

Just before 3, the doctor came in and said, "Well, contrary to my original thinking, it actually does appear to be appendicitis.  What threw me was that when I would poke on her left side, she said it hurt more there than on the right side where the appendix is."  He surmised the pain was being distributed across her stomach by her body. 

He said he was going to call in a surgeon and if the surgeon concurred with the finding on the CAT scan, Cindy was going to have an appendectomy.

I waited around for a bit, then began to make phone calls to Cindy's family.  Although I was worried, I kept saying my mantra:

"The miracles of modern medicine.  The miracles of modern medicine.  The miracles of modern medicine." 

Suddenly around 3:30, Margie the nurse came in with all the forms for Cindy and I to sign to allow the surgery to proceed.  I said, "So, I guess the surgeon came in and concurred with the doctor after seeing the CAT scan."

She said, "Oh, yeah.  Those CAT scan procedures are about 99.9% accurate." 

Now through all of this, I was thinking, "Geez, am I glad this happened now instead of when Cindy was in Europe."  And a lot of other people I talked with when I was updating them to her condition were saying the same thing.  That's not to say that health care in Europe is not as good as in the U.S.  I've just heard horror stories of Americans who have gotten sick abroad and the U.S. health insurance industry won't pay the bill. 

The surgeon, Dr. Bohn, came in to have a quick consultation and exam of Cindy.  He was dressed in an untucked polo shirt, a pair of khaki shorts and a pair of flip-flops.  I said, "Geez, I hate to make you come in on a Saturday like this."

He said, "Aw, I was just watching the U.S. Open on TV.  Believe me, this will be more exciting than watching golf." 

Dr. Bohn went on to explain the procedure - they were going to make three small incisions in her stomach, in a triangle shape, and use the arthroscope to take the appendix out. 

It used to be that in order to get the appendix out, a surgeon would have to make a long cut in the stomach and snip it out.  A person would usually be in the hospital for a week or two after the procedure.  Dr. Bohn said, "It's pretty cut and dried any more, especially if we catch it before the appendix bursts.  The procedure, itself, will take no more than 30 to 45 minutes.  It will be about a half-hour for her to wake up, then we'll put her in a room for recovery.  If all goes well, she'll be sleeping in her bed at home tonight." 

Now, talk about the miracles of modern medicine.  I'm usually a pretty squeamish person when it comes to bodily things.  I can't even watch Cindy put her contacts in.  But I have to tell you, I think I'd sign up for a front row seat to see how that arthroscopic procedure is done on an appendectomy.

About five minutes before Cindy was wheeled out to surgery, her son, Eric, shows up.  He said, "I was sort of planning on coming down (from Cedar Rapids) any way today.  But after you called and said Mom was in the hospital, I just decided to come down for sure."

Cindy did recognize Eric. But after the surgery, she didn't remember seeing him before she went in.

As they wheeled Cindy out to prep her for surgery, I kissed her on the forehead, told her I loved her and I said, "The miracles of modern medicine.  The miracles of modern medicine."

As Cindy went to surgery, Eric and I waited in the surgery waiting room - a big open air area with a TV.  Being that it was Saturday and no one else was having surgery, we pretty much had the run of the place.  But I really needed a beer. 

There's a few bars down the road, so we went off to Noonan's, a newer place that Cindy and I ate at one time and thought was pretty good.  Eric and I sat at the bar and I ordered a beer and he got a lemonade.  We drank to the miracles of modern medicine.

When we got back around 5 p.m., we went back to the waiting area for surgery.  Still no one there.  I was on the phone with Cindy's daughter, Sara, over in Spain and the surgical nurse called me on the other line.  I picked it up and she said, "Oh, she's been out of surgery for about 25 minutes.  We came out to look for you, but you weren't out there." 

She told me that Cindy was in recovery, the procedure went better than planned and it was "probably one of the best case scenarios I've ever seen for an appendectomy."  She said Cindy would be put into a room to recover.  She said, "We'll see if she wants to eat or drink something, and if all her bodily functions work, there's no reason why she can't go home tonight."

"The miracles of modern medicine.  The miracles of modern medicine."   

They wheeled Cindy in to the room around a quarter to six.  She had a male nurse, Larry, who was a good guy and had a good sense of humor. 

Now, through all of this, Cindy had The Bear with her.  Before she went into surgery, she handed me The Bear and said, "I don't think Bear can go into surgery with me." 

The surgical nurse said, "Oh, no.  He can go in if he wants to.  And you can even bring your pillow."  So, I handed her back The Bear and off she goes.

When Cindy was wheeled back into the room, sitting with her on the bed was The Bear with a surgical hairnet on top of his head.  Larry, the nurse, said, "I was looking at the list of items that were taken into surgery with her and I saw a teddy bear listed.  I asked one of the other nurses how old this girl was and she said, '44.'" 

He laughed and said, "I thought it was a little girl.  Oh well, we're always trying to make people more comfortable when they go into surgery."

Cindy was in and out of sleeping for the first hour or so.  She woke up when another nurse came in and Cindy said she was thirsty.  The nurse brought her a can of Sprite, some ice water, and chicken broth.  They were trying to get her to pee - once she did that, she could be released. 

After another 30 minutes, Larry came in and asked Cindy if she was hungry.  She said she was starving.  So, he brought her in a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a bunch of crackers.  Now, I hadn't had ANYTHING to eat all day long.  I think I ate 10 of the 14 crackers Cindy had on her tray. 

Finally, Cindy said, "If you're so hungry, why don't you guys go get something to eat?"  She said she'd be fine with the two nurses checking on her.  So, Eric and I took off and went to Sports Fans in Bettendorf and got a pizza.  We sat there for an hour watching baseball, eating pizza and drinking beer (I was, Eric was drinking pop - he just turned 20). 

As we left the place, I checked my voice messages and there was one on there from Cindy who'd called about five minutes earlier.  She said, "Hey, where you guys at?  They're ready to release me here!"

I called her back in her room and she sounded fine - like nothing had happened out of the ordinary all day long.  She said, "I've gone to the bathroom and now they say I can go home.  Where did you guys go?"

I told her Sports Fans for pizza and she said, "Oh, did you save me a piece of pizza?"  I told her we didn't because I didn't know what dietary restrictions she would have.

Turns out that she had NO restrictions.  In fact, they wanted her to begin to eat normal foods as soon as possible.  She would be out of work for five to seven days.  She would have some discomfort for three or four days.  And she had to keep ice on her stomach for 48 hours.  Then, Dr. Bohn wanted to see her in 14 days.  That was it. 

They loaded her up in a wheelchair, wheeled her down to the front door, loaded her up in my car and we went home.  We were home at 9:15 - just over 12 hours from when we left earlier in the day.

The first thing Cindy asked for was ice cream.  So, while I went out and got her prescription filled for some Vicodin (the holy grail of pain pills), Eric went up to Whitey's and got her a big ol' banana split. 

Eric and I pulled back into the driveway nearly simultaneously and he gave her the banana split and I gave her the pain pills.  It was something to see her devour the banana split at 10 p.m. - less than six hours after she had her appendix out. 

She had a restful night on Saturday night, and was up and down on Sunday.  She didn't do so well on Sunday night - up a good portion of the night with pain and with itching around her incisions.  I was going to go on the road this week, but I'll be playing male nurse for the next few days. 

Back to my buddy, Dave Heusmann - they're going to have a procedure today to figure out what they need to do - angioplasty, stents, whatever.  Our friends, Scott and Marcia Schroeder, went up to see him last night and Scott reported back to me, "If you didn't know he had a heart attack, you would have never known anything was wrong with him.  He was sitting up, had good color, I think they got him to the hospital in time."

So, while I'm amazed that Cindy was able to come home the same day she had an appendectomy (as are a number of other people I talked with on Sunday who were checking up on her), I've got another guy on my mind who is getting ready to have a procedure that will pretty much define the rest of his life.  But I'm taking solace in the ordeal by repeating over and over:

"The miracles of modern medicine.  The miracles of modern medicine.  The miracles of modern medicine..."    

Comments

[Warren]

My wife's sister got sick in Greece during a visit there and she got great health care. But you're right, Will. The hassles they had to go through with their health care provider once they got back to the states were monumental in proportions.

[Anne Trennedy]

Boy, that's quite a story! I hope Cindy is doing well. How is your friend doing?

6 years ago, my boyfriend (at the time) and I were vacationing in Panama City, FL with another couple. We ate a lot of shrimp for dinner one night. The next day, my boyfriend's friend woke up with a bad stomach ache. We thought it was due to the shrimp. Turned out it was his appendix. He had an operation at Gulf Coast Medical Center to take his appendix out. The rest of his vacation wasn't fun for him at all!

[J.C.]

I certainly hope your wife is doing better. Her recovery will take time. I had a scoped appendectomy on a Monday and went back to work on Friday. Big mistake!!

[Will]

Cindy is doing as well as could be expected, Anne, thanks for asking. She's still sore and doing a lot of resting. She got up this morning and walked down to the corner and back - a distance of about 400 feet - and she was pretty sore after doing that.

Dave is also doing fine. I understand from Scott Schroeder the procedure on Monday went well. Dave had 90% blockage in one artery, so they placed a stent in there. His other arteries were also minimally blocked, but they're just going to continue to monitor that.

I also understand that he got out of the hospital yesterday and he went right to the Wig and Pen in Coralville for lunch to get some "real food", as he put it. Truly, the miracles of modern medicine.

[Peter Lawrence]

Wouldn't her procedure be laparoscopic rather than arthroscopic? I think arthroscopic has to do with the joints while laparoscopic has to do with the the abdomen.

[GRG]

Wow, glad things turned out well. Hang in there!

Gary G

[GRG]

Wow, glad things turned out well. Hang in there!

Gary G

[Will]

Pete - I had a friend from Indiana e-mail me with the same question. The nurses and the doctor kept referring to the procedure as arthroscopy. At least that's what I remember. I just wondered if arthroscopy is a "catch all" term they were using. But yesterday when Cindy was talking about it to one of the neighbors, she did call it laparoscopy. So maybe I was wrong.

Also to Gary - thanks for the best wishes for Cindy. She's still sore (Thursday morning) and has had some tough nights.