Saturday, February 17, 2007






IT CAUGHT US BY SURPRISE


In March of 2000, we were working at a small hospital in the tiny town of Milford, Utah. My wife, Jean, was a nurse there and I worked as a hospital orderly, to be near her. Our five kids were finally raised and on their own. I had retired from the Air Force and we decided to explore southern Utah and combine new surroundings with our vocations.


A routine day began at 7AM as we walked across the street from our apartment, to the little country hospital. As we sat at shift turnover and began to listen to assignments, I started to feel dizzy, sweating profusely. The room felt like it was spinning. All of this came on suddenly, when just moments before, I felt perfectly normal.


The shift supervisor was speaking but I knew that if I didn't get some help right away, I would faint. I stumbled toward the nurse's station and I could see that the nurse behind the desk gave me a horrified look. "Bill...what is wrong?" she said. "Why are you sweating so?"


She immediately stopped what she was doing. I could barely speak. She thought I was having a heart attack and called for help to get me on a bed in the emergency room. I was really embarrassed to be taking her away from her work but now I was having trouble standing. If this would have happened at home, I would have never made it to the front door.


Brain fog began to set in with waves of nausea and sudden sharp, knife jab pains in my left side. I could see my good friend and doctor over me. He was asking me questions. "When did you eat last? What did you eat? Where is the pain?" More questions...now three nurses over me...one starting an IV...my wife inserting a urinary catheter...a blood sample being taken. The usual routine of our quaint facility was thrown off kilter...all to take care of me? I felt, as if, instead of being a help to all these professionals, I had suddenly become a burden. I wanted to get better instantly, so that they could carry on and help real patients, but it took all my strength to even lift my head up.


How could this be? I almost never got sick. I had gone from feeling fine, to feeling I would die, within seconds. I could see a morphine drip starting...I began to moan with awful, horrendous, gut wrenching pain...pain like I had never felt before. Someone was screaming, "Get the ambulance ready!! We need to take him to the Cedar City Hospital!" Mitch, the nurse anesthetist was suddenly in the ambulance with me saying..."Stay with me Bill...Talk to me....Stay awake!!" Fog...Fog...my blood pressure was dropping. We had played a board game at Mitch and his wife Larita's house, just days before. They had three terrific young kids. Mitch began administering medicine to bring up my blood pressure. The siren of the ambulance was wailing. Mitch was talking to my wife in hushed tones, about getting my blood pressure up. More sirens wailing...wailing...wailing.


It seemed only like moments later that we had traveled the 50 miles to Cedar City and there were two male LDS nurses, pronouncing a priesthood blessing, before I went into a coma. I was in and out of consciousness and heard something about he's got acute hemorrhagic pancreatitis and then it was black. I am told that days passed. Jean, stood over me saying something that has forever been burned in my memory. "William, don't you die on me!" I remember seeing my sister, Cheryl, our son, Scott, my brother, Bob, my brother-in-law, Jim and seeing again Jean...always Jean. I am so thankful they all took the trouble to be there. Some of them had traveled hundreds of miles. They were all talking about probate court and life insurance and someone said, "don't worry, he can't hear us, he's unconscious."

The worst of it was the nasal gastric or NG tube, that they used to empty my stomach. Medical care is generally very invasive and anytime you stick a long plastic tube, the size of your little finger up you nose and down to your stomach, it just can't be fun. This was done on at least two occasions while I was on seven liters of oxygen. Depending on the illness, the average patient may have one to three liters but seven is a bit much. I felt as though I was always on the verge of fainting for lack of air. Respiratory therapists visited me several times a day. Third spacing, or swelling, caused my testicles to enlarge to the size of grapefruit. Health care workers, not knowing this would say, "Come on Mr. Ray, let's sit up at the edge of the bed. They would then grab my arms and pull. My testicles would slid under me and the pain was unbelievable. Scott would prevent it from ever happening again.

My catheter was always in the way, being dropped or pulled or sticking on something. Bladder infections and bleeding from the entry site were common. After I was no longer NPO or nothing by mouth, I was put on liquids. Pictures taken of my insides were taken at least monthly in what is called a CT scan. This required I take this terrible tasting medicine that would color my insides and make for a better picture. I had to drink at least a litre of the stuff and then be hauled down to the CT room, on the other side of the hospital, with all my tubes and oxygen and feeders attached. They would lay me down flat in a chamber and feelings of claustrophobia were enormous. Scott helped me do all this without one word of complaint, on his part.

Days went by and I realized that Scott, living in Washington State, had stayed behind, took leave from the U.S Navy, left his wife & family and began to wait on me, totally. He would sleep in a broken down chair by my bed, tell the nurses when my liquid food (TPN - $600.00 a shot) was empty, make sure I got my medicine, bathe me, change me, wait on me, bug the nurses and staff if something was not right. Intravenous (IVs ) were extremely hard to start because of all the swelling in my body and on one occasion, three nurses gave me over 50 sticks in both arms before they got the IV to start. I was later told that 95% of the patients with my condition never survive. One, because they do not get treatment in time and two, they require so much care that the average hospital has not enough staff to meet their needs.


Jean was constantly popping in and out to help, but after using her emergency leave time, she had to return to work in Milford. The miracle of my survival hinged on blessings from God, and the work and sacrifice of others. I have often thought..."Why was I allowed to survive? I am nobody special. I have been told, since then, that the sick are often kept alive by the righteous prayers of others. What made Scott so unbelievably loyal to me? I know of nothing I did to merit such treatment...and yet it was so and I am forever grateful.


After about a month, the worst of my condition had past and I began to mend. Third spacing of my body tissue had swelled me like a balloon but then I had lost about 60 pounds and was temporarily diabetic until, what was left of my pancreas, healed. Mistakes were made. Technicians shut off oxygen by mistake, thinking they had turned it up. I could only whisper at that point, having lost my voice thru the ordeal and tried to tell them of their mistake but was not heard. Scott, realizing what had happened, corrected the mistake and saved me from death by suffocation.


Finally, Scott was able to return to his family only to make a surprise return visit that same year in August, when I developed a pseudo cyst and ulcer and required an operation. Once again, Scott and his mother pulled me from the jaws of death. About one half of the year 2000, I was in to hospital. Now, seven years later, I take medication to control pancreatitis and must watch my diet for fat content. The average person has a triglyceride level in his blood of about 110 to 150. When the disease actually hit me in that Milford hospital, my triglycerides were over 2000. They could actually see the oil floating on top of my blood when they took that initial blood work.


In 1981 I had been warned, after a routine blood sample, that my triglycerides were a little high and that I should watch my fat intake to less than 50 grams of fat per day. My nurse wife had made doctor's appointments for me, on several occasions, for routine blood work, but I had canceled the appointments. After all, I didn't like needles. Brilliant. I figured, when I started to feel bad, I would back off on my fat intake...big mistake. I later discovered that my brothers have the same condition but were controlling it with medicine.


Today, my job is to chase about the house doing errands. Scott is a very successful naval officer with many achievements and a lovely, growing family. Jean works at a local hospital near our home. I can't thank them enough for what they did for me.









1 Comments:

At 3:12 PM, Blogger Metta Ray said...

I was there dad...
I came from Logan to Cedar City. I was scared to death. I walked into the hospital room and saw you asleep with tubes running up your nose and into your chest... I didn't know if you were sleeping or unconcious... I stood by your bed staring at you in disbelief for what seemed like an hour; when you didn't move I thought this might be the last time I saw you and I got weak in the knees.
I sat down on the hospital room floor and began to cry. I had visions of moments with you flashing through my head, feeling horrible for the recent 'falling-out' we had had.... I began to pray quietly to myself (yes dad, I do pray); the next thing I heard was one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard in my life... "Metta, tell me a story".
You had woken up and I am assuming you saw me... we spoke briefly and then you went back to sleep...
I wanted to stay with you, but Scott told me to go home; I did.

 

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