Surgery Sedation & Dead Hens

I went into Adventist, Ukiah, a week ago last Tuesday — and stayed four days. If you know anyone needing gut surgery I so recommend Portuguese, Dr. Aroujo of Adventist, Ukiah. He came with good recommendations. I plan on taking him some Portuguese treats from Wendy's Disco Ranch when I go in for follow-up next week.

I vaguely remember swearing like a sailor as they carted me to my room after surgery. Screaming for pain meds as anesthesia wore off, they deposited me in a room right next to the nurse's station.

After gut surgery, it’s important to percolate, so the nurses kept trying to get me up to walk down the hallway, but I told them to lock me down in my room, because the guy across the hallway had COVID. I shut my door, kept it shut and stayed in my room for four days, doing my best not to catch COVID.

I hadn't had a colonoscopy. Ever. Almost a fatal error.

Post-op, I came home Saturday mid-day to find two hens dead from what turned out to be Javier Echavarria’s big cane corso mastiff chicken killing dog, which he lets roam the neighborhood freely. I had reset my game camera before leaving. I had had trouble with bears this spring, and no one would be home during my hospitalization. 

The dog has grown to like chasing my hens around until he catches and kills. The cane corso won’t respond to, “Go home!!”, but circles me, scarily, as he stalks my birds. He’s been found at my place at least half a dozen times. The owners only responded once when asked to come retrieve the dog. I had to call Animal Control for intervention before that happened, though. 

An officer called Echavarria's ex-wife to have her retrieve their dog, finally. I’m down four free-range hens in the last month. Only four remain. Javier owned a previous cane corso mastiff, which he left with his ex-wife and kids when they divorced. That dog bit me twice in one incident, leaving me bruised for a few weeks on my upper arm near the shoulder. As our old Valley Vet, Doc Chaulk would say, “These people aren’t your friends if they can’t take care of their dangerous animals!”

Then a couple of months later, after the owners didn’t do anything about the dog when it bit me, it mauled their 16 year old daughter after pinning her to the ground. This from the family dog. 

At that point, Animal Control had the 8-10 y.o. cranky dog dispatched and euthanized. A couple of days ago, after having had time to check the camera, I sent pics to Animal Control, and will be retrieving my .22 rifle out of storage in preparation for the dog’s next visit. I’m tired of such irresponsibility from dog owners.

Mark Scaramella is right: Chickens are a racket. You spend much more money raising them and feeding them until egg-laying age, than you’d pay buying a dozen eggs at the store. As long as I have to pour money into chickens as they grow, instead of raising white egg layers, I purchased Easter Eggers, and (what’s left of) my hens, lay olive green, and pink eggs. I had just purchased two rarer blue egg layer chicks (called Lavenders), which were safely locked away when the chicken killing dog struck during my hospitalization. 

It was a major bummer coming home to death with feathers scattered everywhere. If it were wildlife taking them, there’d only be one pile of feathers before the fox, wildcat or whatever, expediently caught and carried the hen off to eat it. With that dog, he chases clumsily (I think it’s just a young dog), leaving feathers scattered everywhere as he chases chickens.

In hospital, it sounded like I was Dr. Aroujo’s record holder for the week. I had an almost record one dozen+ polyps, plus one big monster right at the colon that was pre-cancerous (adenomatous). Now that the bandages are off, I can see where and what. They pulled my intestines out through two incisions above and below my navel, without disturbing my perfect innie belly buttonl. (Not that that matters in my old age!) Dr. Aroujo cut out the meandering monster polyp (2"+ w/a wide base that meandered along the wall of the tubal intestine). Following, was a four day hospitalization.

Since about 2010 I’ve been fighting heart problems. I still had no diagnosis for the cause. My beats per minute continually bounced up to 190/minute, and would flutter like a hummingbird for hours. Then I’d start blacking out as my heart would stop entirely for 3, 6, and 9 seconds at a time (per heart monitor they glued to my chest for about a month). Dr. Drew Colfax, whom I saw often in the ER, was even stumped, and he's a sharp doc.

After struggling for at least a decade, taking their drugs, surgeries, and mega-interventions per the AMA, Doctors had given me meds to make my poor heart go faster when it was too slow, and slower when it was 190bpm. My poor heart did everything they asked of it, by doing BOTH!!! So, a coupla months before surgery, I quit all the heart meds. 

After getting the results back from the heart monitor they had taped to my chest for about a month, my cardiologist called me in to give me the dire results, recommending pacemaker installation AND a third heart surgery. He said my heart would stay in afib for three hours at a time, and stop entirely for longer periods than my clotting time (which is 8 seconds), exposing myself to a much higher risk of stroke due to clotted blood. I chose the pacemaker install first. After the afib cure via pacemaker, however, no need for the third heart surgery!

After about half a dozen ER visits, in June I made an appointment with Dr. Chang-Sing in Santa Rosa. He's an internationally known electrocardiologist working with heart ablation. I read about his work in Consumer Reports back in 2009 when I lived in Humboldt County. I had rewired a couple of cabins I owned on the Eel River next to the Drive-Through Tree, and my electrician also suffered from afib. He told me about Chang-Sing. I had my first afib surgery in 2014 at St. Helena Heart Institute, which stopped the afib for a few years until afb raised its ugly head again. Nagged me. It's the reason I eventually sold my horse, sadly. I couldn’t walk AND breathe at the same time.

The appointment with Chang-Sing was supposed to be a zoom appointment, but his secretary is a thick-false-eyelash-wearing incompetent who forgot to mention “zoom”. As the old expression goes – about silk purse/sows ear, I can’t think of anything looking more ridiculously unprofessional, and in plain bad taste, than dressing like a hooker with long false fingernails, false eyelashes, or false hair extensions to work at a medical office or when working in food service. Not antiseptic, I don’t even want to think about culturing what’s stuck under those false fingernails! Presenting themselves as some sort of clown show, I hit the roof. At 197 bpm, I lost my temper on them in the order of my oldest sister, Susan, the scary psychopath. I don't pull out Susan the psychopath often, but when I do, it's usually for good reason: To get results in dire situations.

Chang-Sing's office tried to chew me out for losing my cool, but at almost 200 bpm, I wasn’t having any of it. They finally called the security guard, and told me he’d transport me to the ER via his little golf cart. Before the security guard escorted me over to ER, their office manager told me she was going to put a letter in my chart about the unacceptable way I was acting. I told them I’d trump their threat of a letter in my file, so go right ahead. I was there for nothing more than to finally get a diagnosis on my decade-long medical condition. I’d BEEN patient already. No more.

Dr. Dahr, an amusing East Indian character, was sent to do what he called, damage control, and give me a diagnosis. He did just that. He took over the case and sure-nuf diagnosed me with “Sick Sinus Syndrome”. 

My heart’s sinus node, which regulates heart beats, quit; deader than disco. After a four-day hospitalization, Dr. Dahr installed a pacemaker, a fine Swiss time piece by Med-tronic. I used to work in pathology, so have seen a few weighty pacemakers come through as specimens. Their batteries wear off in 5-10 years when the entire unit has to be replaced. Now, they’re digital. With a wave of a wand over pacemaker site, the stats roll in with useful data.

I woke up during the pacemaker installation procedure from sedation wearing off. That was scarier than even my psycho sister Susan! Imagine waking up to someone pushing into your chest while laying flat on your back, unknowingly waking up from being drugged. They gave me conscious sedation, instead of analgesia. Why, I don't know, except it's cheaper by not having to pay for an anesthesiologist to be on board.

The OR nurse warned me that my arms and legs would be strapped to the gurney, because due to the conscious sedation, patients sometimes come awake and try to strangle the doctor while he's in the act of pacemaker installation. As Dr. Dahr was bent over me, giving me what looked like chest compressions, or was vigorously pushing pacemaker into place, I came to from the robust pushing and shoving into my chest. I looked up and tried to grab Dr. Dahr, whose mask was sideways on his face, exposing a huge struggling grimace as he tried to push with both hands into my chest. When I tried to grab him, I must have been fighting like Ali, cuz the bruising left on my forearms was from my elbow to the end of my thumbs: Green, lasting weeks.

It was at that point they hit me with another dose of Oxy w fentanyl to further knock me out. That was at old St. Joseph’s down in Santa Rosa. Surgery successful, same-day discharge was just a few hours later, after the drugs wore off.

As evidenced by my waking during pacemaker installation, everyone responds differently to drugs. Therefore, hospital discharge won’t let you drive home after, and will only release patients to an awaiting ride. So, before leaving the room, I summoned an Uber, which picked me up in front of the hospital, and drove me to my car in the parking garage, where he deposited me so I could drive home. After I returned home to rest, I noticed that the afib was still present for a couple of days before it finally quit.

When I went for follow-up a few weeks later, my cardiologist stroked a digital Med-Tronic wand over my pacemaker and determined that my AFIB WENT AWAY! Presto! Fini! Sure enough, only 3% afib since installation (3% when it took a few days after surgery to stop afib finally, because heart was so used to it), and for some miracle, the pacemaker stopped the afib flutter in my heart altogether.

My cardiologist says to take it when you can get it. He called the afib fix via pacemaker, a miracle.

I had quit drinking years ago, and have lost my taste for pot, so now, more fruits and veggies and less meat. At least I can walk now without running out of breath.