Once Again, I’m Headed for the Operating Table

This post is mostly to let readers know that I won’t be writing for a couple of weeks.

I’ll be back, the doctors tell me. Just when that will happen is up to how fast I heal from being taken apart and put back together.

By the time you read this—assuming that you read it on Thursday– I’ll be anesthetized and have a crew of surgeons working on me. 

The last thing I will remember is that final checklist when the room falls quiet, somebody will say who I am, my age, any known allergies, and list what is about to happen… after that they could be doing musical numbers for all I know. I’m gone. 

The operation will take ten hours I’m told, and that is downright scary. This will be attempt number five at reconstruction following the removal of the second occurrence of cancer from my larynx in December 2020.

They got all the cancer in Dec 2020, but the initial attempt at reconnecting my breathing systems, the one which would have been the least intrusive, failed. I was back at the hospital the day after being released. THAT was one scary trip to the Emergency Room.

Let me preface my catalog of anxieties by saying that everybody I’ve had contact with in these hospitals has been caring and competent. 

The second rebuild involved grafting skin from my thigh and arm, repurposing a chest muscle to give me the ability to swallow, and another couple of weeks in the hospital. That was…interesting…

At some point I woke up thinking I was somehow in Puerto Rico. The sound of surf crashing was as real as could be and I believed there was an open window letting in chilly winds blowing off the ocean.

I lived in St. Thomas for eight years and spent time in Puerto Rico, but could not figure out how I’d ended up there again… It had to be bad news… Maybe I was dying and somebody thought my last hours would be happier with the ocean nearby… Since I couldn’t speak and didn’t have anything to write on, my attempts to communicate failed… It seemed like my panic lasted for hours…  Until sometime overnight when a nurse gave me a pen and paper.

I asked, “Why am I in Puerto Rico?”

She grasped what was going on –I was delirious– and took time out to explain that I was in San Diego at UC Hillcrest hospital. More to the point, she brought me another blanket.

This time I’m going to be in the UC LaJolla ICU for two days, and in the hospital for eight more. These days, it is an eternity for post-op care. Modern hospitals want their patients out the door as soon as possible. I hear people die in those places.

And the length of my stay tells me some serious sh*t is gonna happen.

The short version of what will happen in the operating room involves undoing most of what was done on tries two, three, and four, and then part of my upper intestine will be removed, cleaned, and grafted into the passage between my throat and my stomach. All that’s left to do is the clean up & voila! In two weeks I should be able to swallow again.

It’s been a year and a half (or more) since I could eat real food. Getting nutrition through a tube in my stomach isn’t conducive to family meals, eating out, or getting a cup of coffee with friends. I’ve learned to fade into the distance for all but the most important occasions. It’s socially awkward for me, it’s awkward for everybody around me, and I have to fend off urges to grab food off plates and stuff it into my mouth.

So eating again is a big deal for me. 

I don’t think I’ll ever speak again; much of my medical distress has been caused by tissues damaged during radiation treatment. 

I also lost my ability to vocalize in 2020. After my original surgery in 2012 the surgeon inserted a prosthetic, which worked well on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and any time the moon was in Virgo. A prosthetic does not look to be in the picture this time.

But there’s good news to report here. I’ve just gone through a trial period with an ipad set up with software that helps me to say stuff faster than I can type it. It was buggy, but with practice I can work around those issues.

Sometime in June I’ll get the non-trial version. There are limitations. Even with intuitive assistance, the software isn’t really good for social situations with more than one person in the room. I will be able to speak to somebody; carrying on a conversation will be a whole other challenge. In group situations the conversation has often moved on by the time my witticisms make themselves heard. 

Enough with the medical stuff. I never was a fan of all those doctor dramas on TV, with the exception of General Hospital. If you weren’t around for version one of Luke and Laura, you’ll never understand.

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There are electoral contests in November that will make a big difference in everybody’s quality of life. The ascendance of otherizing by the right means that even in blue states like California individuals who don’t fit into the theocratic vision for the future will be threatened, harassed, and even worse.

As pissed off as I can be about the national Democratic Party, this upcoming election is about more than my feelings. Stopping the return of the monsterMagas in 2022 makes it a whole less more likely in 2024 that they’ll be such a problem

There’s a story in the LA Times today about a teacher with 32 years of experience in Glendale, whose Zoom presentation of G-Rated YouTube videos on gender back in the days of COVID (which drew no complaints at the time) has led to an involuntary transfer, due to the district’s inability to protect her from angry citizens threatening her life.

Gov. Newsom and the legislature can pass all the laws they want. They will mean nothing to those sucking on the teat of hate proffered up in right wing media. And we should know by now that our “public servants” who might be asked to maintain the peace are more likely to be trading texts about Let’s Go Brandon.

Aside from all the culture wars crap, the GOP has ideas of what they’d like to do economically.

It won’t involve balancing the budget; their battle cry when democrats are in power, and completely ignored when they are not.

None-the-less, there will be cuts to be made. You don’t have to squint very hard to read between the lines of Senator Rick Scott’s 11 Point Plan for America. 

Mitch McConnell and his weak-kneed allies will be pushed aside if the GOP gains power, and some version of this will be the law of the land. Some of it won’t even have to go through Congress.

One interpretation of these vows includes the presumption that Social Security and MediCare will have to be re-enabled every five years. Think about how ineffective the Congress is and ask yourself if you really believe they won’t gut those programs to get them passed by libertarians who think they should be done away with anyway.

And I don’t want their version of God shoved down my throat. (Those folks believe Jesus wrote the Constitution.)

See you soon.

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Don’t Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.comfor a couple of weeks. The press releases alone will take hours to delete, since I do read some of them.