Surviving Serious Surgery: The Good, the Bad, and the Uncertainty

You asked for it, Michael Leonard-Creditor. Here’s a lil’ story about my recent journey through the healthcare world. 

A week ago, a team of surgeons at UC La Jolla did their best to give me a working esophagus again. They think --and I hope-- they were successful. After living the better part of a year consuming everything I eat and drink through a surgically implanted tube in my stomach, I’m looking forward to whatever the new normal will become.

Hopefully, after the stitches heal, I will eat Real Food.

It’s the little things, like missing out on tomato season at the farmer’s market this year, and being able to whip up a couple of servings of amazing pasta from what lurks in the fridge that I miss. And don’t get me started on the possibility of biting into a Friendly’s dirty grill cheeseburger, the antithesis of an environmentally aware healthy meal… white bun, butter, mayo, and high fat ground cow smashed on a flat top you know could kill you, but just don’t care…

Back to the part where I ruin your appetite…

A flap of skin, taken from the top of my right shoulder, was woven into the space where my food tube and air tubes diverged. A decade ago, a slab of cancer that had survived both chemo and radiation was removed (also at UC), leaving me without a voice. 

My new normal came to include vocalizing through an increasingly unreliable prosthesis and making sure all my food was thoroughly chewed. The edema (post surgical swelling) never did disappear as promised. I took to wearing bandanas. One day at a time...

The cancer came back last year and again the surgeons worked their magic. I was in and out of the hospital in an amazingly short amount of time just before Christmas… and then I was back in, laying on my back at 1 am as a team prepped me for reconstructive surgery. 

The whatzit connected to the whoozit didn’t hold and my lungs were filling with things that looked like alien blood-turds.

Three grafts were taken from various locations on my body with the goal being some level of functionality. It took two weeks to heal to the point where going home was a possibility. 

Being flat on your back for that long does a whole list of bad things for your body...like forgetting how to walk… scrambling your brian by not sleeping for more than a couple of hours at a time… and being haunted by the possibilities of a functional lifestyle involving lugging bags of personal waste wherever you go.

The good docs weren’t through with me, as twice daily doses of radiation were aimed at areas thought to be susceptible to future cancerous outbreaks.

And, then… the really bad news… learning that ye olde new normal wouldn’t be happening. They’d plugged the big holes and removed the cancer and, for now, that’s as good as it was going to get.

Notice that I said the BIG holes. A teeny-tiny opening between my airway and the former food chute meant bad things --maybe even life threatening-- could happen over time. And that meant nobody could throw up their hands and say “we tried.” 

***

Hey, I get all the privilege this implies. I’m a white guy, over seventy and lucky enough to have insurance. 

One homeless person dies every day on the streets of San Diego. Healthcare in the US is somehow regarded as an ‘industry’ deserving of tax reducing investment opportunities and ‘protections’ for their segment of the workforce. 

I’m looking at you, Rep. Scott Peters, when I say prevention and healing should be the name of the game rather repackaged rhetoric about innovation and freedom from regulation. 

(And, yes, I know, all the recent Dems in disarray hoo-haw about your committee votes on drug pricing is just performative politics. The Senate has your back on this one. This does not excuse the turd polishing you have historically done for the medical/industrial complex.) 

Healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Enhancing and expanding should be the paths forward.

Every human should be able to get the kind of care Assm. Lorena Gonzalez received after a recent breast cancer diagnosis. And the slugs jamming up the system by shooting sheep dip are (deliberately, I think) just making things worse.

End of side-rant.

***

Back to BIG vs small holes...

A couple of “procedures” last spring to resolve problems failed... I was to be kicked up the ladder into the world where plastic surgery meets reconstruction… provided that I understood the potential consequences, namely that success wasn’t guaranteed, and there were risks on top of risks.

A month later, I was asked again. I said, let’s do it. All that was left was getting me a date on the operating table for a six to ten hour block (with follow up ICU care) in the middle of a pandemic resurgence.

But wait! Coming out of one of the spring’s procedures a nurse noticed some concerning squiggles on a report. What if they put me under and I died because my heart couldn’t take it?

I passed the cardiac stress test and a day later the path to dicing and slicing was open.

***

It will be weeks and months before final outcomes are determined for my latest round of surgery.  The pain --mainly from a gazillion stitches around my neck and shoulders-- declines daily, and the mental fogs induced by assorted pharmaceuticals are largely gone. 

I wanna give UC La Jolla medical staff credit. They were caring and attentive. If you look into how dangerous hospitals really are, every patient walking out the door is a miracle.

Something does need to be done about the vampires lurking in the hallways. A plethora of purple patches is testament to the holes poked in me in addition to the requisite daily 5am blood letting. (I’ve had multi use portals in the past; nurses don’t trust them.) 

Physical therapy, tests, and (probably) a few more procedures will need to happen before I get “there.” It took more than five decades for my health to unravel; there will be no quick fix in getting things right again.

If all goes right, I may even “speak” again. I’ve already promised the first interview to Ken Stone at Times of San Diego when that day comes.

One thing I am taking away from this experience is gratitude for the hundreds (gasp!) of people who took time to send good vibes my way. Thank you to each and every one of you, and to my family for standing with me during this process.

People talk about standing strong in a crisis. I know that’s only possible because of the social foundations we built withstanding the ravages of a pandemic supposedly dooming us to eternal siloes. “We” built this. And it’s still vulnerable if the “me” folks have their way.

I’m back. And more dedicated than ever to doing the right thing.   

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