How to freeze time

All you would-be wizards, mad scientists and time lords, get your notebooks out. I’ve discovered the secret to freezing time. First, get a hotel on the outskirts of Durham near nothing worth visiting. Second, make sure you do not have a car so that any journey away from said hotel is a bit of a hassle, thus inducing you to stay put. Third, in your room, draw those thick curtains that block out all sunlight. Fourth, have plenty of snacks and drinks stockpiled in your mini-fridge. Fifth, make sure you share the room with someone that needs a lot of bed rest. If you manage to maintain these five steps for an extended period, time itself will grind to a halt. Night and day will cease to exist. Presumably, if you can keep this going, you will not age though you may feel like you’re a thousand years old. Side effects may include a trance-like state involving sitting on the edge of your bed and watching 1990s reruns with repetitive insurance commercials and/or a desire to smother yourself to death with hotel pillows.

Of course, for Shade, the hotel stay was a welcome respite from the noisy, smelly, glaring confines of the hospital ward. He basically hibernated for three days while his face healed. His cheek has swollen up a bit, which was expected. Mr. Chipmunk hasn’t quite released his grip. But Shade has experienced little to no pain. He doesn’t even take pain pills. Meanwhile, I’m popping Ibuprofens like candy because I was foolish enough to break my hand a week back while in Denver. (Long story short: Some malevolent no-good-nik attacked my fist with his nose.) I’ve been hunched over the keyboard two-finger typing these updates like a stereotypical beat cop writing up the day’s arrest reports. Please forgive any typos.

Shade’s first meal out

The day Shade was released from the hospital, Dr. Phillips referred us to Kathryn Walker, a smile therapist. (Just when you thought there were no new job titles left!) She works with patients who have facial procedures or suffer setbacks in facial operation to help them get back their smile. We weren’t there long as Shade couldn’t perform the therapy yet. He needs a couple months of healing first. But Kathryn did give us a list of smile-building exercises, which I have deemed “yummy therapy.” To strengthen the right side of his face, she suggested chewing Bubbalicous bubble gum on that side. Aitza recommended watermelon flavor though I’m a traditionalist and believe he’d get better results with bubble-gum flavored bubble gum. (Perhaps I’m just boring. The other evening, I walked down to Cookout, a local burger joint that offers 40 flavors of shake. I panicked at the overwhelming selection and just got vanilla.) Another therapy involves moving a lollipop from one side of his mouth to the other, starting with a big BlowPop and working his way down to a tiny Dum-Dum. To me, however, that sounds counterintuitive. No one wants to graduate from BlowPops to Dum-Dums. You learn that during your very first Halloween candy-trading session.

After an eternity at the Hilton, we’re finally heading home. (I’m writing this on the plane.) We stopped by Dr. Phillips’ office first and he gave Shade a quick examination and took photos for before/after comparisons. The swelling is causing a bit of eye droop, but the doc says after the swelling subsides, he expects Shade’s face to be almost symmetrical. Next, step: Getting a symmetrical smile. Bring on the lollipops!

 

The Lost Island of Atlantis

“And in a single day and night … the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea.” That was the ancient philosopher Plato’s description of Shade’s recent facial reanimation procedure, during which Dr. Marcus and Dr. Phillips removed excess fat and skin from the right side of Shade’s face. Skin Island has vanished, much to the chagrin of the tiny monkey’s living in the curly coconut trees thereabouts. Its whereabouts have become the grist of speculation, superstition and legend.

In other words, Shade’s surgery was a complete success. Dr. Phillips explained that they did not have to touch any muscle in the process; the excess skin from the graft was completely removed; his natural cheek skin was stretched over the muscle and glued down with a biological glue; and Shade was left with a single thin scar along his jawline. Presumably, once the swelling reduces (Mr. Chipmunk still has a bit of a grip), his scar will be barely noticeable.

So symmetrical!

The surgery was quite short – two and a half hours total – a breeze compared to his last procedure, which was ten hours. Upon his waking, I took a picture of him from the front and his face is nearly symmetrical. I showed the pic to Shade, who in his post-anesthetic delirium, slurred, “I look like a fucking super-model.” Yes, you do, Shade. Yes, you do.

 

Unfortunately, the hospital was packed so there were no private rooms available and Shade and Aitza had to spend the night in a post-op ward with only one of those thin shower-curtain dealies to block out light and noise. Little use with those glaring florescent hospital bulbs and the grown man next door sobbing uncontrollably. (Not sure why, but he did all night.) Double the problem that the cubicle was right next to the nurse’s station and the bathroom, so they had the pleasure of listening to the night shift cackling, giggling and flushing overflowing urine jugs all through the wee hours. As if to taunt Shade and Aitza, the computer monitor in the room kept flashing a screensaver with a kid doing the international “Shh” sign with his finger and a message saying: “Please keep it quiet while healing is happening.” Yeah, right.

Oreos make it all worth it.

When I returned to the hospital this morning, Shade and Aitza had the bloodshot thousand-yard stares of combat survivors. But they’re war veterans by now and shook it off quickly, especially after I brought Shade some Oreos. After all, it was time to leave the battlefield and return to the soft, quiet beds of the Hilton, where Shade is now snuffling gently amongst a pile of fluffy pillows. The next few days will be devoted to rest and recovery until his final appointment on Friday and then home.

 

 

Home slice

It’s been a crazy couple weeks since the post-Christmas hospital mayhem with hospital stays and infections and wound cleaning/packing/wrapping/antibiotics/fluids/pee bottles, okay, you get the picture. Shade’s been a trouper through the process. The boy never complains, though he does make me wash my hands a lot. I’m a scratcher.

Ready for bed on the comfy couch.

For the past weeks, Shade’s slept down stairs on our comfy couch, which is usually my nap paradise because it’s thick and comfy and it sucks you in like you’re Boba Fett gobbled by a Sarlacc. (Nerd alert!) The couch’s only downfall is that it’s a bit “sucky.” It feeds on left socks and remote controls, and there’s hidden candy corns down there from Halloween 2009. And if you’re looking for your iPhone, it’s eaten a few of those, too.

We’re not sure why, but our homebound nurse care and therapies got cut. We’ve been doing therapy and wrapping his wounds ourselves on the comfy couch. Good job Arianny and Aitza are nurses. If you didn’t know, Aitza was a surgical nurse in Venezuela. She worked in plastic surgery. And Arianny follows in Mami’s footsteps. Her visit with us lasted a week. Together they made up a good schedule of cleaning and changing Shade’s open leg wound, while I gave them cheers and moral support and occasionally gagged because gross. I’m no nurse. I’m the guy that will make you a cup of tea while you’re squirting saline into that open muscle and mopping up any effluence. I call that Nurse Porn. Arianny and Aitza are always talking about the grossest stuff they experienced in hospitals, especially during dinner. I cover my ears and go, la la la, as they’ll regale an audience about the adventures of flushing an impacted colon while scooping from a plate of seven-layer bean dip. Or the time the had to remove a massive cockroach burrowed deep in a lady’s eardrum. Hwork!

But I had to overcome my fickle gorge and man up, because on January 5, Nurse Angel Arianny left for home in NYC, so Aitza took over and trained me with Wound Tending 101. I gloved up while she opened the packs of gauze and sterilized the tweezer. Shade’s right thigh now has a two-inch open gash that has exposed muscle but it’s healing up from the inside out as per doctor’s orders. It’s closed up a lot so far. You can see the healing day by day. Aitza had me remove, clean and repack, gauze and wrap the wound.

Oh, yeah, Aitza turned 35 again.

Then it’s goodbye Nurse Angel Aitza as she lollygags in London. Actually, it’s a work thing. On January 8, she was sent to the home office back in the UK for an important spy mission or something. So Nurse Vincent is on the job. I haven’t screwed up yet, which is good.

But back to the “no homecare” thing from before – Aitza’s been trying to get the homecare here and she was told that the homecare was revoked. We’re in a tornado of calls to various doctors and nurses and social services and (shudder) insurance to get the homecare and therapies reinstated. Yay, fun with bureaucracy.

Forgive the mess. We’re remodeling, too! Like we don’t have our plate full already.

Meanwhile, while waiting for Mami to come home, Shade and I have been sitting on the comfy couch, eating pizza and fried chicken and watching educational films like From Dusk to Dawn and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Ni! Ni! Ni! (Nerd Alert!)

 

 

 

How do we return this present?

Home for Christmas

Red and green are quite merry when decorating for Christmas but are less festive when dealing with wound infections in a hospital ER. How’s that for a holiday card message? It was inspired by our Christmas visit to Health Central hospital over the last couple days. Harken whilst I recount to you this Christmas tale:

‘Twas the day before Christmas, and all through the house,
Not a creature was worried, not even my spouse.
The invites to family had all been sent out
For the annual Christmas Eve Crampton cook out.

Low Country Boil

Alright, I won’t make you suffer through ten stanzas of corny holiday poetry. Suffice it to say, after returning from Raleigh on December 18, Shade had been taking it easy in his bed and healing. His scars looked pretty good for scars – nice, clean lines and no redness or swelling. Things seemed positive on the whole, so we decided to carry on with our tradition of Christmas Eve dinner, despite urgings and offerings from good-intentioned family that perhaps we should skip it or allow someone else to host. After all, preparing a big meal was a bit much to add onto our plate. However, after spending most of December away from home and engaging in very little Christmasy activities, we felt that this dinner was our only chance at capturing the real spirit of the holiday. But we simplified. Instead of the big roast dinner, decorated table and place settings, we opted for a fairly easy low country boil – a big boiling pot of crabs, shrimp, sausages, potatoes, corn on the cob and spices laid out over a picnic table. My brother Darren would handle all the fixings. Cooking time, less than 30 minutes. Dinner’s on!

(If you are easily grossed out, I suggest you do not eat any pudding while you continue reading.) During the days before Christmas Eve, Shade’s face started leaking fluid. More like gushing. He woke up one morning with a soaked pillow. But the fluid was clearish and didn’t smell, which was good news. We contacted the doctors at Duke and they said that the area was just trying to eliminate the swelling. They weren’t worried so neither were we, though it was a chore to keep the area dry and clean. They should have installed a spigot on his cheek.

On Christmas Eve morning, however, the stitching on his lower cheek had opened up and it was a bit gooey with pus. Blech! So Aitza took Shade to his primary care physician whose office is at Health Central. The doctor took one look and said, “This is way beyond my expertise!” and promptly sent Shade down to the ER. Crap! Back in the hospital. I drove down and met them. The staff were great and tried to make us all welcome and comfortable, but we still had that Grinch-stole-our-Christmas gloom. The staff pumped up Shade full of fluids and antibiotics, took cultures and blood samples, and said he may have to stay overnight. So much for our big dinner. We resigned ourselves to Christmas in the hospital and called up the family to give them the news. But after the culture results all came back green, the doctor said we could take him home with oral antibiotics. We left the hospital at 2 p.m. and called up the fam. Christmas Eve dinner was back on. We supped well that night with our extended family. We opened presents on Christmas morning as custom dictates. We drank merrily and played games with friends that evening, celebrating the blessing of having Shade home for the day.

The ER doctors had asked us to return two days later for a follow up. So yesterday, (Boxing Day for all you Brits who continue the celebration), I took Shade to the ER, assuming that we’d pop in and out in an hour. A member of the on-site plastic surgery team had a gander at his face and said it was looking fairly good, though the patch of stitching where the fluid was leaking had opened up a bit more, which concerned him a bit. Then the doc took the gauze off his leg scar. The site was swollen, hard and flaming red with purple bruising and it was leaking bloody fluid. Uh oh! Not the present you want to unwrap at Christmas. The intense swelling was quite shocking, as Aitza had cleaned and wrapped the leg the night before and it had appeared fine. One look at his leg and the doctor ordered Shade to stay for 48 hours of antibiotics and observation. Yay! Back in the hospital! So much for popping in and out.

Shade was hooked up to more plastic bags of fun juice. The doc sealed the wounds on his face with silver nitrate, which chemically cauterized the opening to prevent more leakage. Then he opened up a patch of Shade’s leg scar to release the swelling. It was mostly blood. No pus. (So we had the Christmas red but not the green, thank ol’ St. Nick.) The doc’s theory was that perhaps there had been a pocket of blood that ruptured and filled up the area, causing the swelling and bruising. (That morning he had had his first home physical therapy session and perhaps that had caused the rupture.) At around 5 p.m., Shade was admitted upstairs. His face, neck and chest were as red as an embarrassed tomato. Turns out he has a hypersensitivity to the antibiotic Vancomycin, which causes “red man syndrome.” (Don’t get all worked up, ultra-liberal hysteria hounds. It’s not a slur; it’s a description.) They replaced the antibiotic with another and he’s back to his normal color, cracker white. (Okay, now you can be insulted.)

“What a fun Christmas!”

Aitza, who had been working all this time and stressing as mothers do, finally got to the hospital at 7 p.m. and took up the night shift. At least Health Central has had a fantastic make over, and Aitza was able to sleep on a pull out sofa, not another recliner chair like at Duke Hospital. I returned this morning and Shade seems fine. No pain or irritation. He did have a lot of blood leakage from his leg, but that’s good as it releases the pressure. One more day of observation and if all is well, perhaps we’ll be clear of hospitals until his next surgery in six months. I think perhaps the Cramptons should get a holiday redo. What do you think? Christmas in January?