There and back again

You know, just a week ago I was wondering if I even needed this blog any more, since it feels like the bulk of what I do here is riff on different variations of “it’s no fun having a dead child.”

And then … this week. Lord.

So, the nicest thing my new doctor (s)said to me was: “Mr. Sorrells, you don’t have a weight problem.”

The worst thing my new doctor(s) said to me was: “You need to get to a hospital right away, because your bloodwork indicates you’re experiencing a pulmonary embolism right this moment.”

Oy. I think most people who read this blog also follow me on Facebook. However, for the few who don’t, this is the best summary of events I can muster:

• In September, Noah jumped on me while I was doing some exercises for my back. My leg hurt for 2-3 weeks, in a way that reminded me a bit of the blood clot I had in my leg, but not entirely either.
• I did call my doctor, who had no time to see me. But I did get a referral to the vascular surgeon who has looked at my leg in the past. He found nothing and the pain went away on its own.
• A couple of weeks later, I noticed I was getting winded doing the simplest of things, like climbing a single flight of stairs or climbing the ladder into the attic.
• I managed to get to see my doctor this time, but he was convinced that my symptoms showed I was either recovering from a pulmonary virus of some kind (but not THE virus) or that I was just out of shape after months of being in lockdown and because my weight did kind of skyrocket after Colin’s death (although I got control of the situation in June and have since gotten myself back down to a respectable weight).
• Despite his assurances I was OK, my breathing remained haphazard. Some days I felt fine. Some days walking and talking were beyond me. I really got worried when the five-minute bike ride to our main drag turned into a hassle for me.
• I decided to get a second opinion, but this doctor couldn’t see me until Tuesday. Nonetheless, she had blood drawn.
• That same night, I went out for a walk, as per doctor’s orders. About half an hour in, the head doctor from the new medical practice called to tell me that my blood showed every sign of me having an embolism right that moment. The relevant measure should be 0.5 or lower. I was at 4.85. He sent me to the hospital straightaway, where they kept me for two nights, put me on blood thinners (for the rest of my life, though that’s what they said in 2016 when they put me on blood thinners the first time) and hooked me up with compression stockings for both legs, which I’m supposed to wear full-time through at least March.

And now we’ll have to see. There seems to have been no damage to my heart or lungs. I can say this, after receiving the first blast of blood thinner, my lungs cleared pretty quickly and, man, there is nothing quite like restored lung capacity to make you really appreciate the joy of oxygen. I spent the first night in the hospital bed just enjoying the feeling of filling my lungs to capacity. One learns to live with the stockings (and it’s nice to have an extra layer of clothing during the German winter, to be honest). And I was on this blood thinner back in 2017 and tolerated it just fine, so here’s hoping.

For purposes of this blog, the more interesting stress test was how I responded to being in a hospital situation again. This was the hospital where we got the first MRI telling us that Colin had a brain tumor. It’s where he went in May 2019 while they tried to figure out if they could regulate his breathing, back before we knew he was going to die. It’s where Christina went when she fell down the stairs, pregnant with Colin.

I went there because it was the closest hospital to us and, honestly, I didn’t think of the associations until I got there. And there weren’t that many. I’m sure it would have been a much worse head trip had I ended up – somehow – at the hospital across town where we spent so much of 2016 and so many futile trips in 2019 trying to get his tracheostomy into shape. But still … after the bizarrely empty emergency room confirmed my diagnosis and suggested I stay (oddly, they were prepared to release me that night, despite a blood clot in my leg and the existing embolism), they had me sent to the cardiology wing. The orderly wheeled me and my bed through the maze of interconnected hospital buildings and, at one point, we passed a row of children’s cribs. And I couldn’t help but wonder if Colin might have ever been in one of them.

The stay in the room was also a challenge. I don’t know if it’s a trend in German health care or a side effect of the pandemic, but they’d converted a three-man room into a four-man room, so things were crowded. And one of the guys NEVER shut up about his eight (?) heart stents and the way things used to be in German health care and what he thought about Merkel’s approach to the pandemic and how he has this thing with his spine, but he’s been told never to have a doctor look at it and how he’s an old enough hand at heart attacks that he can tell them coming from a mile away. I’m mostly proud of myself for not asking why, if he knew all about them, he wasn’t about 50 pounds lighter.

I get it. The guy hadn’t had a heart attack this time, but something bad had happened. He spoke in a pretty thick Berlin accent, which remains impenetrable to me to this day, so I am fuzzy on the details. But he’s nervous and he wants to get things off of his chest. I really do get it. He’s probably lonely, because it sounds like he hasn’t seen most of his kids and grandchildren in an age due to the virus. One of his kids, from what I gathered, seems to have a growth on his chest that they’re hoping to God isn’t cancerous, so I’m even trying to sympathize with him.

At the same time, I’m dealing with my own issues and really just wanted some peace and quiet. Except I’m locked in a room with Monologue Man. I’m guessing he’s about 15 years older than me and would happily tell everyone about his experiences with the health care system. During one soliloquy he made a comment about how bad things can end up, which got a wry smile from me. He misread me, of course, and assuming that I’m younger than him and a foreigner, have no idea about the German health care system, so he tore into me a bit about how NO ONE has the same level of knowledge he has about the problems of the system and the health dangers we all face. And it was tempting there to launch into my own speech that, I’m pretty sure, might have made him wet himself, given his grandkid’s status, but I’m not so sure with my German around strangers and I don’t like the idea of weaponizing Colin’s story. So, I kept quiet.

Besides, I was dealing with Colin. As luck would have it, a photo of him from 2017 popped up in my Facebook memory feed while I was there. Wouldn’t I like to share that with everyone? No Facebook, not so much.

But it was bigger than that, because I never really thought I was at death’s door during this experience. Compared to the 2016 embolism, when I had too much to drink the night before, woke up unable to bend my leg and then almost passed out on the way to work before checking myself into the hospital, this was a piece of cake. I was actually happy to find out it was an embolism, because that at least meant it wasn’t the coronavirus. But still … there was that thought of death nagging there and I can’t escape that there is still a part of me that every day goes “Well, if I die today, maybe I’ll see Colin and we can spend eternity playing Duplo,” which doesn’t sound so great in retrospect, but seemed OK as I was lying there trying to catch my breath. While there is no part of me actively seeking death, there is this part that kind of doesn’t mind the prospect, and that worries me a little bit.

At the same time, Emma stayed home from school on the first full day of my hospitalization, because she had dreams that I died and was apparently in no shape for school. So, I can stay alive and take care of Emma and Noah or I can die and maybe see my son. And that’s a crap choice. And Mr. Stent thinks he’s the one who’s been through the wringer?

Well, maybe. Eight heart stents does sound kind of insane.

I tried to say goodbye nicely to him and wish his grandson all the rest. Ironically, after two days of my not understanding his accent, he was totally flummoxed by mine, so one of the other guys in the room had to do real-time translation, which was a wound to my pride as a German speaker, but seems like an appropriate way to end my relation with this guy.

Oh well. Onwards and upwards. We didn’t have the energy for much of anything when I got home yesterday, so today we’re having celebratory “Return from the Hospital” sushi, which seems like a nice idea until you realize someone has to get sick enough to go into the hospital before it can happen. Also, were this actually a thing, it would have bankrupted us back in 2016. So, I’ll just try to stay out of the hospital for the time being.