Everyone likes to tell about an “operation” they may have had. This is my chance.
A year ago the Veteran Administration Clinic in Ukiah, where I go for check-ups, found a trace of blood in my plumbing. I was sent to Fort. Miley, the VA hospital in San Francisco.
They declared, “You must have a minor procedure.”
What they called a “minor procedure” turned out to be a helluva lot more. As far as I was concerned it was a major operation complete with anesthesia, intravenous needles, platoons of doctors and nurses, and a hard operating table that qualifies for the big time. I was on the table for an hour. Treated to all the lights, nurses, and doctors they had, I was out like a light for two hours while they poked around and investigated my insides with a camera.
While they did their thing I lay on the table like a package of hamburger. The place the doctors put their camera and laser was a location inside of me that no sane person would ever allow under normal circumstances without loud protests. There, at the opening of my left kidney, is where the camera spotted pay dirt. It was a small tumor the size of a bean. Lickety split with the handy dandy laser machine they burned it out.
When I woke up there was good news. What Dr. Greene said next made me feel better.
“It was a cancer. I burned it out,” Dr. Greene said with a modest smile of pride in his workmanship.
“All gone?” I inquired, happy as a duck in water.
”Yes,” he said.
Then he added, “If it comes back you have two choices. We can burn it off again … or, if it is growing, we can remove your left kidney.”
That news was as welcome as a stick in the eye. Nobody likes to lose a part. Every bit of my body is as dear to me as a trusted and valued friend. Every crumb of that hard-working human machine that carries my brain around is important to me. I didn’t want to lose a single part or piece without a fight.
“You have two and you can manage just fine with one,” he said, trying to cheer me up.
Sure, I had two kidneys. So what? Like all my children I like them both the same. Still, it was reassuring to know I always have a spare in case I need one.
Now my visit with the medical profession gets really interesting. Three days later, as I was recovering from having that infernal camera poked into places not meant for a camera, I got a fever. My system became infected. With my temperature shooting through the roof, the VA advise nurse in San Francisco ordered me, post haste, to the nearest emergency room. San Francisco’s ER is a hundred miles from my farm. So, with the advice nurse’s approval, I drove myself in my Jeep to Sutter Hospital, just two miles away.
Sutter Hospital is a good-looking, two-story white building jam-packed with good doctors and good-looking efficient nurses. It is close to my farm in Witter Springs and a lot closer than the VA hospital in San Francisco. Besides, being near the things that are familiar to me, I reasoned that if things got too hot and I had to fly the coup in a hurry, I was close to home.
The emergency people put me to bed. Into the Emergency Care Unit (ECU) I went and there I stayed for seven days. By the fourth day, as I lay in bed being medicated with this and that to take down the fever and get rid of the infection, I was fighting sepsis, pneumonia and a pretty good (or bad) urinary infection.
What happened next was a sort of a miracle. There is an interesting conclusion to my story. Next week in the Record-Bee I will tell you whether I lived or died. I promise.
Gene Paleno is an author and illustrator living in Witter Springs.
