Health Drama in Trichotomy

(No, this is not recent.)

I think it comes with aging; our bodies fall apart gradually. Part of the drama that happened during my hiatus here are several health episodes.

Septum

Our company went to Puerto Rico for an off-site again in 2017 (this time La Professeure came at the end and spent the weekend there with me, so that was nice), but I got a cold, and even after I’d recovered from the cold, I still had this consistent post-nasal drip. After multiple doctors, allergists, medications, it still persisted. Finally my ENT ordered a CTI scan of my head and discovered that my septum is deviated and blocking the draining of my sinus (which could cause the post-nasal drip, and is a risk factor for sinus infection). So I went into surgery to fix it. The doctor was in downtown Manhattan, so it was a trip to get it done.

I was under general anesthesia, so I don’t remember much of the day. I remember the preparation room nurses were all very nice and efficient. One minute I remember hearing the surgeon talking to the nurses, and the next minute I was in the recovery room hearing other patients talking to their family. The operation went smoothly, I was told, and I spent a few hours in the recovery room before La Professeure escorted me back to Long Island.

Among the post-op instructions (how long it takes to recover, how to change band-aid, how to rinse the wound, etc) One thing they said in the recovery room was that I may feel nauseated on the day, and that during the surgery, all the blood from my nose went into my stomach I would be digesting it. Apparently I had a weak digestive system, because I did not digest my snot-blood - it went back out top-side. It was unnecessarily dramatic, andscared La Professeure. On the first day I couldn’t lie down, so spent the 24 hours on the recliner (I am glad we got that), by the second day I could lie down straight but didn’t want to share a bed, by the third (?) I could wash my hair. I watched a lot of Netflix.

The ENT said I would be out of work for 3 days, but I ended up taking a week off. But La Professeure had been an angel through all of this; I had a difficult time imagining anyone going through that alone.

The post-nasal drip eventually let up, 6 more months later. But at least I don’t have a deviated septum anymore.

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Shoulder Joint

On an offsite to Bronx zoo 1 ½ years ago we went on this aerial obstacle course where they have platforms on trees and connecting devices between those platforms and you have to get from one platform to another. It was all fun but I slipped on one of them and pulled my shoulder. I was aching all over from the exertion, but found that my shoulder tightness never went away. A few months later I was still feeling the tightness, so I had to start physical therapy.

The therapy helps, but it was awkward sometimes to be stretching my arm at work while people walk by. Interestingly there was only one person who ever asked whether I was okay. I guess in New Hip Company we are used to strange behaviour from co-workers.

Even now I’m not 100% back to normal - I can tell my right shoulder still doesn’t have the same range as my left - but once I could put my arm behind the passenger seat while backing up the car (which, I found out through this experience, is the motion that takes the maximum amount of reach for my shoulder joint that I do regularly) I got lazier and lazier about my exercises (and the therapist did recommend me paring back). Now during the lock-down I haven’t done a stretch once. So, that’s at least 52 days of no stretches…

Now as I’m writing this, it’s dawning on me just how dangerous my company’s offsites have been.

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Cancer

This one is not my health scare, but my mother-in-law’s.

Last spring we went to Universal Studio Orlando (it was a blast, they really enjoyed it), but during the trip she started coughing up blood. After a series of doctor’s visits and lab tests she got the diagnosis that she had lung cancer.

The doctor at her town said she’d need intensive chemo- and radiotherapy, after which her five-year survival rate would be raised to 12%. Otherwise she’d have a year to live at most. Surgery was not an option.

La Professeure and I, living down here, of course want her to receive treatment near us, so we asked her to get a second consultation with doctors at Memorial Sloane Kettering cancer center here. So she did.

They gave a different treatment plan. The cancer had not mastastercised, they think, so the thoracic surgeon could just operate on her lung and take it out. If everything goes well, that’s all the treatment she needed.

I have never seen anyone so happy to be told she needs lung surgery.

She stayed at a hotel near MSK for the night before, and a few nights after the surgery. I went up to the hospital to see them after work, and La Professeure took a few days off to keep her dad company. On the day of the surgery, I actually met them at the recreation room on the 15th floor where I had performed with the Treasurer’s group a few years prior, so they were impressed I knew my way around.

The surgery was a success, the tumor was smaller than expected, and the doctor did not find any cancerous tissue remaining in her system. She had her 6-month check-in in February and got an all-clear, so things could not be better. We were just very grateful.

Since then, we have heard multiple stories about people getting a grim cancer diagnosis from their doctor (usually in the suburbs), and went to MSK to get a second opinion, and got a much better treatment option. I would guess part of it is that the technology at MSK is more advanced, perhaps, which enables them to perform some forms of surgeries not possible elsewhere, or run tests that are not available elsewhere. It does make me wonder why the level of care is not more evenly distributed.

Apparently where you live does impact the quality of health care you get.

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