088 MISTER FOLEY I PRESUME

By now I was more awake and less drugged and was able to greet and remember visitors.  Tamara and Stephen had been due to come up on Sunday, but Renee phoned on Saturday evening and told them what had happened and to not come up, because there was no way to get them to the cabin and no place to stay in Kamloops.  Tamara was very upset by this as she had already purchased their Greyhound tickets.  Unfortunately, they went unused, but I later gave her the money for the unused ticket.

Karl and Lizeth were going to continue with their plans to go up to the cabin and agreed to bring Tamara and Stephen with them.  They did so and on Wednesday afternoon, Tamara, Stephen, Karl and Lizeth stopped in to see me.  It was a welcome sight to see all of them.  I was confined to the bed because I had tubes running in and out of me all over the place.  Not too mention the pain in my shoulder keeping me pretty much immobile.  After a long visit, they all departed and headed up to the cabin.

I had an oxygen tube in my nose, I had an IV in my left arm and in the back of my left hand.  I had another in my right hand.  My left hand was pretty much useless at this point and I could not even bend my fingers.  I was making out well with just my right hand.  Until it was rendered useless as well, so I was now helpless.  So much so, that I couldn’t even use the urinals that they provide you with, and I used those a lot.  Between the IV’s and the 4 or 5 liters of water I was drinking every day, it had to go somewhere.

That’s when the fateful decision to introduce me to Mr. Foley was made.  Of all the tubes I had, this was by far the worst.  I wish they had done it to me when I was unconscious.  A Foley, is a catheter for those not in the know.  It consists of a large bag and a tube the diameter of a garden hose, or at least that’s what it felt like.  They shove this thing in the end of my penis and into my bladder.  Except, they couldn’t get it in.  It took 10 different tries, with 10 different nurses before they finally achieved success.

That son of a bitch hurt like hell.  I’m sorry for the language, but it did.  On the bright side, I joked around with the kids saying, hey I may have a tube in there, but I had 10 nurses playing with my willy.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t in a good way.  The Foley is designed to empty your bladder on a constant basis, so you don’t have to worry about trying to use a bedside urinal.

The pain of it going in was nothing compared to what followed.  Every so often, I would have to pee, or so I thought.  In fact, it was happening all the time, except my bladder would go into spasm and I felt like I was giving birth, through that tiny little opening.  When it would happen, I would just say that I was peeing.  Except, I wasn’t, and the Doctor finally explained how it worked and what was happening with the spasms.

The days went by and I had a visit from Glenda and Ron again.  They live in Kamloops and are our next-door neighbours at the cabin.  Apparently, I looked a little more alive than when they first saw me, and we had a long visit.  It was so nice of them to take the time to come and see me.  They live in Kamloops are battling their own problems but still came to see me.

On another day another cabin neighbour who lives in Kamloops came to see me.  Clive, whose cabin is on the other side of Glenda’s cabin, is a retired Kamloops Fire Captain, and over the years we have kibitzed back and forth.  He was fond of saying, “they issued you a gun and gave me a pillow”.  Clive was there for a couple of hours just chatting and it was a welcome relief to the boredom of my lengthy stay.  I had no idea this was just the beginning.

Finally, I got a visit from Perry and Teri.  More cabin neighbours.  We always meet up and help each other out at the cabin and they had been due to arrive the same day as Renee, except they didn’t.  I finally phoned to make sure they were ok.  They had been delayed, but finally arrived on Sunday, only to discover that I was nowhere to be found, as I had been taken to hospital the night before.

087 RADIOACTIVE

I got a little ahead of myself with the last paragraph.  The surgeon did the drainage incisions on my last day there, but that was after I spent two weeks in Kamloops.  I started off in a semi-private room with a room-mate who always kept the curtain closed and was not very friendly, neither to me or the care team.  I didn’t care if he spoke to me or not, but I really didn’t like that he would hurl abuse towards the nurses and care aides.  I assumed that he was just another junkie.  Shows why you don’t make assumptions.

I was told by one of the nurses, when he was out of the room, that he was a young fellow, 20 years old who had been T-boned in an intersection by a drunk driver.  The impact shattered his pelvis and lower spine leaving him a paraplegic and confined to a wheelchair.  He was in constant excruciating pain and ever few months or so over the past two years had to be readmitted to hospital due to his skin breaking down and causing huge ulcers on his butt and thighs.  So, he was a little bitter.  I was suddenly transferred out of that room and as I was being wheeled out, he called me by name and wished me luck.  First time he had spoken to me and I was surprised he knew my name.

From there I went into a 4-person ward and I found out it was for infection protocol.  They weren’t sure what infection I was harboring and didn’t want to risk me cross-contaminating the young fellow.  In the new ward, I was with 3 other people who were all fighting major MRSA infections, which is what they thought I had.  When the tests came back three days later, they had ruled out MRSA on me and immediately transferred me to another two-person ward.

There I was teamed up with a woman who had lost her leg due to smoking and the resultant narrowing of the blood vessels in her leg.  She and I hit it off and we would chat and visit when we were feeling up to it.  If not, the curtains would be closed.  I had a few setbacks where the sepsis tried to reassert itself and they would hammer it with different types of IV antibiotics.

My shoulder would continue and while I tried to wean myself off he heavy duty drugs, there were times that I was left begging for it.  Nobody could figure out why it was hurting.  I was taken down for x-rays and they would come back negative.  Then I would get taken down for an ultra-sound which was also negative.  Finally, they did a tap of the shoulder joint, which consisted of a large bore needle which looked like it was two feet long.

It wasn’t really, it was maybe 4 to 6 inches, long enough to reach the center of my shoulder joint.  They jammed that thing into my shoulder and sucked out some of the fluid.  If I thought my shoulder hurt before, that needle made me scream in pain.  The purpose was to see if there was any infection in the bursa fluid.  There wasn’t and to this day, nobody knows what was wrong with my shoulder.  It still hurts a lot when I move certain ways, but it is much improved.

In total I had three x-rays of both of my feet, 2 CAT scans of my feet, two ultra sound on my feet, two x-rays of my shoulder, one ultra-sound and a joint tap.  I had two x-rays of my left hand, which had become totally immobile.  I also had an x-ray and ultrasound done on my left knee which had also swollen up.  As I said earlier, I’m surprised I didn’t glow in the dark.  These tests were all done in the two weeks I was in Kamloops, there would be more after my transfer.  One reason I was worried about the transfer of rooms, was that I had such a great care team and I didn’t want to lose them.  It turned out though, I was still on the same floor, so I kept the same team.

By now I was conscious and had weaned myself off the major, heavy duty pain meds and had dropped down to Tylenol 3’s and was more capable of having and remembering visitors.  I’ll get into that in the next segment.

086 A WEE GLIMMER OF HOPE

I don’t know if it was survivor’s guilt or depression or what it was, but a darkness settled over me and I almost wanted to give up and just slip away. I had to consciously and with determination, fight that feeling. The pain in my shoulder was not helping at all and I kept having to be taken for various tests.  I was unable to move on my own and they would strap me into a patient lift to move me onto a stretcher to take me for x-rays, CAT scans and ultrasound tests.  I’m surprised I didn’t glow in the dark from all the radiation I absorbed.

NOT LOOKING OR FEELING
TOO WELL HERE

The patient lift, or as I called it, “The Crane” caused me intensely new levels of pain.  No amount of drugs could help that.  Not injections of freezing or painkillers would do it.  I just toughed it out as best I could and cooperated in every way possible.  I never complained, I just wanted to help my care team, as they were helping me.  I always worried if I was being a pain in the ass and felt guilty anytime I was forced to press the call button.  I even asked the nurses if I was annoying and they told me I was amazing, a model patient and a pleasure to look after.  That made me feel better.

There was an underlying worry among all of them that they were going to lose me as I was still in extreme danger of slipping over the edge.  The danger was all too real, and in some cases of sepsis, no amount of anti-biotics will work.  Apparently, I was fortunate as I am still here, but it was a complete unknown at this stage.

Food was something I did not want at all and I went 5 full days without eating a thing.  At lunchtime on day 6 Nurse Tim, who I greatly respected, got mad at me and gave me shit.  He told me if you want to get better you must start eating.  He then sat down and began to feed me and stayed until I finished the meal.  I can’t even tell you what that first meal was, but I ate it all and I started to feel somewhat better almost immediately.  Better is a term I use loosely here as I was still in extreme danger.

FEET ROUGHLY THE
SAME SIZE

To illustrate the difference between medical personnel and bureaucratic administrators, I had the hospital administrator come into my room within a few days.  I’m still extremely sick and heavily drugged and she’s asking where I live and preparing to have me transferred closer to home.  As she left my room I heard my nurse and a Doctor arguing with her.  She’s wanting to transfer me, and they are trying to explain to her that I am still touch and go and too sick to move unless by helicopter.

She wasn’t prepared to spend that kind of money and said it would be done by ambulance.  Things were getting quite heated outside my room and I heard the Doctor yell at her that if you move him now, you will kill him, and it will be on your head.  I guess the Doctor must have won that argument as I ended up staying two weeks until I was much more stable.

Initially when I was brought in, it was my left foot that caused my sepsis with the skin off my big toe and the ball of my foot.  The photos show both my feet at relatively the same size.  Very quickly however, my right foot began to swell for some unknown reason and I was being told it was gout.  There was mention made of Charcot Foot.  I literally was diagnosed with so many diseases and disorders that I couldn’t keep track.

In any case my right foot swelled up like a balloon to about three times its normal size and one afternoon as I was looking at it a giant pus bubble formed.  I pointed it out to the nurse and said, “doesn’t that look more like an abscess that needs to be drained?” and as I said it, the bubble burst and started draining.  They put an absorbent pad under it and it drained for the rest of the day and all night.  The following morning, a surgeon came into the room and put two small incisions in my foot, one at the top and one at the bottom to help it drain.

085 DARK DAYS

Sunday, July 9th was just a blur of images, voices and I was barely aware of my surroundings.  I kept slipping in and out of consciousness although I prefer to think I was sleeping.  I do remember an overwhelming thirst for water as I had gone almost 16 hours without.  This despite being hooked up to an IV.  I wanted ice water and in some cases just ice.  Apparently, my daughter Caitlin drove all the way up from Burnaby to be by my side.  I was told she was there, but I have no independent memory of it.  I’m also told that good friends Glenda and Ron Miles came to the hospital as well, but again, I don’t remember.

I vaguely remember intense, excruciating pain in my left shoulder, but I did not know what I did to hurt it.  I still don’t for that matter.  I was receiving injections of Hydromorphone every four hours to control the pain.  Funnily enough, my feet were not hurting at all.  Had I been fully conscious I likely would have refused the heavy-duty pain killers, although, maybe not as the pain was almost unbearable.  Monday, I don’t remember at all.

Apparently during the time, I was out of it, there was discussion about amputating my foot.  I have no idea which one and I assume the discussion was between the Doctors, Renee and Caitlin.  At this point, other than the ankle injury to my right foot, there were no signs that I could perceive of what was to come with it.  Again, I was barely semi-conscious, so I had no idea what was going on.

Renee had driven my truck in from the cabin, following the ambulance.  Toby was with her.  She spent time in the emergency ward waiting for some indication of what was happening and then finally went back out to the truck.  She slept in the truck in the parking lot that night.  But it was not going to be an option for Toby to stay in the truck during the day with the Kamloops heat and the severe smoke.

Because of all the wildfires, a refugee center had been set up in Kamloops and they welcomed her with open arms and provided her a place to sleep.  There was also a kennel available with Veterinarians to take care of Toby.  He did not handle the separation from me well at all, and became very sick from the anxiety.  He chewed a hole in his own leg and was in such rough shape, it became touch and go for him as well.  Things were mighty stressful for Renee at that point with both Toby and I in life threatening situations.  Renee was now missing work, and nobody could tell her or me for that matter how long I would be in hospital.

When I finally became more fully conscious I still wanted lots of water and was drinking 4 or 5 liter jugs a day.  Finally, the Doctors who admitted me in Emergency[TG1]  came to see me.  This was Tuesday or Wednesday, I’m not sure.  They told me that I was brought into the hospital in full sepsis and bordering on septic shock, in fact sitting right on the edge of septic shock.  If had slipped over that edge, they told me I would have not survived and that there was nothing they would have been able to do about it.  My internal organs would have quickly begun shutting down in a cascade effect.  As it was, they did not expect me to survive the night.  They were happy to see that I did.  That was the first indication and realization of just how sick I really was.  All from a cut foot.

Now to begin the long slow process of recovery.  I was hooked up to an IV, 24/7 and getting massive doses of antibiotics 3 or 4 times a day.  My left shoulder was giving me extreme agony and I don’t know why.  It was so bad that I was getting regular injections of hydromorphone to keep the pain tolerable.  My left arm was useless, and I could not bend the fingers of my left hand.

I was also receiving injections of Insulin 3 times a day because my blood sugar was so extremely high.  I was told that I was now diabetic.  Although, they say I was probably diabetic for several months but didn’t know it as I had no symptoms at all.  I had been tested a year previously and was not diabetic then.

I became aware of some members of my care team at that point, and everyone was wonderful.  Nurse Tim really stood out for me.  A male nurse, who I insisted looked like the actor, Vince Vaughn and in fact I called him that several times.  He said he preferred to think he looked like Mr. Big from Sex and The City.  Having never watched the show I couldn’t say.  Tim was amazing and took such great care of me.

---

 [TG1]

084 THE BEGINNING OF, ALMOST THE END (PART 2)

Over the next couple of days, everything was fine.  My right ankle was still sore, but there were no symptoms or pain from my left foot.  I still had no idea of the extent of the injury to my left foot.  The next day we took the boat out for a cruise around the lake and I am still walking around in bare feet, except when we did our walks down the logging road and then I would wear my runners.  This is also significant as I later learned, that running shoes are breeding grounds for bacteria.

July 8^th rolls around and we didn’t get to take the boat out yesterday or today because there is a major wildfire burning in Ashcroft and the smoke is pouring into the lake area and reducing visibility to near zero.  This is the first time Renee has experienced the smoke at the lake, but for me it is eerily like the McClure/Barriere wildfire in 2003.

Renee is due to leave tomorrow and I’ll be driving her into Kamloops to meet the Greyhound.  She must be back to work on Monday.  We were trying to time it so that Renee would be in Kamloops for her departure, while at the same time my daughter Tamara and her boyfriend Stephen would be arriving.  This would save me making two trips into Kamloops in two days. My son Karl and his girlfriend Lizeth would be arriving by car later in the week and hi old friend Mat and his girlfriend would be arriving a day after them.  We had a fun week planned.  Little did I know that we would be going to Kamloops far earlier than that and for a far different reason.

In the morning my left foot had been hurting, so a put a large Band-Aid over it and taped it with adhesive tape to keep it on.  We continued with our normal routine.  Late in the afternoon, I decided to take some photos of the Humming Birds at the feeder.  They had been swarming it, but were very skittish this year.  I took the screen out of the front window and laid down inside on my recliner holding the camera.  I was ready.  The humming birds weren’t.  I use a Nikon D4s with a 600-mm lens and the whole combination is heavy, around 20 pounds.  I sat like that for two hours and didn’t get a shot.

Suddenly my left shoulder and mid back went into severe spasm and from there I went into full on hypothermia and could not stop shivering.  It was 31C out and I had 4 blankets on me but could not get warm.  My head was pounding, and I felt like puking.  I was in bad shape and I knew I was in real trouble.

My left foot was now hurting as was my right ankle.  Renee looked at my foot and was shocked to see what it looked like.  So much so, that she took a photo of it.  During the day the tape and Band-Aid had slipped further down my foot and you can see the tape in the photo.  I begged Renee to call 9-1-1 and get an ambulance.

MY FOOT MINUTES BEFORE AMBULANCE ARRIVED

They finally arrived 45 minutes to an hour later, having come all the way from Clearwater.  They loaded me up and we headed for Kamloops Royal Inland Hospital.  When we hit the highway in Barriere and they flipped on the lights and siren, I really knew I was in trouble.  From there, I don’t remember too much.  I don’t remember the trip from Barriere to Kamloops or even arriving in hospital.

After arriving at emergency, I was fading in and out of consciousness, but I distinctly remember spinning around and around in a large black basin like a toilet.  I was literally going down the drain.  I remember reaching out and grabbing something and holding on for dear life.  It may have been someone’s hand, but I don’t know.  I do remember my Mom coming to me again.  It wasn’t as long a meeting this time, but she delivered the same message, “it’s not your time you have to go back”.  Mom had passed away in 1992 and so the visit with her was significant.  I had been visited by her once before in 1996 when I was almost killed after crashing my patrol car during a chase.  I’m told that I woke up for a short time, which was right after her visit, although I do not remember that at all.

083 THE BEGINNING OF, ALMOST THE END

First off it has been a long time since I wrote in this blog and it’s just because I got busy and there was not a lot to write about.  That is until this summer, when a life altering, and life-threatening event occurred.  No, it wasn’t a heart attack, like what happened to Russ, which I detailed in a previous article.  This involves a massive infection, caused by a cut foot.  Who would have thought that a cut, or in this case a large abrasion, could result in killing someone?  But first a little background on events leading up to the main event. 

Writing for me is cathartic, and I have posted bits ad pieces of what happened, in Facebook updates, but they don’t begin to tell the whole story.  In fact, when I thought about doing this “tell all” article, I did a post on Facebook first.  I was encouraged to write it by several responses on Facebook, in private messages and in person.  So, as they say, “here goes”.  Hold onto your hats as we begin this harrowing tale.

I’m not going to pull any punches as it were.  This will be the whole story, in full unadulterated detail.  There will be gross things mentioned and one or two gross photos.  This is compiled from memory, from stories I have been told by Renee and my kids.  There will be information I received from Doctors, nurses and all my care team, as well as notes I kept on my iPhone and iPad.  So, without further ado, we begin.  The whole story will necessarily be broken into segments.

In early June, I was out walking Toby and on the back path, when I stepped on a loose rock and rolled my right ankle.  Man did it hurt.  I did the usual things involving ice, tape and anti-inflammatory and it was healing quickly.  I had gotten to the point of being almost pain free, when I took the truck in to have the brakes done before heading up to the lake.  It was a nice day and I decided we would walk home.  It turned out to be 6.5 km, which is normally no big deal, but by the time I got 5 km into the walk, I was in agony and not sure if I could make it home.  I eventually did, and resumed my treatment of the ankle.

On June 22, I finished loading the truck, limping all the while and Toby and I headed for the lake.  The normally 5-hour drive, only took 4 this year, as I thought, after moving to Maple Ridge.  This was the first chance I had to test my theory though.  We made it safely, and began our usual lake ritual, waiting for Renee’s arrival on July 4^th.  We couldn’t launch the boat as it’s a 2-person operation.  One to drive the boat and one to drive the truck.

On July 4^th, we drove in to Kamloops and picked Renee up at the Greyhound.  She doesn’t own a car but has her license and can drive.  This becomes important later.  We spend the day relaxing and doing our normal morning and evening walk.  In the past, these walks have stretched out to, at their peak, 14 km.  But, Toby this year, is getting old and flat out refused to do more than 2 km.  This was fine with my ankle, which was still hurting.

On July 5^th we took the boat down to get it into the water and here is where the story really takes off.  I backed the trailer down into the water.  Normally when doing this I would wear some type of water shoes, or in my case the diving boots from my wet suit.  However, because on my ankle injury, it and my foot were still too swollen to get them on, so I went barefoot.

As I stepped out of the truck and into the water, I slipped and skidded a few feet down the concrete ramp.  As anyone who has launched a boat knows, the concrete boat ramp is very gritty, to help vehicles with traction.  I didn’t think anything of it and I couldn’t feel anything wrong.  This stems from a long ago back injury and I haven’t really been able to feel my toes for many years.

Boat in the water, I jumped in and the engine fired up right away.  A very good sign after sitting unused for almost two years.  I drove the boat up to the cabin, reveling in the warm sunshine and the return to the water after missing last summer.  I had no idea the shape my foot was in.  It wasn’t hurting so I didn’t think about it.  I docked the boat, got out and walked across, the dock, across the beach and up the dirt path to the cabin.  All in bare feet.  This was driving, dirt and crud and bacteria, deep into my foot.

082 THE LONGEST WINTER

This has literally been the longest winter that I can recall.  It started getting cold in the last couple of days of November 2016 and has essentially remained cold right up to the writing of this article on Feb 6, 2017.  There has been lots of snow, not so much in overall accumulation, but more in the number of snow days.  Up until yesterday there had been 8 snow events overall and it has started snowing again today.

FIRST SNOW IN DECEMBER

FIRST FOOTPRINT IN SNOW

 Previous snow days in December produced a couple of inches of snow at best, at least out here in Maple Ridge.  Vancouver got considerably more, which is unusual.  Usually Vancouver will get a dusting of snow, while the valley gets the big dump.

This past weekend though, it started snowing at 8:30 AM on Friday morning and kept snowing all day and all night.  It continued to snow most of Saturday and finally stopped in the afternoon.  It did snow some more on Saturday night and into Sunday morning, but stopped for several hours before starting up again Sunday night. 

SIGNS OF SPRING IN JANUARY?

The snow stopped Monday morning after I dropped Renee off at the Westcoast Express.  It remained snow free and the sun even came out during our morning walk.  It started again about 2:30 PM and is now snowing heavily again.  So far, we have a measured 14 inches of snow at my place and it is building quickly.

This is the longest winter, I am sure, but it is by no means the biggest snowfall.  Way back in 1996, December 29 (My Dad’s birthday), it started snowing heavily and kept right on going.  It produced a record amount of snow over a couple of days, almost 32 inches.  I was supposed to be working, but had been badly injured in a car accident at work on December 6.

THE MIGHTY FRASER RIVER FROZEN

It was a blessing that I couldn’t work though, as the city was essentially shut down.  A Canucks game was cancelled, buses couldn’t move, other traffic was snarled.  I couldn’t really enjoy it because of a wicked concussion, although I did have my kids for a week during that time and we were able to trek over to the park so they could slide down the same hill that I did as a kid.

Here is a link to the great snowmaggedon story of 1996:

http://globalnews.ca/news/3146344/a-look-back-1996-snow-storm-of-the-century-hits-vancouver-and-victoria/

It has been an amazing winter.  It’s like living on the prairies, like my Mom.  We have had extreme cold days -12C (extreme for our area), there has been Chinook type weather were the temperature climbed above freezing and allowing it to rain and melt all the snow, only to have the cold return a few days later.

BARBECUING IN THE SNOW IN FEBRUARY

It has played hell with the electric bill as I have only electric baseboard heating.  I thought the $300 bill during the summer was bad because of the air conditioning, but the $450 bill put that one to shame.  It also convinced me to switch to a monthly equalization plan so now I pay a manageable $136 per month.

The strata corporation has been good about salting, sanding and even plowing our roads when needed.  The first night though was a bit of a rude awakening when the snow plow came through at 1:30 AM and woke us from a dead sleep.  It’s funny though, I talked to numerous neighbours and nobody else heard him.

BUILDUP ON TABLE

TOBY THE SNOWDOG

 It seems we are responsible for shoveling our own driveways, but it’s such a short one it doesn’t really matter.  Add in the fact that I don’t even use the driveway because I still can’t get the truck in the garage because of boxes from the move.  Imagine my surprise though when after being out, we came home and one of my wonderful neighbours had taken it upon themselves to shovel my driveway for me.  I have no idea who did it, but it was greatly appreciated.

SURPRISE, SHOVELED DRIVEWAY

 Anyway, I write this because truly one of my decision points for moving out here was because it gets more snow than Vancouver.  I certainly have not been disappointed.  I do love the snow, have no problem driving in it and I just think it makes everything look so beautiful.  So as the song says, “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow”.