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Michael Vogel

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26 minutes ago, bitflipper said:

As a fellow four-timer, I can tell you that life gets better quickly once you unclog that lifetime's worth of kielbasas and big macs. Just remember to eat your veggies and you'll be feeling 20 years younger in a few weeks.

 

Well I’ll be. The flipper of bits has left some bits for me. Cheers mate. It seems like a life time since our paths last crossed. Thanks for the sage advice. 

Now I know you appreciate a yarn so I’ll share my hospital discharge experience with you all. 

 

 

I just couldn't sleep last night so when I got an email from a mate in the UK, Steve, I told him about my discharge from the hospital earlier that day. 

 

“Hi Steve,

Well this is night 2 at home with a degree of insomnia which is a relief from the sheer panic I felt last night my first night at home  

I arrived home at about 5pm at the end of a long day’s hospital discharge process which began with one of the surgical team waking me up at 7am telling me I was being discharged. 

I had made no prior arrangements, expecting some sort of plan being made with me about when and how I would go home.

I hurriedly called my son-in-law who came straight down to get me. He’d only finished work that morning at 7am and left home at about 8am to cover the 180 kilometres from home to the hospital. He made great time and was in the city by 10:30 to get me. 

Great, I’m going home, but it took another 4 hours for the hospital machinery to grind inexorably to letting go it’s grip on me. By this time of the day following multiple sessions of walking around the ward called “exercise” I was thoroughly exhausted. This was after all only day 6 following a quadruple bypass on an obese 65 year old. 

Finally the moment came and the Dr. pronounced that my chest X-ray from 2 hours earlier showed I was fit for discharge. 

 

Now, because of the surgery I have quite a bit of fluid on board with legs that look like fattened bbq sausages ready to explode on the hot plate dousing anyone nearby with super hot fat. Of course to combat this fluid accumulation, diuretics are prescribed. Pills that make you go wee. First of many intended and noted puns. 

 

Not such a big deal in a hospital where a WC is always close by, but on a traffic laden peak hour ride through a forest of roadworks I assure you Steve, the dearth of bathroom facilities becomes apparent after about 20 minutes into the drive home. It’s at this point I make my first calm plea to Brad, my son-in-law, “any time you see a chance for me to go pee, I’d really appreciate if you could stop. Twenty more minutes passed (pun intended) and I was starting to lament not having asked Brad to bring The Bottle (I have one at home) so I could relive myself in the car. Maybe a plastic bag in the car. No such luck. Of course our conversation became more focused on my immediate needs as those needs became more immediate with every passing second. Again pun intended. 

 

By this time I was resigned to the inevitable. I would wet myself in the most ignominious of fashions not only now, this time, but in all likelihood, several times more before we got home. Once I had wet myself, the opportunity to later use a public rest room was forbidden me. How could I leave my wee soaked seat and walk through a crowded McDonald’s. 

 

But, the human bladder is like this tale, able to stretch to extraordinary capacity and by the grace of God, we (again pun intended) did arrive at a McDonald’s before any embarrassing leakage had taken place. So I open the car door gingerly, being very careful to not shear the stainless steel wires holding my sternum together and make my way on the longest single walk I had taken in the last 2 weeks and then I saw the sign. Shining like a beacon, heralding the room where I could empty what must by now be the largest bladder in the universe. What, what horror has conspired to hurt me further. My shining beacon heralded no toilet but a shower room. 

 

I had yet to completely retrace my steps before finding my target. 

 

I was thoroughly spent, legs, weak at the knees, my abdomen cramped and the searing burning pain in my lungs as I gasped for every breath reminded me that I would get fit if it killed me. 

 

An hour later, just 30 minutes from home would see me have to repeat this whole adventure for the second but thankfully last time. My state of physical exhaustion was much more complete this time and I consider myself lucky because I did manage to get back to the car without collapsing completely. My only regret being that when my son-in-law offered to help me into Maccas I should have just thrown myself on him and let him carry me in. 

The remaining 30 minute drive home gave some more time to question the Dr’s wisdom in using a chest X-ray as the final metric on which to base my discharge (and yes pun intended again). Would an examination of my bladder been a more appropriate diagnostic tool.

 

Edited by MUDGEL
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Yep hospital discharges. We could get together and write essays on experiences we all have had.  I had exploratory surgery as they say. Used small hernia as reason to go in. All test showed that I didn't have an appendicitis. My nurse wife thought otherwise.  So long story short my wife was right and I did have what they call a chronic appendicitis and instead of rupturing it scarred over multiple times. I was having lower abdominal pain for over a year. Anyway the surgery and the recovery were shorter then my discharge from the hospital😮  They did my surgery in the afternoon and let me decide if I wanted to go home. I wanted to get out of the hospital and it took over 4 hours to get me discharged. 

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7 hours ago, bitflipper said:

As a fellow four-timer, I can tell you that life gets better quickly once you unclog that lifetime's worth of kielbasas and big macs. Just remember to eat your veggies and you'll be feeling 20 years younger in a few weeks.

 

Damn Dave!  Has Yes called you to play for them yet??? 

 

Your real hair looks much better than my fake-for-Halloween costume in my avatar!

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7 hours ago, MUDGEL said:

But, the human bladder is like this tale, able to stretch to extraordinary capacity

 

Well, how much was it?

 

 

 

 

LOL!!

 

I have to drink at least 64oz of water a day. I also drink lots of coffee (it's a diuretic). I travel a lot so I am on the road a lot. Reading your tale I am feeling every second you had to wait!! I have some methods I have learned to cope with this if you want some hints!! : )

Edited by Grem
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64oz?  That's it?  Must be nice!  You're supposed to drink half your body weight in ounces so that used to be over a gallon for me...  Plus, during Winter, I like two big mugs of coffee every day so I have to overcome that too!  Oh well...

 

With all that it probably sounds like I could get into trouble when I get stuck in the ridiculous traffic around here, but I keep a "trucker's helper" in the car along with a towel.  A quick pull-over to the side and I'm soon back into the traffic! 😀

Edited by craigb
Why do we have to use Reason for editing on a Cakewalk forum???
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18 hours ago, Grem said:

I thought that was a photoshopped pic!! Or a very old pic!! LOL!!

Sadly, it's not that old a picture. Less than 5 years, IIRC. I say "sadly" because in those short intervening years my hair has taken on the same hue as my beard and the small bald spot you can't see in the photo has expanded greatly. My daughter commented that nothing looks dumber than a balding guy with long hair (or worse, a pony tail, which I was often guilty of). So I cut it all off. 

RE Craig's Yes/Halloween comment: I actually still have a couple Wakeman-esque wizard robes and dragon kimonos in the closet from my glam-rock days. Might have to have those dry cleaned before Halloween, the only appropriate time to actually don them. I'd need a wig, however, to complete the image.

I can relate to the hospital discharge story, as can we all. My theory is that they intentionally drag the process out in order to bill an extra day's stay. It's happened that way every time I've been in hospital: in the morning they inform me that I'll be released, but it doesn't actually happen until afternoon. In the meantime they've brought me a fresh $100 toothbrush and a $50 sandwich. Yes, I realize that's just here in the U.S. - nobody in Australia, the UK, Canada or the civilized world in general has ever seen a bill for a $20 plastic cup.

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Sadly I  already started the diet in hospital and just carried it over once home. Same for the exercise. 

To be fair though I have found an iDiet and an iTread app from Apple (you know the fruit company) and am thinking of changing to them. 

What think Ye men and women of wisdom?

Edited by MUDGEL
Correct spelling of diet
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2 hours ago, MUDGEL said:

Sadly I  already started the dirt in hospital and just carried it over once home. Same for the exercise. 

To be fair though I have found an iDiet and an iTread app from Apple (you know the fruit company) and am thinking of changing to them. 

What think Ye men and women of wisdom?

If it helps to keep you motivated go for it.

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