Taking Inventory

I think that any month that includes such phrases as "whooping cough," "overnight hospital stay for observation," "CAT scan," "head gash" and "unconsciousness" deserves a bit of quiet reflection once all the dust and blood have settled. So as we turn a page into November, and because so many of you have asked (thank you), let me give you an accounting of my current condition.

The vicious, body-shaking cough that led to all this foolishness is all but gone. And after a full week of uncontrollable hacking, I can't begin to tell you how welcome the sounds of silence are. The combination of cough medicine with codeine, a prescription cough drug called benzonatate and antibiotics, along with much rest and the natural passage of time, seemed to do the trick. (Antibiotics came into play because doctors at St. Mary's Hospital in Decatur elected to treat my illness as if it was whooping cough even though it probably wasn't, because the symptoms were so similar.)

The lump over my right eye, the result of my passing out in the bathroom at 5 a.m. last Wednesday and banging my head against the sink (I guess, since I was momentarily unconscious; someone could have snuck in the toilet and beat me upside the head with a socket wrench for all I know), has reduced to a swollen ridge behind the gash where I hit the sink, sort of like an eyebrow in 3-D. The cut was fastened at the hospital with super glue instead of stitches; the glue is starting to wear away now and there's an overwhelming urge to rip it away and see how well the wound has healed, but if I do I know there's a good chance my little blood geyser may erupt again.

         Me in St. Mary's Hospital, Decatur, IL, 10-28-09

My eyeball itself is still extremely red and bloodshot, very sensitive to light, and my right eyelid is swollen. I am astonished at how much resulting damage occurred after an injury above my eye. I shudder to think what would have happened if the blow had struck my eye directly.

I really haven't had much time to think about my kidneys the last couple of weeks, which in some ways may be a good thing, although I continued to take all my medications every day as well as the anti-cough prescriptions.

I still get very brief flashes of the body surges I felt just prior to my blackout spells (which I think may have been caused by a negative drug interaction on top of the coughing attacks), so I'm trying very hard to keep all my body functions under control. It's like I'm running system checks every few minutes. "Head OK? Lungs all right? Eyes? How you doin?'"

And before I forget, the arrival of November means that the HOUR Detroit magazine article I wrote in October regarding my kidney adventures is now available online in its complete version. So if you didn't have the opportunity to read the last half of the piece or were too frugal to buy a newsstand copy of the magazine, you can read the entire story at  HOUR Detroit_Best Foot Forward.

My Halloween Horror

Imagine this: You wake up in the middle of the night, as you do far too many nights, to go to the bathroom. One second you're sitting on the can, thinking about nothing in particular. You begin to cough.

The next thing you know, you're on your hands and knees on the bathroom floor, surrounded by blood. There's blood on your clothes, blood running off your hands and down your arms, blood dripping off your chin. What the blazes is going on here? you think. Suddenly, you realize the blood you're immersed in is yours!

You clamber to your feet, look in the bathroom mirror and discover there's a huge gash above your right eye – and you have no idea how it got there!

Sounds like the beginning of some hackneyed Halloween fiction, right? Well, it actually became fact for me in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, necessitating an overnight stay for observation in St. Mary's Hospital in Decatur, Ill.

What we now believe happened is, I blacked out while seated on the toilet, pitched forward and bounced my head off the corner of the bathroom sink – missing my right eye by no more than an inch – then came to on the floor. For someone who's never passed out before in his life, and coming on the heels of Saturday's terrifying out-of-body experience (see "Death," Oct. 26), I was quite frankly scared a-plenty.

                     Me in St. Mary's Hospital, Decatur, Ill.

    The offending gash – superglued, not stitched! Ain't science sumthin'?

Of course, nothing similar occurred Tuesday night in the hospital. Karen, who spent the night with me, watched over me like a loving mother hen and insisted on walking me to the restroom anytime I had to go, and besides, you know whatever's wrong with you instantly feels better when the doctor's around. Except for the swollen right eye (that's something to see, isn't it?), a stiff neck and bruised knees, I feel pretty fine, everything considered.

Here's the best thinking now about why this happened: I've had a horrible cough for more than a week, but when I begin coughing uncontrollably (which happened in the bathroom Tuesday) the oxygen literally cuts off to my brain for a moment and causes me to black out. Or, the medication prescribed to help ease my coughing spells, Benzonatate, has dizziness as one of its possible side effects. Or a combination of the two. The doctors don't believe I have whooping cough (which would make me feel about 95 years old), but they have decided to treat my condition as if it is, because my symptoms are similar.

Whatever, as I check out of St. Mary's today, I can't help but think about how much differently this incident might have played out if I still lived alone, and to be soooo grateful for my new family: a wife who cares passionately, a father-in-law willing to be awakened from a sound sleep at 5 a.m. to drive to the hospital, and a mother-in-law willing to get on her hands and knees and clean up the bloody bathroom after we departed.

My mother-in-law, Linda, said yesterday, "Things like this are the reason we are supposed to be living together." I think she's very wise.