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Re: Healing energy for Lightning Rod

Posted: May 30th, 2011, 12:54 pm
by mistertroll
Well, our boy is back at the hospital this morning with breathing problems. I left a message for his sister to call me with details when she gets home. She forgot to take the cell phone with her when she got the distress call, so I'm having to get all my information by relay. She went to his house last night around 10:30, his stubborn ass wouldn't go to the hospital 'til 7:30 this morning.

More details as they come rollin' in...

Re: Healing energy for Lightning Rod

Posted: May 30th, 2011, 1:44 pm
by Steve Plonk
Mistertroll, Sorry to hear that LRod is back in the hospital... :( Hope he knits up from that lung infection soon.

Re: Healing energy for Lightning Rod

Posted: May 30th, 2011, 1:51 pm
by Doreen Peri
Troll... I'm so sorry to hear this. :( Sighh... please keep us updated. Thanks for the report....

Re: Healing energy for Lightning Rod

Posted: May 30th, 2011, 2:11 pm
by Doreen Peri
Here's what he wrote on FB Saturday night. I just now saw it.... Thought I'd share it here.
Lightning Rod's Adam's Apple

As a child, one of the first things that I noticed about my father was his Adam's Apple. He had a very prominent one. I wasn't sure what it did except bob up and down when he spoke or swallowed, but I found it entertaining.

As I became a young man myself, my Adam's Apple also grew prominent. Still, I had no clue as to its purpose other than the entertainment of watching it bob up and down as I spoke or swallowed. It was a mystery organ to me.

Now, I can't find my Adam's Apple. It's been gone since the operation. Nobody is talking about where it is. Maybe Eve has stolen it back. At any rate, I feel like I have been Mirandized. I have the right to remain silent. Or, in other words, the Universe has told me to shut-up.

For those of you who don't know, a laryngectomy is when they cut out your voice box. I assume they do it with knives or scalpels or small saws suitable for cutting cartilege and gristle. I must tell you that this thought is unsettling for a poet, who is, in the end a creature of the voice. For many years of my career as a poet, I rarely wrote things in print or writing because what defined poetry, to me, was its aural or oral or vocalized aspect... it was the SOUND of the words before their meanings or definitions.

So, it was troubling to this poet when the up-tight guys in the white smocks announced that they were going to remove my voice box. It struck a fear in me that I can only classify as biblical. The whole Adam and Eve thing complete with all references to Original Sin, etc. was invoked. A lesser poet than myself might have viewed it as cause for surrender, a reason to give up. It did, after all, leave me in a similar position as a soldier without a weapon or a carpenter without adz or chisel, a fisherman without a net, a golfer sans club, you get the idea.

I may be a large poet, but I'm a bigger fool, so today I must announce to you, my readers and listeners and fond enablers, that I have no intention of quitting. I'll still be a poet and you will still know it. I'm a jockey who is used to riding with a handicap. But I want you all to know that I am still in the race. If anyone knows the whereabouts of my Adam's Apple I would still love to know its purpose other than to entertain us by bobbing up and down when I speak or swallow.

Love to all.

Re: Healing energy for Lightning Rod

Posted: May 30th, 2011, 2:28 pm
by judih
stubborn ass-ness can be a blessing.

let's keep our fingers crossed and our minds on positive energy

Re: Healing energy for Lightning Rod

Posted: May 30th, 2011, 9:12 pm
by tinkerjack
Thank you for keeping us posted.
I keep him in my best thoughts

Speaking of the negative energy— is he still smoking?

Re: Healing energy for Lightning Rod

Posted: May 30th, 2011, 9:16 pm
by tinkerjack
Thanks for posting that Doreen

Re: Healing energy for Lightning Rod

Posted: May 30th, 2011, 9:47 pm
by mistertroll
He's safely home again. They found a blockage in his windpipe, cleared it, and all's well.

Re: Healing energy for Lightning Rod

Posted: May 30th, 2011, 10:01 pm
by Doreen Peri
Good news! Thank you, Troll! :)

Re: Healing energy for Lightning Rod

Posted: May 30th, 2011, 10:28 pm
by Arcadia
good to know that you´re at home again l-rod!. Enjoyed reading your facebook post (it seems your humor is intact!): ok!, I´ll tell you if I see your "nuez de Adán" jumping in these lands ... :) . Take care of yourself, si? and have more than two numbers at hand in case you need help, think also in the friends near you, real-human nets are always the best! (we are also real but for some things most of us are factualy too far away...). No more advices for today, I guess it´s enough... :roll: :wink:
& gracias doreen & mr troll to keep us posted!!

Re: Healing energy for Lightning Rod

Posted: May 30th, 2011, 10:53 pm
by judih
flush and flow
on with the healing

Re: Healing energy for Lightning Rod

Posted: May 31st, 2011, 12:49 am
by Lightning Rod
Lrod luvs him some mouseymousnesses and truckums

--
This day has been a major turning point. Ever since the surgery I have been in a breath by breath struggle. It has been hugely exhausting. They kept telling me that I was healing satisfactorily and quickly etc. But I couldn't tell. It seemed as hard today as it was yesterday. I could never quite get a breath. Yesterday evening I took a turn for the worse. I was breathing with only great difficulty. I knew this wasn't going to work. Even the smallest exercise completely winded and wore me out. About MIdnight I simply hit the wall. If this was their idea of a successful outcome to the operation, then we were NOT on the same page. That's when I called my sister and made plans to go back to Emergency.

I really didn't have much hope. I knew I couldn't live this way though, struggling from breath to breath with panic in between. So this morning at 7 AM I appeared at Parkland Emergency again. My main objective, truly, was to brow-beat them into giving me heavier narcotics. It had gotten to the point where I couldn't even enjoy a good nod for fear of going to sleep and forgetting to do the very difficult and self-conscious breaths that had become necessary just to maintain consciousness. I was discouraged, to say the least.

Mercifully the nurse felt my plight and quickly rigged up an IV with a paltry one Mg. of Dilaudid. I was glad for it. After they did the obligatory X-ray and CAT scans, She asked me if I wanted some suction on my lungs. I said OK with a certain resignation because this procedure had not been helping for the past week. This nurse seemed to know even less about the procedure than most of the other ones, which may have been my salvation. First she put some moist oxygen on the STOMA. This is what they call the naked hole that is in my neck which leads directly into my air passage. It is still healing. Then she began suctioning and pulling with tweezers on the mucous globs and scabs that surrounded the opening. I was literally still gasping for every breath. Then suddenly she pulled a piece out. It was about as big as a nickel. Suddenly it was markedly easier to breathe, a breath of fresh air so to speak. Over the course of the next hour, she moistened and massaged and sucked and prodded and picked around on the opening. Toward the end of the process she showed me a huge grotesque Booger about the size of a wallnut. This had been totally invisible within the STOMA hole, obstructing it. Nobody had seen it before. She had grabbed it with a lucky stab with the tweezers. It was like taking the stopper out of a tub of water. Suddenly I could actually breathe. I mean a real breath, not some wheezing excuse for a breath. It's the first honest breath I had drawn since the operation. I couldn't believe the size of the damned snot-ball.

Anyway, this is to report to you that I feel confident that my recovery has taken a major turn for the good. I knew that something wasn't right, but nobody seemed to know just what it was. It was Hamlet's infamous 'Rub.'

May all your boogers be big ones.

Onward,
Lrod

Re: Healing energy for Lightning Rod

Posted: May 31st, 2011, 5:18 am
by judih
cool.
welcome to the great breath of fresh air

Re: Healing energy for Lightning Rod

Posted: May 31st, 2011, 8:05 am
by mtmynd
welcome, eLRod, back to the land of the breathing. did they/she explain to you how these boogers and blockages got there and what to do if they return?

Re: Healing energy for Lightning Rod

Posted: May 31st, 2011, 8:38 am
by sooZen
I am all for big "boogers" especially ones that people my life but obstructing ones can stay away! Breathing is essential and not having a breath or the ability to breathe is the biggest panic of all (I can only imagine!) I am so glad, joyous and downright happy that you can draw a clear and clean breath again.

Men are not so great at being patient or being a patient in my wide experience so I hope you let your sister (bless her!) and your compadres do their deed and care for you. We caretakers don't do the care taking without getting much in return you know, karmic-ly and otra wise. You tough guys can be a real pain in the butt so a word to the wise ass, let someone know pronto when help is needed and don't wait! It makes it a hell of a lot easier all the way around when throat boogers or anything else needs taking care of. Don't wait for the sun to rise, okay? I am so very glad that you are in good and caring hands and surrounded and encased in your humor, their humor and all this love. No better medicine.