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| I couldn't find a vintage photo of the UCSD hospital, so this is the UCSD library. It's moderately famous because of the wow-factor in the design. It was on either "Get Smart" or "Mission Impossible" as headquarters of evil spies, etc. It was a staple in "Simon and Simon," too. |
Part 4 ended with my surgery scheduled for the last Friday of the UCSD Fall Quarter. I had to take my chemistry final early because it was also scheduled on that day. I vaguely remember checking into the hospital on Thursday.
I do remember Thursday afternoon.
I was taken down to the bowels of the hospital. Once there, a technician explained that I was going to have a myelogram. That was the state-of-the-art diagnostic procedure for spinal cord problems.
I knelt down on a table and bent over a big foam pad with my elbows on the table. Three straps were tightened around my legs, upper back, and arms. The technician placed a large-bore needle into my lower back. He explained he was removing the syringe part from the needle. Then he inserted a second needle into the first needle and injected fluorescent dye into my spinal cord.
Without warning, the table began to rotate and rock up and down. I found out later that was to get the dye spread throughout my back. The dye stained disk material.
Imagine the material labeled "Herniated disc" in the picture below spread out in splotch about the size of a bread plate.
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| An Aside: The disks between the vertebrae in your back are about the consistency of a baggie filled with smooth peanut butter. During the night, as you are sleeping, the disks plump up since gravity isn’t pushing your vertebrae closer to each other like it does when you are upright. For that reason, measuring your height in the morning might show you as much as 0.5” taller than the same measurement in the late afternoon. |
While the table was rocking and rolling, a fluoroscope was showing the dye moving around. The fluoroscope was off to the side. I couldn’t see it.
“Oh, my God!” were the first words I heard from the technician after he’d powered up the fluoroscope. Those are not words you want to hear while in the hospital for any reason.
Immediately following the exclamation, the technician sprinted out the door of the room. I’m still hanging by the straps.
The technician returned with a partner. I could hear them talking about centimeters. I managed to get the technician’s attention.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“On, nothing really. Well, that’s not quite true.” There was a pause, and then he rotated the bed so I could see part of the fluoroscope screen. What I saw was the new guy holding a ruler against the screen.
“See the brightly lit area?” The technician asked.
“Uh, huh.”
“That’s all material that used to be inside of the disk between your L-5 vertebrae and your sacrum. When your disk ruptured, this stuff went everywhere. We’re measuring because it’s the biggest spread we’ve ever had on the fluoroscope. How’d you rupture it?”
I briefly related the events at Cal Lutheran.
“That would do it,” was his assessment.
As they were preparing to send me back to my room he showed me where he’d attached a piece of adhesive tape to the side of the fluoroscope screen. The date, two sets of initials, and a number were written on the tape in felt marker.
“This stays on the machine until a bigger spread is documented,” he said as I was wheeled out of the room.
I have no idea how long I held the record. But, a record is a record!
About 6:00 Friday morning, a nurse came into my room and injected me with a muscle relaxer.
“I normally inject this into your hip, but you’ve got pretty big arms,” she said before she gave me the shot in my arm.
I was wheeled down into the pre-surgical waiting area.
Important to know: Most preloaded “shots” are dosed for a 70Kg patient. 70Kg is about 154 pounds. If you’re bigger than 70Kg, the dose is a bit light. If you’re smaller than 70KG, the dose is a little high. Of course, if you’re too far from the 70Kg mark in either direction, they usually make a custom dose. I don’t know why they didn’t customize my dose. I weighed over 93Kg at the time of the surgery. This morning I weighed 94.3Kg, a bit over 2-pounds more. Not too bad after 50 years.
As I lay in the semi-darkness, a couple members of the surgical team were in the early stages of preparation for my surgery. I could overhear them although I know they had not intended on having an audience.
“What time’d you leave the party last night?”
“I don’t know exactly. Probably around 2:00 or 2:30. You?”
“After that.”
“What about the doctor?”
“He was still there when I left.”
At that point, I raised myself up on one elbow and looked in the general direction of the nurses. One of them caught the movement.
“Oh, my. We have a visitor,” he said.
“You must be our patient,” said the other as a mask was placed over my nose and mouth. “Just breathe naturally and count backward from 100.”
I never found out what time the doctor ended up leaving the party.
You’ll need your snow gear for the next segment.
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