One thing I’m not too happy about aging is that eventually parts of our body wear out or stop working in tip top shape. Sometimes I wonder whether it is the wear and tear that causes aging, or does aging cause degeneration. The following article is interesting.
Wear and Tear
September 2006. By Richard Twyman
Cells and the biology of ageing
Can clues to how and why we age be found by looking at what happens when our cells wear out?
It doesn't matter how careful we are with our bodies, our cells are subject to constant wear and tear. The simple act of eating a sandwich exposes millions of cells to physical damage, noxious chemicals and invading pathogens. Continued at http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTX033819.html
So speaking about “wear and tear”, my good friend Lucia (whom you hopefully already know, based on the rest of my blogs) was hospitalized in July.
We’ve been very prudent about making sure we have regular tests, i.e. Mammograms, Colonoscopies, etc, etc. No one wants to get sick. Unfortunately our genes control the possibilities of some contracting certain diseases, cancers, immune diseases, as well as diseases of the heart and vascular system, bones and joints, and more.
A few years ago, through a colonoscopy, Lucia found out she had Diverticulosis. These are small pockets that appear in your colon, almost like an inverted polyp. They say you shouldn’t eat food with seeds, such as strawberries and other hard to digest food items because they can get lodged inside these pockets and could get infected. The condition is called Diverticulitis. She did try to keep that in mind; however, she had a weakness for pop corn. She had a hard time watching a movie without it; it just went hand in hand.
Over the past several years, she would get bouts of abdominal pain, but not often, and if it progressed her doctor, knowing her condition, would usually prescribe industrial strength antibiotics like Flagyl and Cipro. It would disappear.
Her last Colonoscopy was a year ago, and everything looked good except for these diverticuli: nothing new.
In July, we went to watch “Ratatouille” …we like Pixar films. It comes from working at Autodesk and the understanding of what creativity, talent and technical skills it takes to create 3D animation. She had pop corn.
A few days later she started getting the pains. She called the doctor and she was prescribed the usual regimen. This time, the pain was not going away after more than a week of antibiotics and she had started a fever. On July 19th, she went to the emergency room of Kaiser Permanente in Oakland. She was diagnosed with a fairly large abscess in the lower part of her colon.
They performed a radiological procedure of draining it externally, without surgery. They decided that it was best to do this because if they performed a surgical procedure they would have to have her use a colostomy bag. So she was in the hospital for 5 days being treated intravenously with more antibiotics. She left the hospital with the drain still in her abdomen and after a few days it was removed.
She had some days that she felt okay; in fact she came to my birthday Luau. Although she felt good some times, she just never quite felt 100% well. In fact she felt awful most of the time. She was still getting abdominal cramps, she wasn’t able to hold her food down, and she was nauseous and had continued temperature of 99.1-8, slight but still worrisome.
Lucia and I - The Birthday Luau
The surgeon had suggested that when she got better she should have that part of the colon removed. Lucia thought she was going to be able to wait, but since she wasn’t getting better she worked with her doctor to schedule her surgery sooner than later. So it was scheduled for August 24th.
Mind you, Lucia rarely gets sick and is pretty strong. This was not easy for her all the way around. It was scary, because as we know things could go wrong. She had a rational fear of the unknown.
So I took a week off from work to be with her. She went to the surgery room at 8:15 and by 11:30 her doctor called and said that everything went fine. He was coming down to the lobby to further explain in detail what he did.
He said that the sigmoid (lower part of the bowel) was in awful shape. The diverticuli was so thick in one area that he said it was as hard as a rock and couldn’t cut through it with scissors. He also said that she had a larger abscess and a microscopic fistula. A fistula is an abnormal connection or passageway between two epithelium-lined organs or vessels that normally do not connect. It is a very serious and painful disorder. In her case it was her colon and her bladder. He had to cut about 12 inches of her colon.
She had 19 staples and a very clean job I must say. Dr. Dixon, the colon surgery specialist and his team are to be commended. In fact, Kaiser is to be commended! Her stay was managed very extremely professionally by the nursing team. She had an international crew. Michelle was from Jamaica, Alena was from Belarus, one night nurse was from Holland, May and a few others were from the Philippines, and her last nurse was from Nairobi, but unfortunately I can’t remember his name. Michelle and Alena spent the most time with her. I personally want to thank them for treating Lucia so well. Michelle had a wonderful sense of humor!
She stayed in the hospital from Friday to Friday, a bit longer than expected. By Sunday she was walking, by Tuesday they removed her morphine drip, by Wednesday they removed her intravenous hydration. By Thursday she was eating regular food! It took some time for her to get used to eating solid foods again. So, she was almost ready to leave, but she couldn’t leave yet; not until some bodily functions came back to life. By Wednesday night she was passing gas but not until Friday morning did she succeed with the much awaited “drop in the bucket.”
So she was home by 10:30 on Friday. Hurrah! Besides the removal of the staples, there was one dangling piece of business that dampened the celebration a little bit. Because of the business of the Fistula, Dr. Dixon wanted her to keep the catheter for 10 days. He wanted to make sure that there was no stress on the bladder for as long as possible to make sure that there was no leakage from the colon into the bladder.
This was giving Lucia so much discomfort. She called on all her professional friends in the medical field and after much arm twisting and bribery she got her wish and it was removed on Monday, Labor Day. She emailed Dr. Dixon to let him know. On Thursday the staples come out.
One last thing about Kaiser: I was pleasantly surprised at how well they run their business. Lucia can email her doctors and they respond! She has access to all her doctors and information about her appointments, etc. on line. The customer service at the hospital is superb. So different from the Kaiser I once was so skeptical about. Now I can say this, and I couldn’t help but be bothered by this bug in my head before Lucia’s surgery.
In the early 80s I worked for a Market Research firm in San Rafael and one of their clients was Kaiser. I guess a study was initiated because a patient bled to death in the operating table from a simple hemorrhoid removal. I think this happened in Kaiser Vallejo and they were being sued. I know it was an irrational fear because things do happen and I just couldn’t help that this nugget of information surfaced in my memory.
Anyway all the worries are behind us now. Lucia is well. Thank heavens!
She needs about six weeks to heal and she’ll be good as new. (Her colon anyway) She has no more diverticuli, her colon is clean and healthy and she can eat ANYTHING! She needs to make sure she has sufficient amount of fiber in her diet and drink a lot of water. Dr. Dixon doubts that popcorn had anything to do with what caused her colon to get diseased!
Finito
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