Second Mix Podcast Season 2 Episode 068
Get the full transcript here:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1678510/10702015
[00:00:00] Hello listeners old and new. , I have to come to you with an apology. I was going to start season two of this podcast in February, but my life took a detour from everything. When I spent 25 days in the hospital during all of February and March, I've told the story so many times, I think I can give you a brief overview of what happened to me.
And then I'll tell you what I got out of the experience, all of this, in 5. 4 3, 2, 1
[00:01:00]
On February 6th, 2022. I went into the emergency room for an appendectomy. I was admitted overnight and had surgery the next morning. The, uh, the day after I had the surgery, I was released the surgery seemingly having been flawless.
Two days later, I went back in the emergency room with a fever of 104 to 106 degrees, depending on that thermometer that I used. And after some checking, we were told that I had an infection from the surgery. I don't remember a whole lot of what happened next, but they gave me an antibiotic for the infection called Zosyn to which I had an allergic reaction.
I turned yellow, my liver dumped all of this. Billy Rubin it's called Billy Rubin into my bloodstream and they put in a PICC line in my arm. [00:02:00] Which is an IV that goes down to just above your heart and fed meets through that line. For 10 days, I did not eat food. I had ice chips and I got my nutrition, uh, all the nutrients and everything from this bag, uh, this IV.
And, uh, so I was in there for about 10 days. And after going home, this was the second time I did. Okay. For about a week I was on antibiotic pills and one day I got so nauseous that I couldn't take my antibiotics. So I went back into the ER to make sure everything was okay. And my white blood count showed that I was still battling an infection.
And so that was another week in the hospital though, this time I was a lot more aware and I did much better, although it also meant that I was bored a lot of the times, the previous time. I, I wasn't as aware as I could've been, there was only a couple of hours a day that I was awake and wondering, and thinking and all of that.
. I wanted to be active, but I was chained to my V and this new tube [00:03:00] sticking out of my stomach to drain the infected blood from around my bladder and intestines. So this time when I went home, they gave me another PICC line so that I could self-inject my antibiotics.
Let me see if I can grab that.
if you're watching the video of this, you're going to see that I'm holding up. This is what I had to do. This is the syringe. So this is a, uh, it's not, I guess, not on the bigger side, but it's a 20 milliliter syringe. Uh, And I had to, I had a little tube coming out and I had to hook this up to the tube and inject over three to five.
All of this stuff in my system, I did not like that. It felt like enough had gone wrong already. So putting my medical health into my hands as if I was giving myself surgery or something, I dunno. I just didn't like it. , I did get used to it, so it wasn't that big a deal, um, toward the end, but didn't like, I [00:04:00] D I didn't care for it, but from start to finish, I had.
I kept going back into the hospital because I had 12 CT scans and I had my 13th planned. I went back into the hospital for a fourth time, uh, in a couple weeks. 'cause I wasn't feeling well. And I just wanted to make sure that I was okay. And when I went in, they said it must be heartburn or something. They said I was doing well.
And they actually pulled the tube out of my stomach, took out my PICC line, sent me home. So I've had a few follow-up appointments, but on the whole things have been really well. Uh, this took up all of February, most of March. And here it is. What I got from the experience. . Number one, if you don't have your health, it's hard to care about much of anything. I didn't feel good. I was uncertain about what my future was going to be like. And apart from caring about my family, I didn't care much about anything.
I wasn't interested in TV or in personal development books or, or any of my other books on history, philosophy, marketing, business, behavioral economics. I truly just didn't care. I didn't want [00:05:00] video games, social media, social media music. I didn't want to learn anything. I really just slept when I could and stared at the ceiling when I couldn't sleep for probably 15 solid days, I felt like I should care
I felt like I should try to care. I just didn't have the energy or at least that was an excuse that I just didn't have the energy to care about anything. And this gave me an entirely new insight. I have been privileged to be fairly healthy. All of my 49 years. So far, barring this particular hospitalization.
I had preconceived notions about what it would be like to be sick.
