MEDICAL ISSUES
It seems I do have a few followers, as revealed by Statcounter:
Regarding my hip replacement: It has been a piece of cake, as they say. And the latest news is I may not have my knee replaced after all! According to the latest MRI, everything that needs to be “there” is still there in my knee. The issues I have walking are due to muscle tone (and lack of it). So, I have been sent for “aggressive” Physical Therapy, and the therapist is sure she can eventually get me to walk again. We’ll see!
MEDICAL ISSUES
Early in 1987, the week before Easter, I paid a visit to my Stepmother. She was still mourning the loss of her husband; I was mourning the loss of my “lover”. I thought we could commiserate. However, I began feeling ill, and cut the visit short. My Doctor (for reasons only he knew) took a urine specimen and sent me to bed. Two days later my temperature was up to 104º, and I was feeling really, really bad! When I told the Doc the next day my temperature was still rising, he told me to check myself into the ER. I went by taxi, and after the check-in, I was seated in a wheel-chair to await triage.
Time passed, but eventually a nurse came by and stuck one of those new-fangled digital thermometers into my mouth. When it beeped, she departed and brought in another one and stuck IT into my mouth. When it, too, read 107º, she pushed the button: Code Blue! Within the next few minutes I was whisked up to an empty room and bed, and quickly surrounded with bags of ice. They began trying to insert an IV, but I was so dehydrated the nurse had a bad time and I was poked several times before a vein could be found. Sleeping among bags of ice reminded me of a few tricks!
Meanwhile, my Doctor had phoned in the results of his tests on my urine; I had a blood infection (septicemia) and the infectious agent (whatever it was) was susceptible to a particular anti-biotic, which they began feeding me through the IV. Within a couple of days, my temperature returned to normal and I was released with a prescription for Cipro. A temperature excursion like I had does “unwire” a few thing in the brain, and I felt rather strange for a week or so, but eventually got back to my normal routine.
Thus began a series of medical interventions of various forms. I got so that I could tell when the “bug” had gotten into my bloodstream again and I could head off calamity by chomping down more Cipro. The consensus was the bug was lodged in my prostate, which sent my PSA test results sky-rocketing. This required several uncomfortable biopsy procedures to be sure I did not have prostate cancer. Eventually, prostatitis required that my prostate should be removed: two weeks in hospital (the first week on massive IV drips of several antibiotics: they wanted a sterile field when they operated; then the operation; then another week of antibiotic drips) and a short recovery. Not much after that had been finalized, I began peeing blood. This turned out to be polyps in my bladder. Altogether, I had six operations to remove these, eventually successfully, although I go to this day twice a year so my urologist can have a look inside (though a cystoscope inserted like catheter is—OUCH)!
Through all this, from 1987 to 1994, I remained employed and got many things done to my house. I basically gave up sex, except for self abuse (why in the world do people use that term? “abuse” is nothing like it). My last “fling” lasted only three weeks, when I met a young fellow whose partner had passed away. I was impressed with the fact he’d stayed with his “significant other” for five years. But it quickly devolved that his previous paramour had lavished money and attention on him, and had required nothing whatever in return. When I made it clear I expected at least respect, and got none, I sent him packing.
Then, in 1994, I decided to go back to Ecuador and see what had become of the Guayaquil & Quito railroad. This time I took along a good camera, so the next 5 or 6 pages of photos will be devoted to that wonderful —and almost gone—railroad. Stay with me…
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