I guess I should start by back tracking to the weekend. Last weekend I went for an overnight camping trip at a local lake, Stave lake for those who know the area. Now I've done this dozens of times, and to be honest I dont know exactly what this has to do with me ended up in the OR but I suspect it started there.
Sunday:
So Sunday night I come home, my room mates girlfriend calls me and invites me up to the Earls (Semi fancy restraunt) to hang out and have some drinks. (roomie is the bar manager there) So i hop in the shower, this is where the story begins. Im showering away, scrubbing, soaping, you know the usual shower stuff. I notice a whitehead, in my upper pubic region about 1 or 2 inches below my waist line. Like most people I know I think "oh Im going to pop that thing" Nothing happens, it retreats inwards and I think "great, and ingrown hair. This will be annoying"
Monday:
In the morning I notice my ingrown hair has got rather large. Tried again to give it a pop. Nothing so I leave it be. Tried it again in the afternoon, still nothing. By the end of the work day, its starting to bother me, nothing major just a slight annoying pain. Monday night it starts to hurt a little worse, and I notice that it looks like it might be infected. Great, now Im thinking this is getting a little more annoyoing.
Tuesday:
Wake up in the morning and now this thing has got much larger. Much more painful than it was the night before. Went to work, left early to see the my family doctor. Now I dont want this to turn into a healthcare debate, but Ive got a positive and negative about our healthcare system. But I'll get to that in a few minutes. So my doc asks whats wrong, I tell him " I think Ive got an infected ingrown hair" upon a quick inspection of my problem area he agrees and writes me a perscription for 5 days worth of antibiotics. Tells me if I can release the pressure to do so. So I get my pills and Im feeling alright, like Im now on top of my shit and taking care of buisness.
Wednesday:
I didnt go to work because this thing was causing me alot of pain when sitting down and standing up. Operating a forklift and running the shipping department entails alot of stand to sitting actions in a day. Mom says to try some sea salt baths to help with the infection. So I have one in the morning, one at night, then I hot press my wound trying to get the ingrown hair to head so that I can release the pressure. Long story short 2 1/2 hours of mind numbing pain nothing promising has come out. Now Im feeling sick to my stomach and feel like throwing up and passing out. Thank god my room mate and his girlfriend were her to keep and eye on me casue I felt like I just might die.
Thursday:
This thing is now hard as a fucking rock. Its sticking off my body 3 inches, its atleast 5 inches long and about another 3 inches wide. And seriously, rock solid. I keep taking my pills that the Doc gave me thinking it going to get better by Sunday like my doc said. Painful though, walking is becoming more of a challenge and theres a pain I can feel is from a crazy amount of pressure inside this little rock hard football shaped bump sitting right underneath my bellt. Still Im thinking just wait like the doctor said. Then a friend of mine comes over for dinner. I tell her about this thing and how painful it is and why Im not working. She trys to talk me into her popping it for me so I told her no fucking way, not after Wednesdays pain. So I figure if I show her how bad it is she'll loose any notion of that non-sense. She decides my doctor is wrong and I need to have it looked at. She calls another friend of ours whos moved out of town, but has had something similar. So we snap a picture email it off out of town. Together the two of them talk me into going to the Doctor again first thing in the morning. Im not happy about it but these are 2 of my oldest friends from highschool.
Friday (today):
I wake up with every intention of going to the doctor, even though this lump looks a little smaller and feels 10x better. Still I call the doctor and set up and appointment for 10:40 am. Get a call from my boss at 10, and he's flipping out on me becasue Im not there again. I calm him down the best I can and head tot he doc's office. Doctor takes a look at it, pokes it and instanltly starts writting me a note. He hands it to me and says " This has got all the info you will need, go the the hospital and give this the the nurse in the ER" Fuck, off I go to the least busy hospital in my region.
After a not so long wait a med student comes to see me. Has a look at whats going on, tells me what she thinks it is and then is off to get her doctor so make sure she is correct. This is where things started to move very fast. Doctor looks at it, pokes it and asks his student to put a needle in the lumo and extract whatever she could. So she goes and get all her neccasary tools of the trade. Just as shes about to stick the needle in the doctor come rushing into the room with a surgeon. The surgeon pokes my lump for about 10 seconds, looks at the med student and the nurse now in the room and says "prep him for the OR right now, I have to get in there" He husltes off and Im thinking " oh fuck what the hell is going on?"
So at this point Im surrounded by 3 people, one of them drawing blood, one of them putting an IV in my hand and the other getting me to sign consent forums for the operation Im about to have. Even though this was extreamly rushed the staff did an outstanding job anwsering my questions, and explaining their anwsers with great detail to me so that I had a very good understanding of what was going on. Whether the surgeons were entertaining me or not im not to sure, but their explination of the rush was that there was a knee surgeory that had been cancelled and they had 45 mins before their shift ended for the weekend so they wanted to get me in and fixed ASAP becasue this infection was very bad and as it turns out if it were to have spread to my testicles that they would most likely have to be amputated. So I like to think the rush was because they had time, but my beleif is that this operation was indeed an emergency and had to be fixed before I lost my boys.
Let me divert away from the chain of events for a moment to discuss "con" of Canadas healtcare system. My family doctor, who has been my only doctor for all 25 years of my life told me to take some pills and leave it be for 5 days. 3 days in I needed an operation. According to the surgeon those 2 more days would have likely meant MY TESTICLES WOULD HAVE BEEN REMOVED. This is because my family doctor is paid by the government a flat rate for every patient he sees in a day. Thus more paitents he see's the more money in his pocket. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to see where Im going with this one. Get them in, give them pills, get them out and make room for the next. Greed, no initave to actually diagnose my problem, just get me the fuck out of the door and collect the money. AGAIN, please I dont want this to turn into a debate of for or against universal healthcare, just FOOD FOR THOUGHT.
So, back to my day. Im very well informed of whats going on, whats to be done. Now get this, they still dont know what kind on infection it was, where it came from or how bad it could have been. All they knew was it needed immediate medical attention in a serious way. So they wheel me down the hallways, 2 very nice lady surgeons, we were making jokes and laughing the whole way there. Thats just me its the way I am no matter the situation I'll find something to laugh about. So they start me on the anesthetics and next thing you know everything is going grey on me. I know Im about to get knocked out. With my last moment of being awake I wave goodbye to everyone in the OR and say " see you guys in a few minutes, good luck" This feeling for some reason I rather enjoyed
So I wake up to the entire post op room standing around laughing at me. Aparantlly I had some very funny things to say when I was coming too. I wish I could remember them but I cant even remember the dream that I was having. Money, loving every minute of it. They tell me my moms waiting for me. Again, money. Who eles other than mom would I want to see. Maybe Duane but I didnt have time to tell him what was going on before I got to the hospital.
So now, Ive got 4-6 weeks of recovery ahead of me. They didnt close my wound because with it being so deep if they were to do that it would heal as a great big concave dent. Not preferable. If they were to have just released the pressure the infection would have come back because some of it had attatched itself to something inside of me. Basicly my body formed a sack to contain the infection and stop it from spreading. Picture an oil slick on the ocean as the infection, and the yellow floating thing that gets put out around it to contain it is what my body did. So they actually had to cut the infection off my oil spill container. They also filled the empty hole where the puss was with something, what exactly im not sure Ill find out tommorow, because luckey me I now have to have it unpacked, and repacked daily along with changing my bandage. All and all Im feeling very fortunate right now, even though ive got a rather unappealing semi long recovery ahead of me, but hell it would be worse.... alot worse.
And to deter away from the story to touch on the healthcare subject again. After all of this happened, I was discharged from the hospital and it didnt cost me a fucking dime! woo hoo!! thats the good. Again, lets not discuss that matter here. Simply food for thought
If youve read all of this, I thank you for your time and apologize that I am not able to give you back the 15 mins of your life you spent reading my rant of events
Cliffs:
Infected ingrown hair put me on the operating table just in time to save my balls from being amputated
Picture taken on Thursday night:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v675/drunk_sheep/DSCF1694.jpg
Sunday:
So Sunday night I come home, my room mates girlfriend calls me and invites me up to the Earls (Semi fancy restraunt) to hang out and have some drinks. (roomie is the bar manager there) So i hop in the shower, this is where the story begins. Im showering away, scrubbing, soaping, you know the usual shower stuff. I notice a whitehead, in my upper pubic region about 1 or 2 inches below my waist line. Like most people I know I think "oh Im going to pop that thing" Nothing happens, it retreats inwards and I think "great, and ingrown hair. This will be annoying"
Monday:
In the morning I notice my ingrown hair has got rather large. Tried again to give it a pop. Nothing so I leave it be. Tried it again in the afternoon, still nothing. By the end of the work day, its starting to bother me, nothing major just a slight annoying pain. Monday night it starts to hurt a little worse, and I notice that it looks like it might be infected. Great, now Im thinking this is getting a little more annoyoing.
Tuesday:
Wake up in the morning and now this thing has got much larger. Much more painful than it was the night before. Went to work, left early to see the my family doctor. Now I dont want this to turn into a healthcare debate, but Ive got a positive and negative about our healthcare system. But I'll get to that in a few minutes. So my doc asks whats wrong, I tell him " I think Ive got an infected ingrown hair" upon a quick inspection of my problem area he agrees and writes me a perscription for 5 days worth of antibiotics. Tells me if I can release the pressure to do so. So I get my pills and Im feeling alright, like Im now on top of my shit and taking care of buisness.
Wednesday:
I didnt go to work because this thing was causing me alot of pain when sitting down and standing up. Operating a forklift and running the shipping department entails alot of stand to sitting actions in a day. Mom says to try some sea salt baths to help with the infection. So I have one in the morning, one at night, then I hot press my wound trying to get the ingrown hair to head so that I can release the pressure. Long story short 2 1/2 hours of mind numbing pain nothing promising has come out. Now Im feeling sick to my stomach and feel like throwing up and passing out. Thank god my room mate and his girlfriend were her to keep and eye on me casue I felt like I just might die.
Thursday:
This thing is now hard as a fucking rock. Its sticking off my body 3 inches, its atleast 5 inches long and about another 3 inches wide. And seriously, rock solid. I keep taking my pills that the Doc gave me thinking it going to get better by Sunday like my doc said. Painful though, walking is becoming more of a challenge and theres a pain I can feel is from a crazy amount of pressure inside this little rock hard football shaped bump sitting right underneath my bellt. Still Im thinking just wait like the doctor said. Then a friend of mine comes over for dinner. I tell her about this thing and how painful it is and why Im not working. She trys to talk me into her popping it for me so I told her no fucking way, not after Wednesdays pain. So I figure if I show her how bad it is she'll loose any notion of that non-sense. She decides my doctor is wrong and I need to have it looked at. She calls another friend of ours whos moved out of town, but has had something similar. So we snap a picture email it off out of town. Together the two of them talk me into going to the Doctor again first thing in the morning. Im not happy about it but these are 2 of my oldest friends from highschool.
Friday (today):
I wake up with every intention of going to the doctor, even though this lump looks a little smaller and feels 10x better. Still I call the doctor and set up and appointment for 10:40 am. Get a call from my boss at 10, and he's flipping out on me becasue Im not there again. I calm him down the best I can and head tot he doc's office. Doctor takes a look at it, pokes it and instanltly starts writting me a note. He hands it to me and says " This has got all the info you will need, go the the hospital and give this the the nurse in the ER" Fuck, off I go to the least busy hospital in my region.
After a not so long wait a med student comes to see me. Has a look at whats going on, tells me what she thinks it is and then is off to get her doctor so make sure she is correct. This is where things started to move very fast. Doctor looks at it, pokes it and asks his student to put a needle in the lumo and extract whatever she could. So she goes and get all her neccasary tools of the trade. Just as shes about to stick the needle in the doctor come rushing into the room with a surgeon. The surgeon pokes my lump for about 10 seconds, looks at the med student and the nurse now in the room and says "prep him for the OR right now, I have to get in there" He husltes off and Im thinking " oh fuck what the hell is going on?"
So at this point Im surrounded by 3 people, one of them drawing blood, one of them putting an IV in my hand and the other getting me to sign consent forums for the operation Im about to have. Even though this was extreamly rushed the staff did an outstanding job anwsering my questions, and explaining their anwsers with great detail to me so that I had a very good understanding of what was going on. Whether the surgeons were entertaining me or not im not to sure, but their explination of the rush was that there was a knee surgeory that had been cancelled and they had 45 mins before their shift ended for the weekend so they wanted to get me in and fixed ASAP becasue this infection was very bad and as it turns out if it were to have spread to my testicles that they would most likely have to be amputated. So I like to think the rush was because they had time, but my beleif is that this operation was indeed an emergency and had to be fixed before I lost my boys.
Let me divert away from the chain of events for a moment to discuss "con" of Canadas healtcare system. My family doctor, who has been my only doctor for all 25 years of my life told me to take some pills and leave it be for 5 days. 3 days in I needed an operation. According to the surgeon those 2 more days would have likely meant MY TESTICLES WOULD HAVE BEEN REMOVED. This is because my family doctor is paid by the government a flat rate for every patient he sees in a day. Thus more paitents he see's the more money in his pocket. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to see where Im going with this one. Get them in, give them pills, get them out and make room for the next. Greed, no initave to actually diagnose my problem, just get me the fuck out of the door and collect the money. AGAIN, please I dont want this to turn into a debate of for or against universal healthcare, just FOOD FOR THOUGHT.
So, back to my day. Im very well informed of whats going on, whats to be done. Now get this, they still dont know what kind on infection it was, where it came from or how bad it could have been. All they knew was it needed immediate medical attention in a serious way. So they wheel me down the hallways, 2 very nice lady surgeons, we were making jokes and laughing the whole way there. Thats just me its the way I am no matter the situation I'll find something to laugh about. So they start me on the anesthetics and next thing you know everything is going grey on me. I know Im about to get knocked out. With my last moment of being awake I wave goodbye to everyone in the OR and say " see you guys in a few minutes, good luck" This feeling for some reason I rather enjoyed
So I wake up to the entire post op room standing around laughing at me. Aparantlly I had some very funny things to say when I was coming too. I wish I could remember them but I cant even remember the dream that I was having. Money, loving every minute of it. They tell me my moms waiting for me. Again, money. Who eles other than mom would I want to see. Maybe Duane but I didnt have time to tell him what was going on before I got to the hospital.
So now, Ive got 4-6 weeks of recovery ahead of me. They didnt close my wound because with it being so deep if they were to do that it would heal as a great big concave dent. Not preferable. If they were to have just released the pressure the infection would have come back because some of it had attatched itself to something inside of me. Basicly my body formed a sack to contain the infection and stop it from spreading. Picture an oil slick on the ocean as the infection, and the yellow floating thing that gets put out around it to contain it is what my body did. So they actually had to cut the infection off my oil spill container. They also filled the empty hole where the puss was with something, what exactly im not sure Ill find out tommorow, because luckey me I now have to have it unpacked, and repacked daily along with changing my bandage. All and all Im feeling very fortunate right now, even though ive got a rather unappealing semi long recovery ahead of me, but hell it would be worse.... alot worse.
And to deter away from the story to touch on the healthcare subject again. After all of this happened, I was discharged from the hospital and it didnt cost me a fucking dime! woo hoo!! thats the good. Again, lets not discuss that matter here. Simply food for thought
If youve read all of this, I thank you for your time and apologize that I am not able to give you back the 15 mins of your life you spent reading my rant of events
Cliffs:
Infected ingrown hair put me on the operating table just in time to save my balls from being amputated
Picture taken on Thursday night:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v675/drunk_sheep/DSCF1694.jpg
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