Sunday, November 27, 2016

What actually happened to Jimmy?...part 2

Laying on my couch in some pain, trying to ignore it.  I took Luna for a walk, and decided to come back to my apartment and just go right  back to sleep on the couch.  The pain was getting worse and worse.  I went into the bathroom, and I noticed my stomach was starting to swell.  I laid back down, and just took deep breaths.

Finally, when the pain was too much, I tried to get off of the couch and walk around.  I couldn't.  The pain was so intense that I couldn't even put my foot on the floor to get up.  I started to panic, because a million thoughts were running through my head.  My hugest concern was what to do with Luna if I were to go to the hospital.  Her regular babysitter was in France, and the babysitter that just brought her back to me  had already left for Great Bear for a week with her boyfriend.

I let myself fall to the floor from the couch and literally crawled to my laptop to see if anyone close by was on Facebook.  My neighbor, (who has now become a good friend) was on messenger.  I knew her a little, and admired how well she treated her two dogs.  I typed something like, "It's Jimmy and I am very sick, can you please come and watch Luna, as I have to call 911?"

She answered in a minute or two and said, "Of course, I'll be right there."  She came over, and realized more than I , as she was on the outside looking in, that I didn't have time to wait for an ambulance.  She took Luna to her house and ran back to take me to Cedars.

Every bump in the street felt like a knife into my gut.  She was trying her best , but the pain was so bad I was almost blacking out.  We got to the emergency entrance and from what I recall, she just yelled,  "Help , he needs help."

It took 4 people to get me out of the car as I couldn't move my legs or torso.  I am a really tough guy when it comes to pain, but I never felt anything like this.  They tried to get me on a stretcher once they wheeled me inside, but I couldn't get up from the wheelchair.  The gave me a shot of morphine which did nothing. (morphine has zero effect on me) I asked for toradol, which is like a beefed up aspirin.  They said no in case surgery was needed.  SURGERY?  What was happening?

This very nice black dude, introduced himself to me  as a surgeon and said that he was sending me for a CT scan.  I went down to x-ray via stretcher at this point, screaming at  every turn that they made and bump in the floor that they hit.  Luckily the "scan man" was a friend of mine, so he was extremely gentle and cautious.

I was taken back upstairs, and in about 25 minutes, the surgeon came back and said, "Dude this is the real deal.....I am calling in the entire GI surgical team."   I literally was stunned and was speechless.  The next things he said to me, I will never forget, were some of the scariest things that  I have ever had to hear.

"Mr. Palmieri, I need to tell you a few things."  I nodded my head as if to say OK.
"Number one,  and please know I must tell you these things, is that there is a 30% chance you may not come out of this surgery alive."

WTF???? Is there anything else that could be worse I was thinking to myself.

"Number two, there is an extremely high chance that you will have a colostomy if you do survive."

This was getting worse, because most who know me, know that a colostomy is a huge fear of mine since I saw my uncle suffer with one for many years.  I had always said to myself and anyone else that knew him, that I would rather be dead than have to deal with one.  Now I was actually facing both.

"Number three, we need your advance directive and your power of attorney papers just in case....."

I, through excruciating pain was thinking to myself that this was really happening.  In my fear, and I guess my gay brain, I kept thinking of Mia Farrow screaming as she was being raped by Satan in Rosemarie's Baby, "This is no dream, this is really happening!"  I know...weird, but true.

I started to cry, and he said, "Mr. Palmieri, I am going to take good care of you, and I am not going to let you die."  His words , meant as comfort just instilled more fear.  I said to him "Promise me," he said, "I promise",  I then said "swear to me",  he said, "I can't...but I will pray loudly for you.."  I said "Please ask your God to watch out for me".  He asked me "Who is your God?".  I responded, "I don't know, I just don't know anymore."

More tomorrow.

1 comment:

  1. Jimmy,keep the faith,I will wait for part 3...To give u my final ‼️‼️‼️����������������������������������������������������������������������������

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