2011
So the joke goes like this; I went in for a colonoscopy and I ended up like this.
Unexpected outcomes, adverse events, sentinel events, call them what you will. I call them “shit hit the fan and we weren’t ready“.
I turned fifty and like most others, who have insurance, gets a nice birthday present; knocked out, a long tube up your butt and a dislocated jaw. Oh, most don’t get the jaw part, here is what happened.
They always say the prep for the procedure is the worst part. Worst part for me was the dislocated jaw. No food for twenty four hours, drinking some nasty liquid that makes you crap like there is no tomorrow. Oh yea, and the doctor said to take a laxative, what the hell for, the liquid wasn’t enough? I drank clear liquids, chicken broth and, that’s about it. Then you wake up in the middle of the night to drink some more nasty stuff and shit some more.
Finally the time comes you are waiting for, setting around in a waiting room with people just like you, starving, all shit out and ready to get this over with. It’s like a freakin’ production line, people going in and coming out. All with the same result, a tube up their butt, some with a tube down their throat, all, I’m sure with internal hemorrhoids.
My son will be picking me up, he goes to college a few miles away and has agreed to drive an hour to see me at my best. My wife drives me to the surgery center at 6:45 a.m., drops me off and tells me she loves me. She is a kindergarten teacher and wouldn’t take a day off to save her life. She recently had both ends scoped and I took a half a day off…..anyway, I kissed her good bye.
Typical unfriendly person at the front desk wanting your payment information, probably cause it was so early in the morning, hollering at those who did not have their paperwork filled out correctly. Nurse takes me back and asks all the standard questions, same ones I answered in triplicate on their forms. Family history of colorectal cancer on my father’s side and my brother recently had his prostrate removed because of cancer. Any surgeries? No generally healthy, sedated once when getting the wisdom teeth out. Little did I know that I would be sedated twice that day.
Nurse anesthetist came by, introduced herself, 14 years of experience she said. Air Force trained, she said, that made me feel better.
Laying naked in the gurney, with a gown on. Five or six of us all lined up, to have our innards probed and inspected and biopsied as necessary. First nurse came back to start the IV. Couldn’t get a vein of course, trying on the back of my hand and I’m dehydrated, she says. No shit, I thought.
Gurneys in, gurneys out, it’s my turn. Rolled into the procedure room, doctor, nurse anesthetist, and another nurse, I guess. Maybe a technician or a LPN or a CMA or a …. whatever, she didn’t say much. Doctor introduced himself, I told him we had met before at a dinner that the insurance plan sponsored. He remembered the dinner. He asked me what I did for a living, I told him I was a risk manager and the patient safety manager at the clinic.
I remember asking the nurse anesthetist as she stuck the large needle into the IV port with a large tube of white stuff. I asked her if that was the same stuff that Michael Jackson used. She said yes, and we laughed. A couple of time – outs, I felt like I had to recite the Gettysburg Address before they started. Once I got through that I had to give them my name, date of birth, the name of the procedure I was having and the doctor’s name. I guess I got it all correct, she started pushing the large syringe, and all I remember saying is OH MY…..
……not sure how long I was out, didn’t matter, I guess. Hearing voices, barely able to open my eyes, looking for my wife……nurse asking me questions. Asking me to fart, a lot of that going on in that recovery room. I tried to talk, to answer one of the many questions and I couldn’t open my jaw. I tried to close and open and nothing, it wouldn’t go either way. The nurse must have seen the fear in my eyes, asking what was wrong. “I cclksadnn sdhnef mdi pkeorj” was probably what it sounded like but I was trying to tell her I couldn’t close my mouth. I started pointing. She figured it out and said “you are unable to open or close”, shook my head yes. She told one of the other nurses to go and get the nurse anesthetist. Meanwhile I bring my hands up to my front teeth, sticking my fingers in my mouth, feeling to see what the front teeth were doing. My first job in the Air Force was a dental technician. I heard of this, I may have studied this, I may have worked with the patient who had done the same thing. The upper and lower central incisors were not lining up. I knew I was in trouble, I knew I dislocated my jaw. Locked jaw.
Nurse anesthetist comes out with the look on her face; I’ve got patients lined up what does this moron want? She took a closer look as the nurse explained. Heard about her 14 years of experience, Air Force trained, again; never happened to her before. She sends the nurse after the doctor. He’s a little nicer as he comes to see me, has to anyway, to let me know what he saw up there. He says in all the thousands of procedures he has done, this has never happened. He tells the nurse to call my dentist. I write down his name. They come back in a minute and tell me that my dentist can see me right away.
Well I still had to go through all the steps to get out of there. Fart, get dressed, IV out, whatever else they did to me. My son wasn’t there yet and they did not want to put me out with the general population, in my condition. Of course, they needed the bed; they sat me in the corner, in a plastic chair, stared at me like a caged animal. “Your son is late”, they wanted me out of there. They weren’t used to freaks hanging out in the recovery/pre-op/post op, everything room, the farting was hard not to laugh at as I was coming more aware and of course it would hurt.
My son made it and the nurse explained what happened, should have seen the look on his face. As we drove to the dentist, he stared at me like I was dying. I’m not sure if he really understood and I wasn’t about to explain it to him at this time. He knew I was going in for a “procedure” but nothing more than that. He knew colonoscopy but he didn’t know how I was put under. Not sure if he was putting it all together or not. Anyway, we passed three McDonalds, that’s right, Mickey Ds. I’ve been dreaming about a quarter pounder with cheese since I started the prep. Now, I was on my way to the dentist, to have who knows what done to me?
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