Exotic Wounds

By M. A. Richards

“Oh my God!” she said, as she lifted the second sheet from the bed-turning
to see me, in my spectacular, glorious, mutation of all that is truth and all
that is lies, woven together; forming a beautiful spiral of scarlet-madness.
This brief statement was followed by a scream from the orderly changing the
sheets, which even startled me. I am not easily startled.
I was unique, and always physically as well as emotionally despondent.
Purpose with and without purpose, and reason upon reason; with no real
reason.
A season, out of season and so on and so forth.

Miracles and tragedies befell me like snowflakes on a winter’s day.

A nurse whose name was “Jennifer” (according to the name tag I had
glanced) arrived at the hospital room where I had been admitted;
complaining of abdominal pain, and blood in my stool. The marvelous
wonder of medical chaos ensued. Jennifer screamed as well, which did not
inspire confidence in the man whose blood was now beginning to eddy
away from the wall, 12 feet away, and return in my direction.

I just stood there; holding myself upright as I leaned onto the green guest
recliner, which sat in all hospital rooms (on the right hand side opposing the
bathroom entrance and beyond the main entrance to the room itself).
Previously I awoke in a hospital bed, in a room. I was wearing a hospital
gown. (You know, the kind that exposes your rear end). I had buzzed a
nurse/orderly to help me out of the bed, as I felt like I had to use the
bathroom, but was too weak to stand without assistance. My trip to the
bathroom was fruitless.

I made one step from the bathroom and grabbed hold of the wide arm of the
chair to steady myself, as the orderly changed the bloodstained sheets. It
was without so much as a warning when it all came undone. I thought it
would never stop. The strange sound of blood splattering and spewing forth
with such momentum to the floor was as unique as I. It seemed as if the
facets of my internal organs had turned wide open, and had taken the only
exit ramp available. It splashed upward covering my thighs and claves with
specs and streams of blood.
I am as deep, as I am shallow. The only thing I could think of was this.
“What an embarrassing way to die”.
“Never lose your sense of responsibility,” & “Keep your faith” but in my
world it was:
Never lose your sense of humor. I think it is a form of denial.

However, a good sense of humor will not keep one from zooming headlong
into septic shock, like a match to gasoline-my lower intestine ruptured into
an internal explosion that sent me into an abysmal state of pseudo-death.
I learned much later that I was the “one per center’ in both terms of “people
who survive this” as well as the “survivability rate” for “24 hours post
surgery”. Septic shock-bad.

I will not mention the surgeons’ name, {Robert Pendrak} but like most
medical professionals, he assumed the odds were in his favor, based on what
he learned in medical school.
So, knowing this the Doctor did not hesitate to rip stomach from 3 inches
below my belly button to the base of my sternum.
The Dr. told me afterwards “the nurse counted about 850 ulcerative polyps,
which had not yet burst, but there were many more that did, (and added)
you’re a lucky young man”. He had also mentioned that I had “died twice
on the operating table, and that my body had endured a tremendous shock.”

I didn’t pay attention to the last part of what he was saying, because I was
still wondering, if the polyps were counted during the emergency procedure
or after, and what sort of justification went into that recommendation.
In my mind, he was cutting out foot after foot of intestine, as I lie on what
was my deathbed, and he said to the nurse, “Count those for me”.
Yet, “the patient is the crazy”. Please!

This is what Drs. are supposed to say when one is about to die. I could see
the looks of forlorn sympathy and silent guilt when the nurse or nurses
would come in to change my dressing, administer medication or change a
“Foley” catheter bag. I lost perception of time immediately following the
emergency procedure.
I do remember the Dr. walking into my room with about five med students.
He removed the wound dressing, which covered my stoma, and pushed his
index finger inside of the wound, up to the knuckle. I looked on in horror
expecting mind-boggling pain, but felt nothing.
A couple of the women in the group of med students gasped as they looked
on in my horror, which became theirs. Pulling his index finger back out of
my body, he said “No blood. That’s a good thing”.
Not because you didn’t try, I thought to myself. He called for someone to
replace what he had taken off and walked away, never even speaking to me.
What an ass.
My next of kin were contacted and I received phone calls from everyone I
ever knew in and outside my unusual family. It is only when one is so close
to death that one knows who genuinely cares. The phone calls were few and
visitors fewer.
Then I received a phone call from my best friend. His name is David Brown
He said, he was coming to visit and would be bringing his family.
He also added, “When you get out and are good for travel; we are going to
do something that you will remember for the rest of your life”.
No one could ever make me laugh as much as d.b. had or does.
This was both a blessing as well as a curse, under the current circumstances.
Laughing requires stomach muscles. There is such a thing as pain-filled
laughter.
I was in the Intensive Care Unit for 18 days, and then moved to a
convalescent center, as I had no immediate family.

Soon after my arrival the Avalon Convalescent Center young African

American woman bathed me, and rolled my wheel chair back to my room.
I began to vomit from the odor of death, which loomed in places such as
this. The moistened aromas of urine, stool, and flesh, of those who were in
the last stages of life.
Having 22 stitches and several metal clamps holding my stomach together
did not make it any less painful. It also takes stomach muscles to vomit.
Stomach muscles that should not be in use so soon.

This reflex brought a great deal of pain with it. It was soon decided that I
should be sent back to Shands Hospital in Lake City, where I currently
resided. The woman who bathed me asked if she could visit me there?
I was in no mood to be non-compliant, so with a great deal of pain, said this:
“Sure”.
I was rolled into a hallway until a room became available. It seemed like I
was in the hall for about 2 long, gut-wrenching, hours.
I fell asleep after a nurse came by and put something in my I.V. fluid line.
They must have gotten tired of my pathetic groans of hopelessness and
desperation, (which could have just as easily been the title of this wordy
document).
It was indeed a spectacular wound. It was delicate, gruesome, beautifully
painful, and full of the most horrific suffering imaginable. In some way it
was like magic….bad magic. It was not David Copperfield magic, though
most of my lower intestine was now gone forever.
I awoke again, in a hospital room once more. A nurse was taking my
temperature. “100 degrees” she said, “but that’s normal when you have
someone laying on top of your head”, she concluded as she walked out of
the room.

This is where I stopped writing.