Motivation is fun to write about.
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So I’ve gotten to the point in my recovery where all the blood that escaped a vein and poured into the interstices of my hip and other bits has, because of gravity and other irritating realities, pooled in my calf and ankle.
It was less uncomfortable when it was spread out through my whole leg and hip. I mean, it’s a lot of goo to fit in such a little space where it doesn’t belong. Also, while I’m probably getting better at the same rate I’ve been tripping along at, the bit that’s still healing is more and more localized as I go.
I’ve seen the comments you guys have made, and I realize that I don’t have it a fraction as bad as a lot of people, and of course, I sit at a drawing table and a computer on many days, so it’s not like I have to load tractors with sacks of barley or something…
What it all boils down to is that I needed a thing in this space and all I can think about is how much my dang calf aches.
Okay, yesterday was kinda self-indulgent, but today we’re back to our story.
Just in case anyone missed any details, I’ll tell ya what went down. If you don’t want to know (because, “Bleaaah” feel free not to read any farther. Take a walk outdoors. That’s my advice.)
Thursday morning, I run the dog and do a little workout. Taking a shower afterward, I realize that my ankle and knee are kinda swollen. Weird. Later that night, I ask my wife (a nurse) to have a look. She says it’s not her usual area and kinda jokes that the only thing she knows that makes your leg swell up is a blood clot. (It was a joke because she assumed there were lots of other things that would, too. Ha. Ha.) End of prologue.
Friday morning, when I assumed I’d wake to a normal leg, I woke to an even more swollen leg. So I called the doctor’s office. I went in, they had a look, and said they were going to send me in for an ultrasound to see anyone could spot a clot or anything wrong with my leg. I ran home, did a couple of hours more work on a comic book I’m desperately trying to finish, and then ran off to the ultrasound appointment.
The ultrasound tech got really quiet and polite and asked me how I felt as she led me to a chair to await what the doctors decided.
The doctors decided to have her tell me to go straight to the emergency room without stopping anywhere. She then scared the begeezums outta me by looking earnestly into my face and saying, “But really… How ARE you?” before letting me go out the door.
I got to the emergency room, explained why I was there, and in a very short span of time, I was in an exam room. Many people asked me if I’d made any long trips or had a fall. My butt went numb from sitting on the gurney-style bed.
Someone eventually got some CT work back that showed that the blood clots had already gotten to my lungs. I was sent to ICU. Things slammed into motion then.
A hell of a lot of blood was taken, an ultrasound of my heart was performed at some point, I was asked many more times about pain, about long trips and about falls.
Eventually, they knocked me out, ran a tube up the inside of my leg, placed a filter just south of my lungs and started pumping me with some high-quality clot-busting drugs that work in tandem with a radio transmitter. I staying fixated in that rig for the next 39 or so hours.
There were tubes and catheters and tests and more blood taken and more CT scans of contrast chemistry…
…and a bleed.
Apparently, that would be the worst? The bleed in my right hip. I felt weird, put my hand under my covers and said, “I think this is a problem.” The problem was an enlarging lump forming where my right leg met the rest of me. Now, this was the few minutes of total overdrive. Lots of nurses and shouting (shouting and cursing on my part) my wife offering at least twice to hit the ‘code blue’ button on the wall, and all the while the nurse Noel’s fist socked down on that bleed trying to hold pressure on a rupture no one could see but only guess at. My blood pressure and heart rate tanked bad, but came back after they had the bleed under control. My right leg (and other bits) were now filled with darkening blood that would pool in some pretty unfortunate ways for days and even now still make me look like I bathed with some leaky Sharpie markers. My thigh is pretty much a rich red-purple trending finally this morning toward the yellow/green bruise color people have been gleefully predicting for a week now.
After the aforementioned thirty-odd hours on the clot-busting system, I had another procedure to remove all of that except the filter, and had two stents added to two veins in my leg.
By Monday night, I was moved from ICU to Stepdown. I was already a day late on my Hubris cartoons, but I’m ashamed to admit I was finding it hard to care at that point. Something to do with answering basic questions about who and what I was in order to rule out brain bleeds and other near-death fears left me ambivalent about drawing in a way that I haven’t otherwise ever felt. Low point.
Step-down is nice. There was a couch for my wife or my mom to sleep on. I improved in stages and was working on yesterday’s Hubris cartoon by the time anyone mentioned going home in a way I believed and that finally made me realize that the entire ordeal would end up taking slightly more than a complete week of my life.
Also, there was an esophageal endoscopy that was re-scheduled to fit in with my stay in the hospital… y’know, so I wouldn’t have to have it done in two weeks when it was originally on the calendar. I dunno. Complicated. I will tell you guys, though (and some of you know this much better than I do, after hearing the merest details of your stories) it’s awfully nice to walk yourself to the bathroom without a robot attached to any veins.
Oh, Gosh. I seem to be a week late on my cartoon all of a sudden.
Sorry about that, guys!
I’ve probably never been good at taking advice. Jimmy Johnson, who creates the comic strip ‘Arlo N Janis’ gave me the advice to go into boat cabinetry.
Mostly, I think, because he sorta wishes he had gone into boat cabinetry.
If you want MY advice, go into real estate. It’ll suck, and be less fulfilling than telling a ten-year long story about lunatics, but the money is great.
That, or boat cabinetry, which I hear is very fulfilling if you like boats.
I’m working on a comic book for a small, new publisher. It’s a fun project, and it’s one I didn’t write, so that’s extra exciting. But it’s time consuming. I’ll post a link to it when it’s time, and see if you guys are interested in a comic book about a ninja.
So… how many mirrors in YOUR car? And if you had to get one of them out of there to hold up next to a possibly dead guy’s mouth, could you?
One of you guys said the third time’s the charm… or something like that, right?
Sound effects are great, aren’t they? Hey, did anyone ever look at all the old MAD magazine Don Martin cartoons where he had such great sound effects? That guy was great. I never got the chance to meet him, which is probably good. I’d have gushed. Or ‘Fl’Gursht’ or something.
I remember one, when MAD did one of their square bound super specials, where they had a set of stickers in the magazine. All the stickers were stamp-style Don Martin sound effect cartoons. Brilliant. I believe, though, that the “Poit!” sticker had a drawing of a woman’s breast springing from it’s safe space within her undergarments. My buddy Jon got his copy of MAD taken away because of that.
I blame Nick Meglin.
“Run.”
It’s not a difficult concept, and yet, when told to do it, don’t you sort of expect more information. I do, anyhow. You know, like, “Run! Bear!” There’s worlds more information, there.
You can read people’s minds in comic strips. We’re accustomed to it. We know that when words are contained within lumpy clouds that the words aren’t spoken aloud.
I watched ‘Young Frankenstein’ with my youngest kid yesterday. It was his first time seeing it, and I became more attentive to what was onscreen knowing that. I was pretty amazed at how much dialogue could be cut from that film because you could read the thoughts of the actors written, not in floating bubbles over their heads, but right there on their faces. It was great.
And then there’s Bob. I like Bob, but I’m thinking there may not be as much thinking going on as those around him might suppose.
We’ll see.
