A very irritated mother leaving the Saratoga Springs Emergent Care at midnight, with a cute, blonde girl in pink pajamas, “It wasn’t nice of you to spit the medicine on the lady!” The little girl was probably 4-ish, and she looked perky and fresh, even in the middle of the night. “We waited for SIX HOURS, and you needed that medicine to feel better!”
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to hear the child’s reasoning for spitting medicine on the nurse; she started just as the exit door slid closed behind them.
We’d arrived in Saratoga Springs, NY for the Farm Aid concert and related pre-events on Wednesday afternoon, and since I wasn’t feeling great, hadn’t left the hotel room. It was now midnight on Thursday night (technically Friday morning). Once again, I took narcotics (not even a lot; one tablet per day, max) for my roving nerve pain, and despite all the Senna and Miralax and prunes, nothing was happening. Bob would perform periodic exams, consisting of putting his ear on my belly to listen for signs of life, and when there were none, we decided it was time to get actual medical assistance.
The lack of people in the waiting area gave me hope that this could go quickly; I was wrong. When we were finally seen by a doctor, and I said the issue was constipation, he gloved up and told me to turn on my side. “What?” He explained that he was going to do a manual disimpaction. I tried to tell him that there was nothing on deck; he might need some tongs. Or maybe a drain snake. He was irritated. “Do you want me to help you, or not?” Yeah, sure. If he wanted to do a digital spelunking mission into my ass, be my guest. He quickly retreated; nothing there. Oh, no shit? (Literally.)
What followed was 1.5 liters of soapy water pumped into my bowels, and all in all, it wasn’t terrible and it did solve the problem. Six hours after we arrived, we headed back to the hotel. I was recovered and feeling good for the concert on Saturday, working in the media tent connecting media to farmers and organizing farmers to appear on the live SiriusXM radio show between sets. I got to see many, many old friends, which was lovely.
I never reported on data from my last Mayo visit; there were no scans, so the only thing I really get are labs (all of my bloodwork continues to be great), including my AFP, or liver cancer tumor marker. This is the one that can make me panic as it goes up seemingly stratospherically, but my doctors downplay the importance, saying other factors, including the actual scans and generally how I’m feeling, are what they consider. Well, my tumor marker dropped from 4,311 in August to 2,876 in September. So we’ve been taking this as a good sign – at least until a new test comes back on my next visit, which is Friday – and then we’ll either continue to celebrate or we’ll do our best to disregard. These numbers are hilarious to me – normal is less than 9. *Nine*. Before I had liver surgery it was just over 100, and I was wondering if that was some sort of a record. Little did I know…