221101 November Curse

November has never been a good month for me or Joyce (God rest her soul).

On November 1, 2011. I was standing when I passed out fell on the bathroom floor in a hotel and cut the sole of my foot on the edge of a tile. As I fell I scraped the right side of my face raw and then fell to the floor on my left side. On the way back to bed, I stepped wrong on the cut foot and fell again. Joyce had to help me into bed. By morning there was blood in the bathroom, on the carpet and in the bed. I started having some dizziness at times through November.

By December I had constant headaches. On Christmas Eve I began to feel numbness in my right arm that ran all the way up to my shoulder. My hands were so shaky I couldn’t hold a spoon. Joyce had been telling me to go see a doctor since early December and I finally relented after Christmas. The doctor checked me out for physical movement and that was okay so she told us she would schedule me for an MRI scan.

The appointment was on January 11, 2012 our anniversary date. Joyce drove the van because I was not able to drive. We arrived at the imaging center and I was led in shortly after. It seemed like it was about 45 minutes of terrible banging and clanging. The slab I was laying on slid out of the horror chamber where I laid for several minutes. A nurse came into the room and said, “We have called the emergency room and you need to go there now, they will be expecting you.” I cannot imagine the look on my face when I asked her what was wrong? She simply lowered her head and said, “I can’t tell you that.” I walked out and told Joyce what the nurse said. Her lovely face turned as white as a sheet. We walked out and there was snow falling.

She drove to the emergency room while the van was in total silence. We were both too scared to say a word. The admitting nurse asked a few questions and took a blood sample and I was wheeled into an emergency room to wait for the surgeon. He came in shortly after I was there. He told me I had a subdural hematoma and that they would be operating on me. I asked when and he said, “This evening.” That surprised both Joyce and me. The surgeon told me they would drill holes into my skull and then drain all of the fluids. I was afraid before, but then I was in full blown panic! “Will I have 2 metal plates on my head after this?” He said, “No, we’ll just pull your skin over the holes and the skull will regrow and cover over them.” The operation went on while I was sedated. I remember when I regained consciousness on the table and sat fully upright and shouted, “ I need to pee!” The 2 nurses pushed me back flat and told me they had put a catheter in me and the feeling would go away after a while. That lasted a full day and then it was okay, I could drink all the coffee and water I wanted and never have to get out of bed to pee. It took 5 days for enough blood and fluid to drain out of my skull. They had 3 tubes that suctioned that fluid out all day and night. Between the tubes, monitors, IV ports in my arms and everything connected it was difficult to sleep at night.

They sent me home with my skull completely covered with gauze wrapping. Another 2 days or so Joyce removed the bandages and that was when we saw the 24 steel staples a nurse had used to hold the skin flap together over the operating area. Joyce took a picture of them and showed it to me. At that point, I had another week to wonder how bad that was going to hurt when another nurse would extract them from my head. It turned out there was no pain at all, the nurse was excellent and all 24 of the staples were removed with barely any feeling at all. In case you are wondering, it has been 21 years now and the ⅝ inch diameter holes they drilled are now down some, but they have not gone away completely and I doubt they will ever fully close in the time I have left on Earth. Had I been a young man at the time of the operation they might be healed by now.

Joyce's father died on her birthday in 1966. He was only 45 years old. That left her mother to live on without him for another 40 years without a husband. It also denied me the opportunity to know a truly great man. I can only imagine the navy stories he may have shared with me, like combat in WW-2 and when his ship was sunk off New Brittan and he ended up in shark infested waters there.

All of my navy departures from Joyce were in November. I still remember sitting on the flight deck watching San Diego fade slowly out of sight, being sad, knowing I would not see Joyce for months.

My father passed away in November of 1992. He was the anchor that held our family together and it was never the same after his death. My list of bad things that happened in November is a long one.