EDITORIAL - What happened to Big Valley News? The website went dark at the end of January, and there were no real updates until March. The morning news disappeared from the radio station, and no one saw the site’s publisher around town. The rumor mill has gone so far as to have me in a hospice facility awaiting death. As it turns out, the rumor mill was pretty close to the truth. Towards the end of January, I was air-lifted out of Fresno for emergency surgery. I began a month-long hospital stay that resulted in my losing the ability to walk and the use of my left arm. I have been recuperating at home in Madera for the last two months. Thanks to home health care nurses and an incredible physical therapist, I am up and about with the help of a walker and returned to the website in March.
On January 19th, I became extremely ill during my first day back at Fresno State. My blood sugars spiked to over 650, and I became lethargic. I took some insulin but could not get my numbers down to a safe level, so I decided to take a nap. When I woke, my numbers were in the 400s, which was still too high. My wife suggested going to the emergency room, but I knew better and drove home to Madera.
For the next week, I was convinced that I had a stroke, but I still refused to go to the hospital. The day we buried my father-in-law at the National Cemetery in Gustine, I had to ask my best friend to drive me because I was too weak. He suggested driving me to the hospital, but again I refused. That night I was talking to the city councilmember that appointed me to the city’s ADA commission, and she wasn’t asking me to go to the hospital; she was telling me. Why I listened to her and ignored my family, I do not know, but my wife drove me to the emergency room at Kaiser Permanente in Fresno.
I hate emergency rooms because you always have to wait to be seen. This time there was no waiting. I was in a room and being seen in less than five minutes. An hour later, I was in a CAT-Scan and had a complete set of X-rays done on my shoulder. An IV was pumping fluids into my arm, and I was given insulin to stabilize my blood sugars. The next thing I remember is waking up in the ICU with a completely different set of doctors looking me over. One lady said they arranged for me to fly in a helicopter to a specialist in Modesto. When I told her there was no way I was going to Modesto, let alone flying in a helicopter, she informed me my wife already signed the papers, and it was not a decision I could make. When I asked to speak to my wife, the doctor said she was already in Modesto waiting for me.
American Ambulance has a helicopter with an interior patient area about the size of the inside of an MRI. In other words, it is very cramped. I had an attendant next to me the entire flight, and I could see outside from a window next to my gurney. I have a real fear of flying and am incredibly claustrophobic, but for some reason, I was not in a panic during the 45-minute flight. I keep thinking about the last scene in the movie “The World According to Garp” where he is being rushed to a hospital and looks out the window of his helicopter and says, “I’m flying,” just before he dies.
I guess we landed at Kaiser Modesto because I remember being brought into a room where my wife was, and she seemed shocked that I was ok after the flight. A few minutes later, I was in an operating room where I met my doctors for the first time. I had two surgeons, one to clean out an extensive bacteriological infection that was located in my shoulder/back, and one to ensure the infection had not breached the chest cavity and spread to my internal organs. The next thing I remember is my mind filled with a kaleidoscope of old Disney characters, then waking up the next day to see my oldest daughter and wife standing over me. I could not talk because I had a tube down my throat, and I could not move my hands because they were tied to the bed. This caused the next incidence of claustrophobia. Despite the pleas I was giving both with my eyes to untie my hands, they of course refused, and I must have fallen back asleep. When I woke up later, the tube was removed. I was then untied and could finally talk again. Unfortunately, my first drugged and muddled thoughts led me to tell my oldest that she was out of my will (because I was upset that she hadn’t untied me). Then, because of an awful dream I had while I was drugged, I said something unkind to my wife, which I’d rather not remember.
After the surgery, I was told I suffered from Necrotizing Fasciitis, a flesh-eating bacterium. How I got it, I have no idea. My immune system was compromised because of my diabetes, and my blood sugars were so high because of the infection. I had a follow-up appointment this week where my doctor said we all have stuff on our skin that our bodies fight off unless you were as compromised as I was in January. It was a ‘perfect storm’ of events that knocked me on my butt, and apparently, all of the elements were preventable had I been taking better care of my diabetes. I almost died because of my own choices.
For the next week, everything was as would be expected for a hospital stay after emergency surgery, but the nights were extraordinary. Every night I would wake up in a room that was not my hospital room. A couple of nights, I woke up in administration offices that were under construction. I could see where ceiling panels had not been installed or ladders with tools hanging on them. I was convinced that Kaiser moved patients around Modesto to ‘under-construction’ office buildings. When I told my wife about it, she informed me that I had been in the same ICU room at the Kaiser Modesto facility on the fourth floor for several days, and no one had moved me anywhere. That was the last day I took Oxycodone or any other strong painkiller. From then on, I would only take Tylenol or Motrin, but it took a while for the more powerful painkillers to get out of my system. I still had ‘delusion’ issues in the early mornings for the additional two weeks of rehabilitation hospital time before I was allowed to return home.
During over a week of interactions with the team of nurses, physicians and therapists that paraded thru my room at all hours, I experienced one particularly memorable interaction, which my wife assures me was not a delusion. My first sponge bath. , very attractive nurse kept bothering me during her night shift about repositioning me in my bed. She was concerned about preventing bed sores, while I was only interested in sleeping or what was on TV. Around the fifth time she woke me just to shift the pillows propped under me, I told her that I didn’t understand her priorities since I was more concerned about not having been allowed to shower in a week. She said, “I can give you a sponge bath if you’d like.” I looked at my wife, who wasn’t concerned, and told the nice lady, “Yes, please.” She said she would return with a second nurse to help her in a minute. I looked at my wife, who was now laughing. I will only say this about the experience; medical insurance can be incredible.
Once I was ‘stepped down’ from Modesto ICU, I ended up being transferred to a rehab facility in Fresno, which was at least closer to home. The place is called Pacific Gardens, near Sunnyside High School. If you or a family member ever get sent there, demand a different facility. This place taught me about some of the remaining problems with our current healthcare system. Of the healthcare staff, ninety percent were excellent, but the remaining ten percent were so bad that the stories I shared with Kaiser member services left them speechless. The facility itself was basically nice at first glance, but there were maintenance issues everywhere. Ice machines that didn’t work, railings that needed repair, and for my entire stay, I was in a bed that was missing a side rail and could not be adjusted for comfort. The controls for lifting the foot of the bed were non-operational, which meant that when I would raise the head of the bed, I would slide down and would need the assistance of multiple nurses to be lifted back up. The food was inedible, and they constantly had to be reminded that I was supposed to be on a diabetic diet. My pills per day also went from six to twenty with no explanation. I’m pretty sure that was all about padding the bill. I was on a regimen of IV antibiotics for the next fifteen days and was scheduled to start physical therapy, primarily walking the hallways. However, the hospital staff would not allow me to use the physical therapy room because they feared the bacterium I was fighting off might be contagious; my Kaiser doctor assured me I was not. At least that meant I had a private room with an outdoor patio. Too bad I never got to use that patio because as long as I was in the hospital, the rains would not stop. When my time was up at the rehab, we got out of there as fast as possible. Just before being released, I took a fall, tearing three out of four heads on my left quad. Later that night, I would fall again at home, straining that quad muscle even more. That fall required calling the Madera fire department for assistance with lifting me off the floor and back into my bed.
Once at home, I could heal and start the process of relearning to walk. I began physical therapy at home, and within a week, I could transfer from my bed to a wheelchair with no assistance. Twice-a-week sessions got me onto a walker, which I still use today. I have put the wheelchair away and only use it if I am out in public for long periods. At first, I found it difficult to retrieve my walker from the trunk of my car, so I used an electronic cart to go out in public. It gave me a chance to see for myself the conditions of our city’s sidewalks and what barriers existed for our fellow Maderans who happened to fall in the ‘handicapped’ category. I still use the scooter to get out and about in the neighborhood, but I have also started walking with my walker outside the house to build up my strength.
In March, I started working on the website again as well as some social media responsibilities I had for other businesses in Madera. Big Valley News is back to being 100% up and running. The radio station still hasn’t resumed the morning newscasts but will return this month. We even started publishing the local movie times that were discontinued at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. The only difference is that today my office is the kitchen table in my home because I am still not allowed in my office because of the stairs required, which my wife worries may cause me to fall. I do not fear many things, but I do fear falling because it’s the one thing that can set my progress back instantly.
It’s been a long road since that helicopter flight in January. There are many more miles ahead. My most recent addition to the team of Physicians I have seen is an Orthopedist who informed me that it might take the better part of two years to get my left arm back to ‘normal’ again. My legs are coming back, as are my strength and stamina. Since that first week, many people have told me how close I came to death. But this week, for the first time, my doctor gave me the statistics on the survivability of this bacteria and how it is a miracle that I am not recovering from an amputation.
In fact, this last week has been the most important to date in this experience. This is because my perspective has finally adjusted from anger that I cannot currently use my left arm normally to gratefulness that I still have that left arm. I am also grateful to the doctors who did not listen to me when I told them they were wrong and that I didn’t want surgery. But most importantly, I am grateful for my wife, who cared for me when I would not or could not take care of myself. She was with me daily in the hospital, both in Modesto and Fresno. I would not be alive today if it were not for my wife, which is ironic since she is the reason I want to be alive in the first place.
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So no one thinks I forgot or didn't appreciate it. I am also grateful to the family, friends, and strangers that prayed for me and continue to pray for me. My doctor said my recovery was a miracle, and I know where that miracle came. I know Jesus was with me every day in the hospital. My A1C levels have gone from nearly 14 in January to 7.2 today. That is another miracle.
