Something Unexpected

Originally written May 3rd

This is not really how I'd imagined spending this week. Yesterday I was hoping that a good dose of antibiotics would be all I'd need to get back to my regularly scheduled life, and today I'm sitting at a table in a hospital with an IV hookup in my arm and no idea when I'll be able to leave.

My sore throat started sometime in the last night I was in Poland. As I made my way home, sometimes I'd forget it was even there, and sometimes when I'd swallow, it felt someone was poking a knife in the back of my throat. I went to bed convinced that I was coming down with a cold--not a happy thought but manageable.

Yesterday morning the pain was much worse, and I had, besides a headache and chills, no accompanying signs of a cold: no sneezing, stuffy nose, coughing. Guessing it was strep, I trundled down to the nearest general practitioner's in Stadtroda for an antibiotics prescription.

The GP was a bright, cheerful, friendly man with a soul patch, jeans and white Crocs who looked suspiciously like Toby Mac. He asked me how I liked Stadtroda and listened to my description of my symptoms, then pulled out a tongue depressor to take a look.

"Du Scheiße" (something like, "Aw, hell") was his first reaction. He took another, disbelieving look, accompanied by another, emphatic "du Scheiße!" I started to giggle nervously. Then he rolled straight back to his phone; I thought he was going to call an ambulance, but his still-jocular tone told me otherwise. He hung up and scooted back over to me.

He explained that I had a peritonsillar abscess, and he was referring me to an ear/nose/throat specialist in the nearby psychiatric hospital. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do for me; antibiotics wouldn't fix this one.

An hour later, Bethany and I were waiting outside the ENT doctor's office. The doctor was at first brisk and seemed slightly miffed that I couldn't understand all her questions, then she took a look down my throat. Suddenly she was much nicer--not a good sign. She told me that she couldn't help me either; she was referring me to a hospital in Gera, where they'd have to cut open and drain the abscess.

Bethany and I trudged home again. I hadn't eaten anything yet, and was now forbidden to both eat and drink until after the surgery. Stefanie, a student and friend of mine, drove both of us to the hospital, where yet another ENT doctor--this time a friendly young English speaker, thank God--took another look and explained to me what the procedure would look like. They were going to try to fit me in for surgery that night, so I changed into the utterly unbecoming surgery gown and thrombosis-preventing stockings and settled into my bed to wait.

We'd arrived at the hospital at about 4:00 that afternoon; I finally convinced Bethany and Stefanie to leave and get something to eat at about 8:00. I had just pulled out my computer and started to watch Blackadder an hour later when a nurse opened the door and announced that it was time.

Away went my computer, and with my hair stuffed up under a shower cap and my stuffed dog Hamlet under my arm, away we went, me relaxing as much as possible on my wheely-bed and giggling in half-hysterical glee at just about everything. I was nervous for the surgery, yes, but this was, to my understanding, a low-risk procedure; I mean, I wasn't having heart surgery, for heaven's sake. I was happy because the thing in my throat would be fixed and I could start to heal as soon as possible.

The view from that wheely-bed was certainly surreal. We rolled through quiet halls of a stupidly happy shade of yellow to the elevator and came out in a world of white, mint green, and steel. The doctors all cooed over Hamlet; I felt like I was being transported back to when I'd originally had my tonsils out at 10 years old, except someone had messed with the settings and it was all in German now.

They attached sensors to my chest for the EKG so I could hear the nervous beat of my own heart both in my ears and beeping somewhere above my head. Someone took my blood pressure on my left arm while another clipped a monitor on my finger, then both my arms were strapped down. I couldn't seem to start giggling nervously. Then something was administered to the IV hookup. "You'll start to feel burning coming up your arm," they explained to me; this was the pain medication. "And now the anesthetic," someone said, and my last glimpse was of bright lights, a green-tiled ceiling, and the triangular mask descending toward my face.

I woke up sputtering, like surfacing from the bottom of a deep pool, feeling...well, drugged. My doctor was standing nearby. "Did everything go well?" I asked her--or tried to, as my mouth wasn't really sure yet whether we were awake or not--and I hung onto Hamlet, who had been tucked back under my arm by some considerate soul.

"I didn't do the operation," the doctor answered. "It wasn't an abscess. May be a bone."

This puzzled me to no end, but dozed off again, coughing whenever I came to. I was wheeled back into my room, given an IV, and left alone with no explanation.

After the anaesthetic finally wore off entirely at about 11pm, I was wide awake. Originally, I'd only had one roommate in the three-person bed; this woman was now asleep and snoring like a grizzly bear, and a new roommate, another middle-aged woman, and I exchanged exasperated glances. By the time I'd watched some videos and become vaguely sleepy, the second woman was asleep and snoring as well, albeit several orders of magnitude more quietly. I didn't sleep much at all.

Which made it all the more fun when I finally was really asleep and the nurses came in to wake us all up just past 7 this morning. The chainsaw snorer had an 8 o'clock surgery appointment, and she was wheeled away in the same getup that I'd worn last night. I finally had something to eat--the first food down my throat since the hotdog from a gas station in Poland--and went to see the doctor on duty as commanded by the nurses.

The first bad sign was that two nurses came in and asked if they could watch "out of curiosity." Like the others before him, the doctor put on his headlamp and peered down my throat, the nurses squinting in behind him. He poked a bit and then turned to dictate instructions to one of the nurses. I was getting irritated at this point, wondering if anyone was going to explain to me what was happening.

Finally, one nurse did, more or less. The problem is, apparently, they don't know what the hard, swollen lump in my throat is. The next step is to have a CT scan done to determine what, exactly, it is and what they can do about it. I was promised a scan appointment before noon.

I slept the whole morning (trying to make up for my sleepless night), had lunch, and came out to a quiet group of tables to write. Just now a nurse has come to tell me that the CT scanner is needed all day today for emergency/more important and urgent cases, and I'll have my scan tomorrow morning at 8:00.

They originally told me, back when they thought it was an abscess, that they'd want me to stay 3-4 days after the surgery for observation. If I'm not even going to have the scan until tomorrow, it looks improbable that I'll be out of here before my birthday.

I'm trying to be like I've always hoped I'd be under stress: friendly, cheerful, upbeat, positive. The pain is minimal and I can still walk, talk, eat, drink, breathe, see, hear, taste, feel, text, type--I'm pretty much totally normal except that I have an unidentified mass in my throat. That makes me a hell of a lot better off than most people in the hospital, for which I should be and am grateful. But the confinement chafes, especially when there's so much I want to be doing--teaching, going to class, meeting friends, going walking...celebrating my birthday. And the waiting to find out what is wrong is not pleasant.

For those out there reading this: I'd appreciate any prayers and thoughts you send my way. I'll keep you updated.