Back To The Future....

Yesterday it was back to UNMC for my first checkup. As we had a 9:30 lab scheduled, we arose at 5:00 am and headed for Omaha. I drove for the first time in 5 weeks and I realized that I had not missed it at all. We arrived on time and the lab went fine....perhaps this visit would go smoothly. Sandy and I had an hour to kill, so we went to the cafeteria and had coffee and rolls. We decided to report to clinic early and much to our surprise, we were taken back immediately to see the docs.

The first person we saw was a 3rd year resident who asked the usual questions including "why are you back so soon." I replied that I was back because the surgeon wanted me back in two weeks. Little did she know that the truth was that I missed the Lied Center so much that couldn't bear the thought of being away for another day. Yeah!!!! After this highly investigative exchange, she left and a couple of minutes later Dr. Mercer a transplant surgeon came in. Dr. Mercer was a very personable and competent surgeon that had just returned to the center after practicing in Canada for several years. He thought that my labs looked very good and that my incision was healing well. In fact he wanted to remove the staples and my Quentin Catheter that was implanted in my Jugular vein.

The nurse came in and proceeded to remove the staples....it was quick and produced very little pain. I couldn't believe that everything was going so smoothly. The resident came back in and gathered the equipment to remove the catheter, a very simple nearly painless procedure that would take 5 minutes...yeah right!! A Quentin cath is a six inch silicon rubber tube the size of a pencil that is connected to a plastic sheath with a velcro like collar that seals it to the body just under the skin of the chest. It is inserted into the vein with a very large needle connected to the plastic sheath, the needle is removed leaving the sheath and velcro seal under the skin with a simple stitch holding it in place.

The removal involves snipping the stitch and pulling on the sheath. In theory the velcro collar which has now grown to the tissue of the breast separates and remains behind allowing the sheath and tube to easily be removed with a slight tug. Well here is where my fabled bad luck returned. The resident snipped the stitch and tugged on the sheath....and tugged harder on the sheath.....and then tugged very hard. She then went to tell the nurse to get Dr. Mercer who she told about the problem. He said no problem that he had done hundreds of these things and that he would take over. So, he tugged and tugged, and tugged.....the last time I thought that I would be the first person in medical history to have their jaw pulled out of their body through a vein in the chest.

Dr. Mercer explained that the collar would not separate because my tissue had grown into the cath collar and jammed it up and that he would have to cut open my neck and dissect it out. Well, to make a long story even longer, after 40 minutes of snipping, cutting and more tugging it was out. I told him I wanted to see it so he went and retrieved it from the biohazard trash bag. The resident stitched me up and we were free to go.....yeah!!!

Off to Westroads so Sandy could go to Van Mauer's to shop for a wedding outfit for our son Chris' wedding next month. I waited in the car and slept for an hour and when Sandy returned, she asked me what was on my shirt. Yep, it was blood....the incision had a lump under it the size of a goose egg. Now I am a rather astute observer of my body and my observation told me that something was wrong. A quick call to the Lied Center and we were on our way back as fast as we could go in the afternoon traffic. We were met by the resident doc who checked things out to make sure that the jugular was o.k. and then removed the blood and redressed the wound

We grabbed a quick sandwich and it was off to Kearney arriving back just in time to settle in to watch the Broncos beat the Ravens.....a perfect ending to a not so perfect day.