intubated

empty




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-cough-




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-cough-


-cough-

empty




-cough-


-cough-

*thought
“what the…”

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-cough-

-coughcough-

*thought
“can’tbreathe”

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-coughcoughcoughcoughcoughchokestrugglecoughchoke choking-

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-coughcoughchokefightcoughfightfightcoughcan’tbreathefightordiefightnodie-
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-coughchokefightnodienodienodienodiehcan’tmovemyhandscoughcoughgag-

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-coughfightcoughcoughgaggagfightfightfight
“Shh. Honey it’s okay. Shh. Stop fighting us. We’re trying to take care of you.”
stopsharpplasticthingopensbringsmorselofairintolungs. notenoughnotenough not enough
closespushingairout
coughchokechoughcoughfightfightfightfightfioght-

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-strugglecoughpulltuggagcoughcough_
“Please calm down Alex. It’s going to be okay.”
-coughfightnodieneedairneedairneedair-
“Shh. I love you.”
Her hand rubs back and forth on my thigh. I focus on her fingers, the touch of her skin calms. I let the air pumped into my lungs give me a small taste of breath. Then it closes blowing my relief away whether I want it or not. Why is it so little? Why don’t they give me more? gagcoughfightineedmoreairgetthisthingOUTOFME!
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Voices. I don’t know them. What are they saying? Overlapping whispers. Confusion. One confident pulls order from the chaos. Hands pull around my head. Sharpness stings my arm.
“…he’s waking up”“…this here”“…slide”
then I hear through the din and drowning “…find something to make him gag”

WHAT? REALLY?

Cold stings my mouth. No air. Fading away. Thin next to thick pushing. Gagcoughchokegagcoughchokepushfightpushpushpulledpulledulledgagcoughcoughchoke

free.

Air.

My lungs gulp down the blessed air. I can swallow. I scream something I have never known or understood in my life. Hands pat my chest. There is laughter.
Her fingers rub my thigh.
“You did it. Just relax. I love you. I love you so much!”
I breathe.

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-

 


In the pre-op room surgery there is a cold, nervous energy that I don’t think exists anywhere else in the world. The nurses are smiling, doctors and patients make small talk and little jokes with each other as they fill out the final bits and pieces of paperwork and release forms the lawyers require before the cutting begins. No one holds eye contact for very long unless it’s a necessary test for reflexes or pupil dilation.

I tell a dumb joke and the entire room lights up with laughter. I’d love to think that I really am this funny, but I know it’s just the buzz of anticipatory electricity flowing through the room. Plus I see my wife shaking her head at the dork she married. It’s typical of me to make fart jokes when I’m half-naked wearing a surgical gown in a room full of strangers.

“Have you been shaved yet?” One of the nurses asks.

“Umm…not that I recall.” Obviously a nervous answer from me.

“Well, we need to take care of that before we go on any further.” She says and pushes out from the curtained area.

A few minutes later the curtain slides open again revealing a large man with a clean, shiny head, a sterile sealed razor raised high in his hand and a huge toothy smile on his face. “My name is Fancois. I’m here to shave you.”

Melissa claps her hands, “Oh goodie! Can I stay for this?”

“Sure, sure.” He says opening the seal on the battery-operated razor. I laugh nervously. As he lifts up my gown I start thinking about shrinkage for some reason.

“Now let’s keep him Jewish.” Melissa jokes. They both laugh hard and I cross my legs out of reflex. “Hey hon, it’s okay. He’s a professional.”

“Yes sir. Just relax.” Francois pats me on the ankle. “Just the leaves. Not the branch.” This of course starts of another bought of laughter making me even more self-conscious.

Francois eventually completes his task and tucks me back in under the warm, pre-heated blanket. A few moments later my anesthesiologist comes in and I have to suppress a laugh of my own. He tells me his name and title and starts checking off his list of questions before he can officially begin to administer any medication. I answer as best I can all the while hoping he can do his job much better than his look-a-like.

This Guy.





Now that his checklist is complete and the IV needle has been put into my hand, we’re getting ready to go. My OR nurse comes in to introduce himself and I have to hold back another laugh. Just so you know, one of my best friends for the last twenty years is named Jim. He is one of the most intelligent, witty and caring people I know. But if you didn’t know him, he like me, probably doesn’t have the most comforting appearance for a surgical nurse.



(Love ya Jim!)

He introduces himself and we talk a little bit about the procedure and what’s to come. I tell him that I am a pacifist, but when I wake up from anesthesia I am very loud and unfriendly. He tells me that he has three sons that he has coached in hockey and he can handle me if he has to.

For some reason this does not make me feel better.

At this point he says they are ready to take me in. They give Melissa and I a few moments of private time where we kiss and hug and cry and hold hands and say “I love you.” Over and over and over again. Still, it doesn’t seem like we have said it enough when I’m rolling down the hallway away from her.

After rounding a few corners we pull through two large double doors. The flashing lights, beeping machines and large flat-screen monitors make me think of Star Trek. There are five or six other people in scrubs milling around the room checking on things and getting this contraption connected to that who-sa-whatsit.

“I guess that’s where the pictures of my innards are gonna go huh?” I point to one of the monitors.

“Yup. Right there.” My nurse rolls me next to another table and pats his hand for me to “hop” over. I lift up on to my elbows and push myself over as far as I can. Then I fart. “Excuse me.”

“Don’t worry about it.” No one seems to notice. “You’ll be doing that a lot over the next few hours anyway. Now I need you to lift yourself up again. Try not to hit your head on the head hitter thingy.” He places his hand on my lower back and helps me lean up. Of course my head hits the “head hitter thingy”.

“Ouch.”

“Warned ya.”

“Yeah. You did.”

“So what do you do Mr. Kimmell?”

“Call me Alex.” I lay back down on the hard table. “I’m a musician and a writer.”

“Really? The last guy we just worked on was a musician too wasn’t he?” Several voices make affirmative sounds. I see the anesthesiologist out of the corner of my eye.

“How are you Mr. Kimmell?”

“Super duper. How’s by you?”

“We’re all set here.” He pats the back of my hand. “I’ve just given you something to help you sleep Mr. Kimmell.”

“Call me A…”

-

While there are many more moments I could share from my time in the hospital, I think I’ll save them for later. The most important thing is that the good folks over at Brigham Women and Children’s Hospital saved my life. My wife stood guard over me in ways that I cannot fully comprehend. She has more strength than ten thousand Spartan Armies plus two. I was unconscious or otherwise unavailable through much of what she had to witness and help steer me through. For that (and many, many other tings) I will be eternally devoted and grateful to her. Somehow through all of it, she somehow retained her wonderful sense of humor. Thus I will leave you with this one last memory of our hospital adventure.

“Catheters suck.” I said while shifting positions trying to find a comfortable angle.

“Actually, they drain.”

And… scene.

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9 2 1

I was thinking today about how our society is completely horrified of aging. How we choose to ignore that we as a species in fact do grow old as the years go by. We try to prevent it with skin creams. We fight with plastic surgery. We battle time’s onslaught with prescription and otherwise illegal drugs. None of it works.

Plastic surgery makes the majority of its recipients look even older. They end up looking like they are just trying too hard. Plus they all end up looking the same like in that creepy Twilight Zone episode from the 1950’s. Skin creams do absolutely nothing other than drain our already bleeding bank accounts. And drugs, well they help the pharmaceutical companies tighten their stranglehold on all of us.

We don’t like to watch old people on television or in the movies either. Maybe some already famous actor will be given a token role in a tear jerking family film as the tender-hearted grandfather or the crotchety old neighbor with a soul roughly chiseled out of gold with insights from a life’s history behind him that he shares to save the troubled youth from going down the wrong path toward naughtiness. He might even get his long overdue Oscar for his efforts.

We’ll gather around the flat screen at home to watch the comedy show guest starring the matronly and blue-haired former hot starlet saying dirty lines and acting in completely inappropriate scenes. We’ll laugh and joke about it at the water cooler on Monday and she’ll win her Emmy that some young six-pack stomached hunky actor barely out of his teens will have to carry off stage for her at the end of her acceptance speech in which she’ll name check people that nobody’s heard of since the 1940’s.

The aged are mostly relegated to the sidelines in our culture. We don’t respect their wisdom, knowledge of the world or the history they can teach us. But somehow we elect them into political office for those very same reasons. We don’t think they are worthy of driving, working or being our next-door neighbors because they might lower property values. If a man is too old to work in your office, how is it he is capable of being President of our country? I for one will never understand that pretzel logic.

In other cultures they honor and respect aging. Older members of the family are held in high esteem and their opinions not only matter, they are even asked for. Village elders are looked to for answers on life’s tough questions and depended on for how to shape the future. Here we ignore them and force them into retirement villages with shared televisions and unused ping pong tables.

Don’t get me wrong I’m as guilty of doing it as the next guy. I argue with my parents and ignore their advice as often as possible. Questioning authority is a part of how I was raised and I do think it is important to never follow blindly no matter who is leading. I always try to educate myself so I can make an informed decision whenever it’s possible. Somehow I know that one is going to come back and bite me on the ass with my kids. I hope it does anyway.

Recently I got back in touch with my very first drum teacher. I started taking lessons with him when I was ten or eleven years old. At the time he seemed like a wise and experienced adult to me. While in actuality he was eighteen or nineteen years old, just a kid himself. But I learned so much from him. He talked to me about things other grown-ups wouldn’t come close to addressing with me. We didn’t just have drum lessons. Man, we had life lessons. We talked about music and books. We talked about girls and how to be cool. Like most other “old people” he didn’t talk down to me. Most importantly he showed me how to be genuine.

Talking to him now I get the same feeling inside that I did all those years ago in that tiny, sweaty, loud and stinky drum room in the back of Action Drum & Guitar on Balboa Blvd. I feel alive and open. Maybe some more inches under my belt and a head worth of lost hair along the way, but the old feelings about the newness and freshness of life come right back to me. Here we are as middle age men. I’m just passing forty and he’s at fifty. Both of us are married now with young children and are experiencing life from this side of things. The great part of it is that I find myself still learning from him. The interesting part is that I think I might even be teaching him some stuff too.

I guess that’s my point in all this ranting and raving. I had my ninth infusion today and my second heart surgery is one week from tomorrow. So right now I feel like crap. Tomorrow I’ll probably feel better. I should just be getting back to feeling pretty good by the time they put me under in the hospital up in Boston next week. Needless to say, not looking forward to it. I’m nervous and fidgety. I flip flop between denial, ignoring it completely and unable to think about anything else at all. Not quite at sheer panic mode yet, but I’m sure it’s coming.

Anyway, back to what I was getting at before… In America we hold beauty and youth’s bejeweled throne up high on the shoulders of muscular young men and Barbieish young women with after market parts installed, skin stretched to impossible tightness and tummies tucked with ass fat shoved into their cheeks. They worship at their own mirrors. It has become the United States of Narcissism. We pledge allegiance to ourselves if we never get old in any way, shape or form. Gym memberships, hair dye and boner pills for all!

I guess it's taking the otherwise non-option of growing old and sliding it almost out of my reach that makes it that much more important. For me, it’s all I want to be able to do.

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