My War - Installment 48

While I was still awake for this short time I caught a nurse coming onto the ward and asked her about some food. She checked my chart and said she would inquire further.

"At least let me have something to drink while I'm waiting."

"You can sip a little water, remember only a little. It's not uncommon to throw up for a while after general anesthesia."

"Byy-thee-waaay-wh-h-ere'ss Dooouugg Maa-arrrrooow?" half aware of my slurring all my speech.

"He went to surgery today also; he should be back this afternoon."

"Thaaann-kkkss Booonnnneeeee." I had just come to realize who it was that I was talking to.

She came back a few minutes later with a small Dixie cup of ice cream which I was to spoon in very slowly. It was definitely better than nothing, I thought, but did little to eliminate my intense hunger pangs.

My leg still throbbed, thank goodness my throbbing head had cleared somewhat. I would start receiving regular shots of morphine as soon as all the affects of the anesthesia were worn off. Up until this point in my life the strongest thing that I had ever had for pain was a couple of aspirin. Morphine would be a totally new experience for me. All I hoped for was that it would relieve the pain and discomfort of the surgery. I felt like sleeping, even though my stomach said stay awake and eat.

I understood that wanting to sleep was another of the after effects of the drug, sodium pentothal. Even with the pain in my leg it was all that I could do to hold my eyes open long enough to put a glass of ice water to my mouth and then back to the night stand. Looking hazily about I wondered how the cup of water had even gotten into my hand to start with. "Maybe it was the nurse...what was her nam......"

When I regained consciousness the next time I was more cognizant of my surroundings, like the wetness from some spilled water, and what I was doing. I still had an irresistible urge to sleep. I still had not gotten a shot of morphine and I really did not care just then. The only things on my mind were food and sleep. I dozed off again.

I was awakened at supper time by the efforts of one of the nurses, through cloudy; sleep filled eyes I made out the form of Louise gesticulating. She moved my bed table across me and cranked the bed into an upright position to facilitate my eating. I glanced over toward Doug's bed and saw that he was in it. He was having a bout with sleep just then because of his surgical experience.
&&& My intake of fluids had been limited since the night before and I did not seem to be able to keep awake long enough to get much more than a swallow or two of fluids down. I was becoming concerned about not having taken a leak. They kept a post operative record of fluid output; mine at that point stood at zero or very close to it. I had managed to eat most of my supper. It took me forever, before I succumbed to the onslaught of sleep for the nth time that day.

The next time that I woke up I felt like I had to relieve myself, really bad. I called for a urinal. A nurse brought one in, and then pulled the curtains around my bed to afford me some modicum of privacy. I tried and tried and tried, but I just could not, regardless of the urge, get a drop out. For a minute I thought maybe I could at least pee some dust. My mouth was still as dry as a bone and tasted like a herd of buffalo had stampeded through it, and had all taken a dump on the way.

I must have gone down for the count after supper. I slept, still influenced by the after effects of anesthesia. I woke up, in very early in the morning to pain, I had thought I had known pain, but up until that time I had not known the meaning of the word. I would never have thought that bone surgery could hurt so much. I was told later that orthopedic surgery is one of the most painful, I would have to agree.

I rang immediately for my first morphine shot, I needed some relief. As I waited I looked over to see how Doug was doing. He looked asleep, his leg propped up on a mountain of extra pillows. I tried to talk to him, but his ears were not hearing; he was dead to the world.

I was not groggy any more, and my pain made me even more awake and aware. I looked around the ward, while anxiously awaiting the morphine that would be coming and noticed some new faces, where only empty beds had been before I had gone to surgery. One of the new men was an EM (enlisted man). He was sitting on his bed wearing a fatigue shirt displaying his rank of PFC. There appeared to be nothing wrong with him, he was young and gave the appearance of being muscular and in good health. I figured that he must be in for something specific, and our ward was an orthopedic unit. I saw no sense in my being concerned about it. Another of the new faces nearby looked young also, he was still asleep. I guessed from the outline of his covers that he was missing at least a foot.

I continued to wait for my shot, wishing and hoping that the nurse would hurry up. I poured myself a cup of water and started to sip at it, still trying to alleviate some of the dryness in my mouth. Bonnie came with a hypodermic and asked me which side I wanted it in. "Side of what," I asked.

"Which side of your rump?"

"Take your pick."

The liquid from the syringe burned as she pushed the plunger injecting it into the large glut muscle. A slight lump puffed up on my butt after she withdrew the needle. She rubbed the lump with a cotton wad full of alcohol for a second or two and then told me to relax. I would be receiving shots every four hours henceforth.

It didn't take long for me to feel the effects of the morphine. My head felt funny and I began to feel nauseous. The pain in my ankle was still there which surprised me; I began to feel a bit drowsy. I had no intention of falling asleep and missing breakfast. In spite of my desire to stay awake I succumbed to the drug that burned in my rump and only came back to wakefulness at the sound of the food cart rattling onto the ward, even then it was as if I heard the cart from a great, hazy, distance.

The other men were up now and appeared to be glad to have breakfast on the ward, that is except for me and perhaps Doug, since he too had been a recent recipient of the surgeon's scalpel skills and assorted tools. I still had a queasy feeling in my stomach and the thought of food was just not sitting real well with me. Eating a mouthful of soap appealed to me about as much as breakfast did. Silly, how at that time I could still remember the taste of soap from discipline when I was a kid, caught saying something nasty.

I tried to eat a little of the breakfast food, it did absolutely nothing except increasing my feelings of nausea. I began to wonder about when I would be allowed to get out of bed. As long as I kept my leg propped up to keep it from swelling, I figured that I would be able to make good use of my wheelchair. That is as soon as I could get the OK from my doctors.

It was after lunch when I got the go ahead for the wheelchair, it surprised me in a way; and I was quite pleased with the prospect. Actually, the wheelchair was approved on condition that I would have to wait a day or two before using it. I missed the freedom that I had before the operation and wanted all the pain and confinement to be over with so that I could resume my activities.

It was sometime in the late afternoon or early evening when BT came by to say hello. He had one of the male nurses push him over to visit. By that time of the day I had been receiving shots of morphine, every four hours throughout the day, they had been alternated from cheek to cheek. A stupid thought ran through my mind; this must have been what prompted, "turn the other cheek."

BT was in good spirits and filled me in on what had been happening during my short absence. His New York friend was beginning to solidify her group's membership, for the hospital show that they were planning. BT had a fitting for his arm prosthesis during my absence, so he was quite excited about it. It was just great to see him and to know that he was gaining some confidence. To top it off, It had not been very many weeks before that he had been totally down and closed to being out in public.

Jim turned up while BT was still there and we had a good time visiting. BT and I both simultaneously suggested that we take Jim with us to the club as soon as I was off the heavy duty drugs and able to travel. Jim thought the idea was great. As we sat and talked, Ralph, one of the nurses, stopped by to visit. He told us of a Captain he had heard about that was on the Psych Ward, a building located on the south end of the hospital grounds, in a separate building. This Captain sincerely thought that he was a tank and was continually asking staff members on the ward to bring him motor oil to drink. We all got a laugh from Ralph's story even though we knew it was not a laughing matter. We kicked it around a little; maybe it was a laughing matter, for us, not for anybody else, not for civilians or even other military just us dyed in the wool patients.

The next afternoon I got my wheels back and rolled over to visit with Doug. He having had surgery the same day as I, felt similar, but had no desire to try a wheelchair at that time.

"Does the morphine do anything to you, or for you Doug?"

"Sure does. What do you mean? It takes the pain away, is that what you’re talking about?"

"Not exactly, it doesn't really take my pain away. It makes me feel half sick in the stomach. To top it off, my ass feels like a pin cushion."

"That I'll agree with, maybe I'm fortunate, I've had no ill side effects."

"I'm probably the odd-ball. I have a very high tolerance to the effect of drugs. Bill, the anesthesiologist told me it took a lot of sodium pentothal to put me under."

"That must be the problem, the shots you get may not be enough to give you relief, just enough to make you feel like crap."

I decided that I would mention it to the doctors. I was not sure what good it would do, I would have to wait and see.

Since I was able to and allowed to get out of bed I would start using the bathroom again. It is very easy to forget, when one is able to, how nice some of life's little conveniences are. I was very lucky; there were wards full of people, on the second floors of the ward buildings that would never use a restroom or bathroom in a normal way again. Some of those that would be able to move around, in wheelchairs, would only be able use bathrooms to dump urine or ostomy bags. A great number of those men, the paraplegics and quadriplegics, felt the same way that I did. They felt that they had gone to fight for their country and they had done it proudly. There were regrets, there always is. Just like there are regrets by people who are paralyzed in motorcycle accidents, or any other type of accident. We mostly had regrets mostly for our condition, not for having gone to fight for our country or for having ridden the motorcycle or what ever.

After the operation I had not given much thought to using self hypnosis, I thought that I would see if I could relieve my discomfort by practicing it again. I wheeled back to my bed, crawled up and made myself comfortable. I began my, self designed, process of putting myself into a hypnotic sleep. I found it very hard to maintain an adequate level of concentration. It probably would have been better if I had the foresight to prepare myself, in advance of my operation, for some pain relief. I was able to enter a light hypnotic state and begin to relax more and more. I finally forced myself into natural sleep.

The next few days were similar, the medication did not so much as touch the pain, it did manage to make me feel crappy. I was receiving as much morphine as the doctors considered safe for a person of my size and body weight, so I could not verify Doug's hypothesis. The pain was manageable, meaning that I could live with it. So I started going to the mess hall with some of the other men, it was nice to get out again.

Time seemed to move more slowly during that period of my life, while on medication. There were days when I would wake up, eat and them hypnotize myself and just lay there in a half sleep, half trance, self hypnotic state for hours. It was those periods of hypnosis which seemed to be most enjoyable of all.

I was finally taken off of my injected medication; I had gone from morphine to Percodan a small pill one step down form morphine. They seemed to help me more than the morphine, but they didn't last very long at all. When the Percodan were brought to us they were handed to us in little paper cups, the nurse would keep a close eye on the little pill, making sure it was taken before she would leave. Doug and I figured that if one pill was good for pain, then two would be great, giving twice the time of total relief from the pain. Plans were laid, we would fake taking the pills and save up a couple to take at the same time.

We practiced faking pill swallowing until we felt we had it down pat. We wanted to be convincing. I saved one and then took it along with my next one. It was not all that bad waiting out the extra four hours without a pill, because I figured that the next four hours would go floating by.

Doug, unknown to me, kept saving pills all day long and after supper that night took three or four of the tablets all at one time. Within twenty minutes he was vomiting his guts out because of it. I made up my mind after seeing his reaction to stick to one pill at a time.

During my time in Vietnam I had never come in contact with drugs or drug users. I’m convinced that I was fortunate, not that I ever considered using them. Flying was my drug, the most important thing to me, drugs and flying just flatly didn't mix in my book. Our CO's were the good old gung-ho types. We knew there were drugs in Vietnam, but not in our unit. In the hospital, among the enlisted men, I was becoming more aware that there was a military drug culture.

After the Watson-Jones operation I had been off of morphine for three or four days, still practicing my self hypnosis at least once a day for a few hours. I awakened from a trance one afternoon and lay in bed stretching while coming fully to a conscious condition. A fellow, from across the ward, an EM, walked up and pointedly asked me what I was on.

"What am I on, I responded?"

"Yea, man, I've been watching you, man....and you’re on something. Whoa, right here in broad daylight, yea man you’re on something. You’re all right for an officer. You wanna join us out on the parkin' lot sometime and hit on some good stuff with us?"

"Hit with you!?"

"Yea, man, do some dope."

"I'm not on anything, but self hypnosis and I suggest that you cut the drug crap. I'll report you. You got that, man?"

He took off with out a word. He wasn't the only person to ask me what I was on. I explained how I felt about drugs and why I did not use them. One main reason being my religious belief:
1 Corinthians 3:16 "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? (17) If any man defile the temple of God,...."

It was also against the law. I controlled my self hypnosis; it was totally safe and natural without worry of side or after effects. I was not about to jeopardize my military career by considering drug use, other than what the doctors prescribed. Doug's popping the Percodan convinced me and reinforced my opinion.

The weeks passed as I began and continued to use hypnosis to, hopefully, heal my ankle faster. I increasingly spent time doing isometric contractions inside the cast to keep the muscles in shape. We had taken up frequenting the "O" Club a few times a week, along with playing cards, shooting "8" Ball, going to the library.

BT had finally been fitted for his leg prosthetic device and he had his new electric wheelchair, which was a pretty snappy number. He would be up and beginning to learn to walk before much longer.

I was anxious to get out of my new waking cast and get my built up shoe and brace. I noticed when I got my new walking cast and started walking, that since the ankle was stable in the cast my left knee was beginning to do strange things; strange like bending back too far and wobbling from side to side. I noticed the side to side movement because the walking pad, on the bottom of the cast, was sort of rounded and caused lateral stress on the knee. I mentioned it to the doctors and they examined my left knee and compared it to my right. Their examination indicated that there had been severe ligamental damage to the left knee and moderate damage to the right knee. Great, I thought. What else was falling apart on me? There was nothing to be done. Not until the cast on the lower left leg came off. So, I would just have to put up with it all.

I got to know some of the other men on the ward during that time after my, Watson-Jones, surgery. There was Davy a skinny fellow who had a hip disarticulation, that being where the entire leg, including the hip joint, had been removed. He had his prosthetic leg and could use it pretty well. He liked to tell a story about going out to a bar with his girl. He had been sitting at the bar and when another girl approached the bar, he acting the gentleman, got down from his stool and stood beside his girl. The new woman moved the stool and sat the leg of the stool on top of Davy's false foot. She plunked down. Being half drunk she did not realize immediately that her stool was tilted until some time had passed. It certainly was no bother him, so he did not say a word. Eventually she noticed, recognizing that it had been that way for some time. Embarrassed she jumped down apologizing profusely. He thought it was pretty funny, he got the stool back too. Davy was a likable guy, easy to get along with. His small features seemed even smaller with is tussled light brown hair getting longer. He often joined us for a game of cards.

The young healthy looking fellow on the opposite side of the ward went off to surgery one morning and came back later in the day minus his whole left arm up to and including the shoulder joint. I was and had been, curious about what was wrong with him. I never found out. He was soon gone from the ward.