Proper stories start from the beginning, but I didn't do
that. This portion is about why I was at the hospital in the first place and
how running led to my death.
For some silly reason I decided I wanted to get into better
shape. So I started running at night after work, slowly making my way up to 2
miles a night. Over the course of this exercise my knees started to hurt, then
my hips began producing an excruciating pain; it was to the point that I could
not walk after my runs. After this happened 4 or 5 times I decided I should
probably see a doctor. I went in to the appointment and the doctor told me my
labrum was torn and I had a femoral acetubular impingement (fancy speak for a
bone overgrowth on my hip and femur). First they injected steroids into my hips
(cringing at the thought of this, imagine a six inch needle going into your
hip, you can’t feel it going in, but you can feel it scraping against your
bones) to see if that would help. Alas, it did not, and the next step was
surgery.
Everything went well during the surgery. I didn't even have
to use crutches. It was the post-op that did me in. My medical records show the RN
in charge of giving me medicine completely disregarded what pain level I said I
was at. I never said anything above a 6-7. The reason, the paper said, for
giving me so much medication was a pain level I never claimed to be at (8-10).
Recently a lawyer told me I was given double doses of some medication as well.
I don’t remember much of the post-op other than saying, when I was first asked,
my pain level was 6-7, walking around, going to the bathroom, and the beginning
of my wheelchair ride to my car.
The moral of this story: don’t exercise, you’ll die.
Next time: Dying and the art of making awkward things seem
less awkward.
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