A Strange Man Put Warm Goo on me and it wasn't Gay at all

This is the best medicine, well that
plus some heavy antibiotics

"You know this is oddly, unintentionally homoerotic right?" I asked the ultrasound tech yesterday. "Uh, no. Why?" he answered kind of uncomfortably. "Well, here I am lying shirtless on a table in a dark room being squirted with warm goo by a stranger while he rubs my arm. Out of context it sounds kind of gay huh?" I told him. He got a huge belly laugh out of that and thus the tension of being in the hospital around strangers was broken. Throughout my bouts of sickness and long stints in the hospital I've always tried to make jokes with the staff. Some of them are humorless androids of which all jokes and attempts of laughter are completely lost upon, and others can appreciate a good laugh in a gloomy job.



Over the past 4 + years, I've been in the hospital more times than I can count. I've had cancer, cellulitis, MRSA, sarcoidosis, 3 blood clots, 7 surgeries, radiation, 2 wound VACs, 4 PICC lines, a removal of my gall bladder, and 2 of these weird little tubes with a pump on the end that drains yucky yellow fluid from my knee. I've found that about the only way to deal with all the crushing depression of being sick so often is to joke about it. When I first got cancer, I was still able to do a lot of things, just as I still am, but oftentimes I was really just too sick to do crap. My father in law would often come by the house when I would be stuck there all day and check on me. I would always make a point to make him feel uncomfortable as possible. "Dusty, why don't you take out the trash? It's right outside the door, all you've got to do is open the door and put trash out there." he would often ask when I had simply forgotten or been too lazy to do it. "Oh sorry Mike, I didn't do it because my cancer hurt." He would look uncomfortable and guilty for a moment and then I'd bust out laughing, hop up, and take out the trash in front of him. He hated it and has never gotten my sense of humor, but it always made me laugh.

What radiation feels like.

If I had not been able to joke about all of this and laugh, I would've gone insane a long time ago. Everyone around me over the past 4 years has been really supportive, but they don't always appreciate the uncomfortable stuff that I say. or do. My wife will still occasionally cringe when I make jokes. My mom and grandmother don't always get it. My mother-in-law doesn't laugh. And oftentimes hospital workers give me the look that says, "Stay right there for a moment while I go get you a strait jacket." When I was forced to go into do radiation (and I say "forced" because I didn't want to go, I found it completely unnecessary) I protested quite often. Sure I knew that I would go and do it but no without making them feel queasy first. The first day I arrived for my radiation treatment, I announced that I was there to "get into their Easy Bake Oven". One of the admitting nurses looked at me like I was a monster and the other cracked up. If you don't know, radiation for some patients can cause extreme skin burns and skin deteriation. It's a complete toss up, you could have minimal effects or you could look like a steak that had been left on a grill for 5 hours. Luckily for me, after they got done with me, my leg looked like a charred corpse. It hurt like nothing I've ever experienced. The first few treatments only minor burns were showing up but soon enough it was starting to turn black and flaky. Often when I would arrive for treatment they would ask how I was doing and I'd reply with "Well done" or "Extra Crispy". Heads would hang with quiet laughter and a tinge of embarrassment but at least I got a kick out of it.



Before I got the first surgery to remove the tumor or had ever had a single round of radiation, I would go to doctor's appointments with a bit of Skoal in my mouth. I wasn't doing it to be defiant, well maybe a little but that wasn't my main deal. I did it because I was addicted to it, it made me feel at ease, and I liked it. My doctor would always fuss at me, "Why do you insist on dipping when you're here?" he would ask. "Why not? Am I going to get even more cancer?" I would always tell him. He would grin but still insist that I not do it. Eventually I quit doing that to him after he had done the first 2 surgeries to remove the tumor, but I enjoyed it while it lasted. I knew everything was completely treatable but there was a lot to go through to get too well again. I really had no idea.

This is what a wound vac looks
like.  I could've posted a picture
of one actually attached to a
wound but I didn't want you to vomit

After the first two surgeries and radiation, my leg got infected pretty badly because they didn't quite wait long enough for me to heal from the surgeries before starting me on radiation. The radiation opened the surgical wounds and thus caused me to be really susceptible to infections since I had to hang around the hospital all the time, thus causing me a whole new batch of problems. The first time I got a serious MRSA infection they had to go in and cut out a baseball sized hole in my leg to get it all out. Obviously I couldn't walk around with a hole in my leg, so when I woke up from surgery I had a wound VAC stuck to my leg. If you don't know, a wound VAC is this machine that you carry around in a bag that looks like the most unfashionable purse with a tube running to where the wound was that literally sucked out all the yucky fluid. In short, it simply sucked. I didn't really have any idea of how much flesh they had taken out of me until I got home and my home health nurse had to come out and change the tubing and bandages. When she removed it, I was amazed because there in my leg was a hole as wide as a baseball and about 2-3 inches deep. I wasn't really grossed out by it and was actually kind of fascinated by it. As my nurse was getting ready to bandage it back up I told her to give me just a moment. I pulled out my cell phone and took a picture of it and sent the pic to my wife with the message that said, "Look, I've got a HOLE new place to hide my stuff." She was at work and when she retrieved my message I quickly got a horrified call from her. "Oh my God, what is wrong with you, that's disgusting? Is that your leg?" She was nearly in tears, but I told her yeah and it was fine.



The biggest inconvenience of that wound VAC, besides the fact that it looked like a cheap purse with tubes coming out of it, was the fact that it made "farting" noises all of the time. Often when I would venture out of the house, I would get the strange looks from everyone when the little machine would rip one off that sounded worthy of Roseanne but there was never a worse time than when I had to go to a funeral. My wife's grandfather passed away shortly after I had this Godforsaken machine placed with me. I tried to get out of wearing the VAC before going to the funeral but I was leaking so badly that it would've leaked out all over my khakis. So with regret, I had to wear it. I sat in the service just praying that it wouldn't go off but during one of the most solemn of moments, a prayer, the little VAC ripped off one of the loudest fart noises yet. I opened my eyes while everyone was praying and looked around to see if anyone had noticed, I saw a few curled up faces but then I saw my brother in law about to lose it his composure as he was choking on his laughter. It made my embarrassment feel a little better from then on. Plus I knew Katie's grandfather and I know that he would have gotten a big kick out of the whole thing, I liked to think that he was looking down on the whole situation and laughing hysterically.

Through it all, I've tried to laugh about it. I don't really like talking about it because I don't want anyone feeling sorry for me. Nothing makes me feel worse than people looking at me like, "Oh you poor thing". I don't mind anyone saying anything like that but looks are more uncomfortable than anything. I'd rather see someone smile or find some humor in a humorless situation. I'm getting better even though I still have my moments of getting sick (like my recent round of MRSA) but I all I can do is take the medicine and make the nurses and doctors feel grossly uncomfortable and confused.