I think I got up to “Hey, new room! And new IV!!” in the last post.

One of the particularly great things about the new room in the ward was that I was attached to IV pumps on a rolling stand, as opposed to gravity drip feeds on a stand attached to the bed, so I could go wandering about and use the bathroom without needing to be unplugged.

After the ER experience, especially the “Did They Forget Me?” part, this was awesome.
It also meant that, the next (Wednesday) morning, I could have a shower, my first since Monday morning, though they did need to put a protective layer in place first.

Those are eviscerated sample bags with the bio-hazard symbol on them, held in place with a lot of tape that was really good at sticking to skin.
Didn’t care; I really wanted that shower.

The odd thing about this whole process was that, other than when a spasm of pain hit, I was pretty mobile. The only thing keeping me in the bed was the IV line, so once that became mobile, I got to do some wandering, including out to the Sky Garden.

Fresh air, a nice breeze, enough sunshine that I sat in the shade, and gardens which supply the hospital kitchen.
Also a beehive.
It was often too warm to sit out there for long, but I spent some pleasant half-hours reading on a bench, or chatting with the people belonging to one of the therapy dogs.

Eventually ( probably Wednesday night ) they decided I could have a low-fibre diet. ( I’d already gone through clear liquids, then full liquids, though that last one never actually happened before the low fibre thing came in )
The system, rather than “here’s a tray”, was that you call the kitchen, or an agent of the kitchen, on the phone in the room ( I’d not noticed it, as it was on the same wall as a bunch of medical stuff I couldn’t identify ), tell them who you are, then order off the menu; If you’re not allowed a thing, they’ll let you know.
In the fullness of time, it arrives!

Sadly, I made some poor food choices.

I’d had a guess at what the low fibre foods might be, was hopelessly wrong, so asked them what I was allowed and ordered the first thing I recognised.
This was, it turns out, a mistake.

I note that you can see the sofa in the background of this shot.
Quite a nice spot to do some reading, and also when I couldn’t sleep because of restless legs, I could wrap myself in the blanket and move over to there for a while.

Breakfast was another mistake.
Either Cream Of Wheat is just naturally bland and flavourless, or I don’t have a clue what you’re supposed to do with it.
I mean, I ate it, but the napkin had more going on in the taste department.
Too much fibre though.

I got better at fooding as things went on; Thursday dinner was pretty good, and it turns out that baked chicken with french fries was an OK option.

And, of course, pamcakes¹ for Friday breakfast.

There’s not much more to tell about the hospital experience.
I had a lot of fluids and antibiotics pumped into me, had a lot of blood tests, fell asleep during a midnight vitals test so that I woke up with the nurse leaning over me with a thermometer pointed at my face, …

Started feeling nauseous & headachy on the Thursday, and when the surgical team came in in the afternoon and saw me slumped on the couch they were worried, but it turned out to be a few days of not drinking coffee, after a week of a con where I was drinking all of the coffee. A monster Tylenol + Caffeine pill took care of that one.

They took me off the IVs on Thursday, as my white cell count had dropped to a level they were happy with, so they wanted to see whether it’d stay that way on oral antibiotics. Thankfully, it did.
( I suspect an amount of the slumped on the couch feeling dreadful was because I assumed that this was a bad sign on the antibiotics working front, and preceded a trip to Radiology for a drain to be put in )

On Friday, they were happy for me to leave, though they wanted me to stay in town for a while to be sure I was going to be OK.
I had enough warning to book a hotel; Went with a suite hotel in the same complex as the one I’d stayed in previously, partially because of availability & price, but also because the idea of more space to convalesce in had a certain appeal.
Again, it’s that sofa thing.
I could have gone much cheaper if I’d stayed further out, or free had I taken the option of Kevin’s loft, but I wanted to be close to the hospital in case something did go wrong.

The view wasn’t as impressive, though I think I can see my old room from here;

So, I hung around, I relaxed, I did some laundry, and I got some queries from the servers at the JW as to why I was still in town. They were somewhat horrified to find out the reason, which probably led to me having my meal comped on 2 of the four days.

Frank & Kevin came into town on the Sunday, so we grabbed some lunch & went out to Kevin’s to play boardgames.
This one was a Marvel tie-in, Thanos Rising. A cooperative game where we got our asses handed to us the first time around, but won the second game.

During the day I was fielding calls from the insurance company, who wanted to arrange Medical Repatriation.
They were a little concerned at me travelling alone, but eventually came around to the idea that I was OK by myself at the hotel, so I would probably be OK on a plane with many many other people, especially as they were upgrading the seats to make the journey more bearable for me.
They did arrange wheelchairs, which … I did not use, because I did not need them.

Delta First Class on a domestic flight was, to be honest, a bit crap.
Flight didn’t last long enough to get uncomfortable.

Delta One for the transatlantic trip was definitely worth every dollar I didn’t pay. Huge legroom, lie almost-flat seat, glass of prosecco or OJ on boarding, …

The car to take me home from Heathrow was not immediately obvious.
This turned out to be because the company in question, having been given the time but apparently not the flight number, didn’t query the number or simply turn up at the time, but instead decided they’d just wait until I called them. While not answering their phone.

The outfit organising it called me to make sure the car had turned up, weren’t please with the answer, and presumably mad a call of their own.
Eventually I heard from the driver, who did turn up, helped me with my bag, and then spent a chunk of the journey ( until I fell asleep ) telling me how awesome their services were and how I should totally get my company to use them in future, because they turn up when they’re booked to and there’s never any hassle.
There was, in fact, so much of this ( plus some musings on the ‘fit’ nature of nursing staff, because of course he bloody did ) that he missed the motorway turn-off and ended up going the long way back to Aylesbury.
Yep, quality outfit, very reliable.

In fairness, it was still easier than taking the train.

---

1 – Hellboy’s reaction to eating pancakes for the first time

May as well cover this one.
Fair warning, there will probably be awful pictures, starting with the selfie I don’t remember taking.

The Timeline, As I Somewhat Recall It

Started to feel unwell on Saturday the 3rd of August, day 3 of Gen Con.
Not too bad at first, and I assumed it was a combination of too little water & too many badly-timed poorly-chosen bar food meals causing some issues in, as it it were, the waste-processing zone.

Took some Tylenol ( paracetamol ) to dull the symptoms and upped my water intake a bunch to try to flush the system. It seemed to work.

By the end of my second game of Saturday, at 6pm or so, things weren’t great. I’d been OK seated at the table, but walking back to my hotel I just felt awful, and in some pain; Enough that being able to lean against the wall of the elevator and not move came as a relief.
Fortunately, the game ( Part Time Gods ) was way the hell out at the raggedy end of the ICC, so my hotel was pretty damn close.
Drank some more water, took some more Tylenol, went to sleep for a few hours.

Woke up at midnight.
Went back to sleep again.

On the Sunday I felt better; Not 100%, but the general sensation of “things ain’t right” had decreased, and I assumed that sleep + water + Tylenol had done the job, and I was on the mend.
Well, we know better now, don’t we?

Monday morning, at maybe 2am, is when things got bad.
Woken up by intermittent stabbing pains.
I did look up the bladder & kidney stone symptoms, as well as re-familiarising myself with how orchitis presents, but none of those seemed to fit.
Said pains did not seem to be easing by morning, which I was, to be honest, hoping for.

I’d had plans to hang out with my friend Frank on Monday, and when I mentioned that there might be a problem requiring a doctor, he … Well, he basically took care of it.
Picked me up from the hotel, took me to a hospital ER where he knew they’d have no issues with me being a foreigner, and stayed with me during the day. Also teamed up with our friend Kevin to go and clear out my hotel room once it became clear that I was not going to be checking out in person the next morning.

At the hospital ( Eskenazi ) ER, I was issued with a nifty wristband as soon as I was registered, and got to see an array of medical types pretty quickly.
Getting in was a little interesting, as they had a metal detector and bag scanner in operation, which was a new one on me.

My assumption was that I’d get some antibiotics & be sent on my way.
This was not the case.
Instead I got a doctor who, after saying that he could listen to my accent all day, explained that he was worried about diverticulitis, and sent me off for a CT scan. Somewhere in there there was also a visit from their HIV screening folks ( they try to scan everyone, with the goal of getting the entire population scanned once a year, towards the aim of getting the transmission rate to zero ), and I think there was a visit from someone who took my health insurance details.

At this point we all know how the scan came back.

It was a bit of a rollercoaster, to be honest.
The ER doctor looked at the scans and said, “Yep, Diverticulitis with a perforation”, the surgical team dropped by prior to looking at the scans to talk about antibiotics vs. antibiotics plus “getting a drain put in by Radiology”, then one of them came back to talk about “removing the entire affected section of colon, reattaching to healthy tissue, and you get to poop out of your side for six months”.

It only became apparent much later that the reason he’d mentioned that wasn’t ( as Frank & I assumed ) because he started with the worst option, but because the scan looked really bad, and that’s what they were expecting would happen.

The hospital was slammed, to the extent that they were turning away ambulances, so I spent Monday night in a room in the ER, with a line in my arm, on an antibiotics + fluids drip.
Fortunately, they’d disconnect it at times, so with some judicious timing I could wander along to the bathroom, which is how I noticed the ER rooms with the cell doors, and the guy being walked calmly but firmly back to his room by a group of police officers, with a commentary of “Can’t have you wandering around, brah”.
There was someone in a very agitated state a few rooms in one direction, who was too bust keeping up a non-stop stream of words to do anything like “Sit On The Bed. Sit On The Bed NOW!”. In the other direction, come morning, someone was kicking off on the theme of “Get these things out or I’ll pull them out”, and the nurse was a hairs-breadth away from calling him an idiot, stopping at “You don’t even know why you’re angry” and “You’re being ridiculous right now”. There was also some mention of him having been dropped off by his parole officer, so I get the idea that things were not going well for him in general.

There was some confusion in there as to whether I could eat or drink, and I did get a tray with a sandwich, but wasn’t hungry.
Turns out the answer was that I should not have been allowed the tray, or the Gatorade which I didn’t drink, or any water other than what was needed to swallow tablets.

Tom dropped by sometime on Tuesday, which was both unexpected & very welcome. Not sure how much sense I was making, but we chatted for a while.

I think they forgot about me during a shift change on Tuesday afternoon.
The pain got bad enough that I hit the Call button ( which apparently also had a two-way voice communicator in it, which another nurse had previously figured wasn’t working ). There was some cracking of static after 5 minutes or so, no idea whether they could hear me, and nobody came to check on why the call had gone off, which doesn’t seem like a good thing.
After 15 minutes, I hit it again, and from the sound of it someone was coming to investigate but got intercepted by a person from the wards, who took over in order to get me moved to a room upstairs.
And the painkiller, rather than being Tylenol, was Oxycontin, to make the move easier.
( previously, I think for the move for the CT scan, there was a dose of Fentanyl, which is disconcerting if you’re not expecting it )

The ward room was much nicer, with an actual view.
Also a private bathroom, and a sofa which folded out into a bed for long-stay guests of long-stay patients.

They also fitted a second IV line, for reasons I don’t really understand.
The first attempt didn’t go well, so the second one used a nifty mini-ultrasound to find the vein.

This is getting pretty long, and I’m not really sure who I’m even writing it for anymore, so I’ll stop here and pick it up in a later post.

The view from my room is pretty damn good; Slept with the curtains open, partially to wake up with the dawn to force some timezone adaption, but also because, from the 30th, floor, it’s quite a view.

There was a triathlon going on out there, though they were swimming in the canal, not the river. Probably a sensible move, given what I’ve been told about water quality in the White River.

Was finally brave enough* to try Biscuits & Gravy. Not unpleasant, like a light unsweetened scone served with peppery bechamel sauce.

* though I’m told that this isn’t brave, it’s just jet lag making me think I should try a thing that looks like a cat was sick on an afternoon tea service.

Didn’t really do much today; Wandered through the ICC, which is still mostly empty, with isolated patches of Gen Con stuff being set up.

One of the hotels now has a very American feature wall.

Took a while to notice that they’re all a bit different, but I’m not sure whether they’re historical or artistic. ( or both )

And I found a way to slowly charge my phone.

I think it’s the socket. No sign of anything stuck in there, and it keeps stopping & starting charging even when nothing in the area moves. Probably a loose connection.

In any case, I can at least charge the damn thing overnight, and thus get roaming data wherever I am, and not have to go find a hotel lobby with free wifi & hope that the ( old ) phone doesn’t lock up because it all got too difficult.

The old phone is very old for a smartphone. I keep it around because it’s what my NZ sim card fits, and for emergency situations like this. It’s slow, but relatively tough.

… He was sitting on his ass in the Metropolitan Lounge at Chicago Union Station, enjoying complimentary beverages & snacks.

Eventually the train was called, and so we all trooped down to the boarding hall, where we stood around being occasionally required to move because they needed to get a motorized cart thingy through, because the train wasn’t actually ready. Or even present.

Someone jumped the gun a bit vis-a-vis boarding, I’m thinking; I think we started to get on the 1745 Cardinal at 1800 or so.

This was not one of those smooth trips. Lots of slow walking pace sections, multiple stopped-in-a-cornfield parts waiting for signals, or a freight, or possibly just really fresh corn on the cob, and the air conditioning was for some reason set to ‘beer cooler’ for most of the trip.

Made it to Indy maybe an hour late ( at 0100 or so ), which isn’t bad going. Walked to the hotel, because after that long on the train the idea of a non-lurching surface had some serious appeal. There were still a bunch of people on the streets, including some police folk dealing with something across the road from the station.

Check in was wildly uneventful, but getting to the room ( 30th floor with park view! ) was hampered by a couple who were too drunk, or disfunctional, or maybe just too stupid, to operate the lift. In the end I just left them on the 2nd floor, went back to Ground, and was then able to call a lift they weren’t in. ( no idea how, but their flailing at the card scanner + floor button system was stopping any other card from working as well )

OK, going to take a shower & get some actual non-plane non-train sleep.

Right, well, that was a journey.

Flight from Heathrow to Dublin was delayed by almost an hour by the end of things. Arrival in Dublin for some reason involved getting a bus to make it to connecting flights, so said bus was full of many irritated folks wondering whether they’d miss their next flight.

I had memories of the CBP clearance at Dublin being quite pleasant. Should have added the caveat “when it’s empty”; Full of agitated people, it’s awful.

On the funny side, pretty sure the CPB Agent tried a new ( to me ) trick with questions; Got my destination city wrong, to see whether I’d notice. Also, this was the first time I’d been asked whether Gen Con is work-related.

Got through clearance as they started boarding, so that was … Closer than I’d like. The flight itself was fine, and even arrived early, which came in handy, because;

The trains running between terminals weren’t; They had shuttle bus runs instead.

The train running all the way to Chicago downtown didn’t; They’re doing upgrades, so it stops, you get on a bus, get driven to the next station via Cleveland, and get back on a train again.

I’m waiting on my last train now, in the business class lounge 😁 , and so far it hasn’t been delayed, cancelled, replaced by a bicycle rickshaw, or been swallowed by a dragon.