Rough Patch in the Past

03/07/2024

Rough Patch in the Past

This journey started back in March of 2007 and lasted 4 years.

Walking to the bathroom late in the evening of March 17th 2007, I suddenly had a pain in my stomach that brought me instantly to the ground doubled up.

I laid there for around 15 minutes crying and unable to move as the pain slowly receded. I was finally able to get up and make my way to the bed where I curled up and finally went to sleep.

Within a week I had seen two doctors and was admitted to Prattville hospital in Alabama. For two weeks I stayed there while they placed a drain tube in my colon and drained puss out of an abscess the size of an orange.

The doctor comes in and tells me that it is drained and I can go home and resume my life. I had just started a new job so returning to it I was determined to work hard to ensure the absence I’d had wouldn’t hurt me during my probationary period.

A week went by and on Wednesday I had extreme pain in my stomach again so had to leave work and go to another hospital in Montgomery where they did a cat scan and admitted me for an emergency operation on my colon.

Waking up five days later in ICU I found that the abscess had again grew to the size of an orange and while I was being visited by my brother and sister [no relation] the abscess broke and poison flooded my system.

I had a colostomy bag attached to my stomach and was told that after four months I would have a reversal and be able to go back to a normal life. After the second surgery I woke to find I still had the colostomy and was told I would have to keep it the rest of my life.

After another eight weeks I was able to return to work driving a dump truck and relocated to Foley Alabama where I tried to resume my life. After another two years of living in constant pain while accumulating six hernia’s in my stomach I was not able to work any longer.

I ended up back in Montgomery where I found employment with a temp company detailing cars at Hundiya and tried to resume a normal lifestyle.

This wasn’t easy to do as it involved a lot of bending in and out of new vehicles and while working one day my bag came loose as I climbed into the transport van and the smell was instantly unbearable for the other workers.

Needless to say I had to quit that job immediately. Praise to my friends for putting up with the…how do I say it, inconvenience of being close when the bag broke away from my skin. I had become so depressed I thought life wasn’t worth living like that anymore.

I talked to my older brother and made arrangements to go to Indiana to stay with him for a couple of months to figure out what to do.

Arriving in Indiana I was depressed and had a plan to say good-bye to family and friends and commit suicide which failed and I ended up in a hospital’s ward for suicide patients which turned out to be the best thing that happened to me since this all started.

A nurse there told me about the Cleveland clinic and after I was released gave me information for help which included going to the free clinic in Ft. Wayne IN. A nurse seen me there and came over to look at my colostomy and sent me to a specialist.

Understand all this happened without me having insurance so I was expecting to be turned away yet again when to my surprise Dr. Marks told me the operation shouldn’t have ever taken place.

He knew I had no insurance and couldn’t work so he graciously preformed the operation and charged me a measly $2,200 for another operation.

These three operations with follow up appointments, hospital care, and medical supplies had me in debt close to the tune of $1 million dollars! I was however put back together and given hope for a normal future. I filed bankruptcy and was looking for a job when my step father passed away in February of 2011.

My mother was in the first stages of Alzheimer’s disease and couldn’t be left alone so I stepped in to care for her. This was a full time job that really can not be described as it has opened my eyes to quite a few things I would have never realized before doing this.

Alzheimer’s is a terrible disease that affects memory and slowly eats away until there is nothing left of memory. For three and a half years I took care of my mother 24/7 with the exception of a week-end.