“Dude, I thought you went in to get a cavity taken care?”
Walker asked.
“I did,” replied Wombley.
“Then why are your front four teeth missing?”
“I don’t know! They put me under and I woke up to this.”
Poor
Wombley was one of many victims to terrible physicians during basic
training. It would inspire me to
avoid a military dentist and keep extremely good care of my teeth. It’s bad enough that while growing up,
we all view the dentist’s office as a torture chamber. Imagine going in for a simple procedure and you wake up to
four of your pearly whites missing in action. No bueno.
“Sergeant Vance, I want you to take this black sharpie,
circle the non-surgical knee and then make an “X” inside the circle so the
surgeons know which knee to operate on,” the nurse said.
“Are… are you kidding me?” I asked with eyes wide.
“It happens.”
In
late 2007, after my first deployment, a friendly game of flag football turned
into tackle. I was in the shape of
my life when a freak accident left my torso turned in one direction and my
right foot stuck into the turf facing 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Most people “tear” their ACL. I snapped mine completely in half,
leaving nothing but two nubs on the inside of my knee.
“Try to walk it off, Vance,” LT said.
“Something’s not right,” I hissed.
“Don’t get up, man. I heard the pop from the other side of
the field,” Jackson proclaimed.
It would be a long road to recovery
and a path that would lead me to despise military doctors. After hobbling around for almost two
months, a spot for surgery opened up at the base hospital in early 2008.
A
quick snip about that base hospital… the best equipment and the worst
staff. When I originally went to
the ER they told me I had a sprained knee and wrapped it tightly with a soft
cast. Not only a misdiagnosis, but
the worst thing you can do to a knee with my injury is apply heat. I didn’t sleep much that night and all
they had to do was give me an MRI, but that was “too expensive” to do at the
time.
After
I circled my good knee during pre-surgery I hopped onto a mobile bed for the
procedure and hooked up to an IV to knock me out. As the drugs began to take a hold on my body I began to
shake. The hospital staff rolled
me into the surgery room. This
isn’t something I wanted to be awake for.
As the bed came to a halt, I looked around the room and saw all kinds of
shiny tools they were going to use on me along with lots of people with masks
on and this made me uneasy.
“Oh shit, he’s still not under,” a male nurse said to the
female nurse.
“High tolerance maybe. Up the dose,” the female replied.
“Why am I shaking?” I asked.
“Count to 100.”
“Wooooooooooon, choooooooo, teeeeee,” yep, time to go night
nights.
…………………………..
“Sergeant Vance, are you with me?” a nurse asked.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“For the tenth time its about 2:30.”
“I just woke up, how did I ask nine other times?”
“You’ve been awake for 10 minutes repeating that question
and now you’re actually aware of yourself.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“Don’t be, it’s been hilarious. Go ahead and pee in this
jar.”
“I don’t have to piss.”
“You will when you stand up.”
The
post-operation room is where the comedy is. We’ve all seen the videos on YouTube where a kid comes out
of surgery and is saying wacky things on the car ride home. Now imagine a bunch of crazed
veterans. Apparently I behaved and
just wanted to know what time it was since I had asked Sanchez and Jonesy to
pick me up. Pretty damn
cognoscente for a doped up guy if I do say so myself. They walked into the room as I went to sit up.
“Aw man, I gotta piss bad,” I muttered.
“Told ya. I have things to do so your buddies will have to
assist you,” said the old nurse.
Sanchez looked confused and Jonesy started laughing.
“What she mean, ‘assist you,’ Vance?” Sanchez asked.
“I still can’t feel much so somebody has to hold me up and
the other has to… hold the plastic jar while I… urinate.”
“I’ll hold him,” Sanchez snapped and immediately took the
easy job.
“Hey, hey Jonesy,” I said with a wink.
“Fuck you, Sanchez,” Jonesy whispered while laughing.
Sanchez stood behind me, held me up and looked away while
Jonesy stood in front of me while I relieved myself.
“You owe me a lot of drinks, Vance,” Jonesy said.
“Yup-p-p-p-p,” I tried to respond, but the drugs still had a
firm grasp on my mind.
Something
went wrong during the course of the surgery and the doctor who operated on me
failed to pass a referral on to my rehabilitation office because she was too
excited to go on vacation. The
problem is the rehab place won’t accept me until the operating doctor sends a
referral and she wasn’t reachable.
So what happens to Mat? My
knee locks at 90 degrees for over a week and rehab was supposed to begin three
days post-op.
I
plea my case with documents to another rehab place and they accept me. No progress with bending the knee after
another week. Doctor Ditz comes
back and I’m ready to go on a rampage.
She admits her error, but the damage is done and you can’t just sue the
military. Ditz calls me to come in
for a procedure known as a “manipulation.”
“You’ll come in, we’ll put you under and make your knee
bend,” she assured me over the phone.
I show up to the hospital the next day.
“Here’s a pillow,” Ditz said.
“What’s this for?” I asked
“You’re going to want to put your face in this. We won’t be
putting you under.”
“That’s not what you told me last night.”
“This way is more convenient for us and saves money. We’re
going to give you an epidural then force the knee to bend while you’re awake.”
“Epi-what?”
“It’s what we give pregnant women during the birthing
process.”
“Riiiiiight. Lets get on with it then.”
I
put my face in the pillow, felt some pressure in my back then what felt like a
cool liquid going down my spine.
Two male doctors came up and Ditz directed them to my lower leg. She looked uncertain of what was about
to happen. I just glared at her as
if to say, “You better fix this situation real quick-like.” All three grabbed my right shin, lifted
my leg and began slowly trying to bend it.
“Ummm, errrr, yeah I can feel that,” I mentioned with a
grimace.
“Give him more,” Ditz ordered more numbing agent.
They took a break to let the drugs
set in and ten minutes later we went again. Same result.
Repeat. Now I was
numb. They put all the force they
could into bending my knee and it started to move. I heard the scar tissue and cartilage breaking up inside my
knee, but felt no pain… yet. After
the three stooges were done with their manipulation that put saving money over
a patient’s comfort, I was wheeled into a holding area because they forgot to
get me a room.
My leg was placed in a machine that
would make it constantly bend in motion.
While I was looking at this contraption a pretty female nurse came up to
me with some kind of rubber sack and a tube. Our eyes met and she looked surprised.
“You’re awake?” she asked.
“They gave me a pillow?” I smiled.
“I was going to insert this catheter.”
“Well I still can’t feel anything below the waist.”
“You won’t feel weird by me doing this while you’re awake?”
“I don’t give a shit about anything anymore. Just don’t
judge me because I don’t know what’s going on down there right now.”
“Ha! I would never.”
She
inserted the catheter and I was finally wheeled off to a room. I was on a morphine drip at the
time. In order to be released, the
hospital had to verify that I would feel minimal pain without morphine so they
would periodically wean me off.
The first time was the worst.
The hospital staff didn’t tell me.
I started to feel a pulse in my knee and started clicking my morphine
button to no avail. Within 30
minutes I was screaming bloody murder while clinching to the rails on the side
of my bed.
It
was the worst pain I had ever felt in my life and still to this day. It felt like somebody's hands were inside my knee twisting every nerve that wasn't already damaged. To make matters worse, a captain with
three interns walked into my room unannounced not knowing what kind of pain I
was in. He wanted to show them the
results of the manipulation by grabbing my leg and moving it in places it
wasn’t ready to go.
“Gentlemen, as you can see…” he begin.
“AHHHH! Put my leg down you stupid son of a bitch! Get the
fuck out! GET! THE! FUCK! OUT!” I interrupted in surround sound.
“What’s going on in here?!” a nurse came to the rescue as the
captain and his cronies ran out.
She
took one look at me in tears, red face, veins bulging from the neck, grabbing
my knee and then pursued the captain to cuss him out. At the time I didn’t even know he outranked me by quite a
bit, but sometimes you have to put rank aside and humble somebody. He later called to apologize and didn’t
have the testicular fortitude to do it in person. I just hung up on him.
The rest of the time in the hospital was a daze. I don’t even remember some of my chain
of command coming in to check on me.
My hospital gown had folded up and my privates were out in the open.
“Yeah, you’re balls were definitely showing,” my lieutenant,
Jamal said.
“Don’t remember that,” I said shaking my head.
“You were like, ‘HEY!’ all happy to see us.”
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