September 5, 2014 scottcjones 11Comments

My third visit to the Emergency Room at St. Paul’s was even more of a blur than my two blurry earlier visits had been. Jason, my friend, as his wife Ali who is a medical doctor had instructed him to do, shepherded me there, though I have no memory of him doing so. I don’t remember many tangibles from this visit—no faces, names or anything like that. I remember sitting in a small curtained-off room by myself for awhile. I remember doctors and nurses wheeling a series of odd-looking machines through the curtains, as if these were prizes I’d won on a dour gameshow. They cheerily hooked me up to the machines one after another. Once a machine got the information it needed, they would wheel it away again. What the doctors saw, either via these machines or the way I was behaving at the time (i.e. zero, one, one), definitively told them what I had been trying to tell them for the last two weeks: that something strange was going on inside me.

The ER doctors admitted me to the hospital and sent me to seventh floor. I changed into a gown then got into a bed and pulled the covers over me. A black woman wearing fashionable eyeglasses and a long white coat arrived soon and stood at my bedside. I mention her skin color only because it’s rare to see a black person in Vancouver. I encounter maybe five or six black people each year—that’s it. The doctor introduced herself as a doctor, which even in my compromised state I already knew. I can always recognize doctors, no matter where I am. It’s easy enough to do. Doctors have world-class posture. An architect could have potentially used this woman’s magnificent spine as a steel square to design a sturdy flight of stairs.

The doctor told me that she and the other doctors, who also likely had magnificent spines, frankly didn’t know what was wrong with me. They were trying to figure that out. She promised to have answers soon. Then the doctor and her admirable spine calmly sailed off down the hall.

She would return the next day with the other doctors. They would tell me what was wrong with me, and how they were planning to treat it, and what I could expect in the coming days. What they would not tell me was that, once it was all over, my toenails would outright stop growing. That I would wake up first thing in the morning and look down at my toenails and see that they are the same length today as they were four months ago and not know what to make of this.

They wouldn’t tell me that I would have a persistent numb feeling on the left side of my body, as if half my body has fallen asleep. That this numbness would stretch from my jawline all the way to my fingertips. And that, because of the numbness, whenever I’d reach into my pocket for change for the city bus, it would always feel muted and indistinct, as if I was wearing a woolen mitten on my left hand while trying to pick out the quarters.

They wouldn’t tell me that after my surgery I would decide to put my high-school football trophies in the trash not because I was no longer proud of my accomplishments—I still was, albeit vaguely—but because I could no longer find a viable reason to keep them anymore.

They wouldn’t tell me that reading, which I’ve done all my life, was something I would have to learn how to do again from scratch. And that writing, something I’ve also always loved doing, would be borderline impossible for quite awhile. And that my ability to concentrate and listen and remember would be touch and go.

They wouldn’t tell me that once I was well enough to get back on the Internet that I would become obsessed with mysterious disappearances: Amelia Earhart, who disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean not far from Howland Island in 1937; the three lighthouse keepers in the Scottish Flannan Isles in 1900, who also disappeared, an overturned chair the only clue left behind; Glenn Miller who was on his way from England to France when the plane he was on vanished somewhere over the English Channel; the five disappearances in rural Vermont between 1945 and 1950, including a art major at Bennington College named Paula Jean Welden; the Dutch conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader who attempted to cross the Atlantic in 1975 in a performance art piece he called “In Search of the Miraculous” (his empty boat eventually washed ashore on the coast of Ireland); Sherrill Levitt, her daughter Suzie Streeter, and her daughter’s friend Stacey McCall all vanished from Levitt’s home at 1717 E. Delmar Street in Springfield, Missouri in 1992 and were never found (the sole indication that anything was amiss: a shattered globe from the house’s porch light).

They wouldn’t tell me that a sheet that was tightly bound into the size and shape of a hardcover book would be given to me after my surgery (they gave book-shaped sheets like this to all the patients on my floor) and that I would be instructed to hold it against my chest 1. when I tried to sit up (which was painful), and 2. when I had to cough or sneeze (also painful), and that I would receive such profound solace from the book-shaped sheet that I would continue to hold it close to my chest as I fell asleep for several weeks after I medically no longer needed to do so.

They wouldn’t tell me that I would be in St. Paul’s for a long time—a month—and that I would have many roommates, several of whom would be, as I suppose they always are in hospitals, eccentric or strange, including a man who I would privately refer to as “Wombat.” And that, once I had finished at St. Paul’s, I would be transferred to a nearby rehab facility. And that leaving St. Paul’s was really only the beginning of everything.

They wouldn’t tell me that a few months after rehab, once I was back on my own in the world for the first time since March, that I would find myself standing alone in a men’s room at a nearby Costco where I had gone to purchase a large, inexpensive jar of peanut butter (I was obsessed with peanut butter and would hoard the small packets of it during my time in rehab) and I would look at my gaunt face in the revealing light of the mirror above the sink and I would rub my half-numb jaw and think, Jesus, will you look at your goddamn hairline? And I would comfort myself by realizing that this obviously wasn’t the first time that a middle-aged man had looked in the mirror in a Costco men’s room and thought this same exact thing—that this was, in fact, sort of what Costco men’s room mirrors were there for.

All of this, the doctors would tell me, was brought on by an infection that I had inside my heart. The doctors called it endocarditis. Endocarditis is rare and difficult to diagnose. I had an uncle in Florida who had endocarditis. It killed him. The endocarditis had apparently been in there for months—possibly longer—not unlike a stowaway on a plane. The result of the undetected infection was that a vegetation—which is such a foul word that I can barely think it let alone type it—was growing inside one of the valves of my heart. Worse still, pieces of the vegetation were breaking free and being scattered in my bloodstream like debris after a small, quiet explosion. And some of those pieces, the doctors told me, were traveling north to my brain.

11 thoughts on “MR. ZERO ONE ONE

  1. oh god. So you had loose infection inside your brain? is that why you had all those further impairments?

    What procedure did they use? did they stick a drill down your arteries and kind of vacuum or drill it out?

    Vegetation… awesome word that brings all kinds of horror to your imagination. i picture small fungus like moldy materials growing bright green with black tips.

  2. Dear God (as an atheist, I don’t say that much) but although I kind of knew what was coming, your part2 shook me up a bit. It kind pissed me off too because I can see now why you aren’t back yet or even on twitter for that matter. I was starting to get selfish (just last night I was whining to my girlfriend how strange it would feel moving into fall and not seeing you and Vic running around town braving the cold and rain, delivering impassioned reviews)… yes, I felt sorry for myself lest I be without my late night entertainment this fall and winter. God I’m a stupid prick. Did I just invoke a deity for a 2nd time..?

    At any rate, you seemed great when we heard you on the podcasts recently and the one show you did on ROTR. I really didn’t get any hint of how much you may still be laboring with the recovery. Perhaps that’s a nod to your professionalism or, I would hope, is more clearly an indication that you most certainly have not lost those sparkling clear marbles of yours. Even if they aren’t as clear as you are used to yet. I’d have to think those effects are temporary. I went through something a couple of years back called Labrynthitis (please, as a fellow hypochondriac do not do a symptom checker on that) which is typically benign but can temporarily really fuck with your head. Basically its an infection in the inner ear which causes intense vertigo. I had it for about 3 months and alongside it I was unable to read, think or process much of anything at all. It was like a long LSD trip (so I hear). Walking a few meters made me want to collapse and sleep. I didn’t know how I was going to ever recover fully. The worst part was I could not think. Turns out my brain was just working overtime to re-calibrate from the damage to my nerve. During this time I was super sleepy and hungry a lot but slowly I got to 100%. Now, its just a terrible memory (turns out the nerve is permanently damaged but the brain just carved new pathways to fix the wonky signals being sent from the nerve… all of which I am ignorant to… amazing).

    I’m sure it doesn’t help too much to hear another whining fan pissing and crying about how much you are missed but if you can find it in your heart, please recover as fast as possible so I can have an entertaining fall. C’mon Scott, if not for me do it for the children!

    PS> heard you did the grouse grind. How am I supposed to make sense of this? I looked at a google image of grouse mountain (as a Vancouverite for 36 years I haven’t even thought to go) and I need to nap just by looking at it.

  3. Hey Scott,

    I feel like I can really relate to what is going on with you. I myself was in St. Pauls for a week just a few months ago (Probably around the same time you were in actually). Doctors not knowing what is going on is a really hard thing to deal with. I am so glad they were able to figure things out and able to give you a diagnosis. What is the treatment for what you have? (i’m guessing we will find out in your next blog post).

    A month ago I swear I saw you in London Drugs downtown. Almost didn’t recognize you with out your glasses. I really wanted to come up to you and ask how you were doing but being a complete stranger I figured I would be kind of odd and I wanted to respect your privacy. You looked good though, so I hoping this story has a happy ending.

    Take care and I hope you are doing well!

  4. Thanks for the update, Scott.
    You have no idea how many fans you’ve got here all rooting for you BIG time 🙂

    Thank goodness you had some genuine friends to kick you in the ass and ensure you got properly assessed by a medical team once and for all.
    I am so sorry to hear what you had to go through but It is nice to hear from you via the written word.

    So Wishing you the best and looking forward to the next entry!

  5. Stay strong, Scott. Pain, fear, confusion – All they mean is that you are still alive, and the fact that all these strangers care that you are still alive means that you have accomplished a lot. Rogain, btw, can do wonders for your hairline (at least according to a hair doctor on YouTube).

  6. Tough read, tough experience to go through for sure. Time for a new trophy though — one for kicking that illness in the balls! I haven’t had a full head of hair in a long time, but I only really miss it when it’s cold outside. As for ‘zero one one’, maybe your mind was focusing on the back of a stormtrooper? Take care…

  7. Dear Scott,
    I’ve been reading your blog since the Jones Report – I don’t comment very often because I never really have anything to say other than “This is excellent writing and storytelling” and “Please write more soon!”. You paint stories and I look forward to reading each post. I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through in the past year, but I’m very happy to hear that you are on the mend. Or, atleast, getting there in spite of all that life seems to be throwing at you. You’re a gifted storyteller, so I’m also quite happy that you’re writing again! Godspeed, good sir.

  8. All I can say is that my prayers at Church tomorrow are going to be dedicated to you and the hope of a full and speedy recovery

    God bless you

    p.s. i figure it couldn’t hurt….right:)

  9. Wow, I am so sorry that this happened to you. I hope you get back to 100% soon and wish you all the best in life.

  10. Thank you for the update scott. I had a scare a few years back when my girlfriend and I went to the emergency room for her and I ended up getting admitted to the hospital for an embattled blood suger ( normal is between 4-7 and mine was 28). Turns out I am a insulin dependant diabetic and was weeks if not days from slipping into a diabetic coma and never waking up. I was in the hospital for only 8 days and was set up with all kinds of information about it to teach me how to live with this condition. Now I’m doing great and have a beautiful family. This is my story for you scott hope it can help you in anyway possible. Long time fan and hope you get back to tip top shape.

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