Book Entry 145: 1981 Not a Surgery --- A "Procedure"

          Once again I was headed into an operating room.  One of my kidneys was giving me a lot of trouble.  I can’t remember what I was diagnosed with but what it came down to was the kidney would not drain properly.  As the kidney would reach capacity it would become painful.  I would wake up in the middle of the night feeling like I was being stabbed in the back with a knife.  I remember Larry waking me more than once to see if I was okay because I was groaning in my sleep.  

            Dye was injected and I was laid on a revolving table.  I was put in every position imaginable, including upside down, and still no results.  Surgery was scheduled to insert a stint into my kidney to improve drainage.

During the time between the dye test and the “procedure” I was diagnosed with internal shingles.  

My only symptom to tell the doctor was that I itched.  When he asked me about the pain in my back I was happy to say it had been less since the itching had begun.  He laughed while he told me I now had Shingles as well.  He explained his laughter by saying Shingles damages the nerve endings and mine had evidently damaged the nerve endings in my back that were causing so much pain.  The doctor said God Himself was working on me.  We both had a good laugh knowing one malady was making another more bearable.

The nurse was making small talk with me as she prepared me for my turn in the operating room.  Making small talk she told me of a joke she’d played on her husband.  I can’t remember what her story was but for some reason those darn chickens I’d secretly sent to Larry so many years earlier came to mind! 

My perfect joke suddenly became the only thing I could think about.  I just had to make sure Larry knew I had mailed him those chicks before I went under the anesthesia.  I blurted out my confession of how I’d pulled it off so perfectly.  I guess I didn’t want to die during surgery and not get credit for the best joke I’d ever played!  The nurse laughed until she had tears running down her cheeks. 

Even with the stint the kidney would not drain.   I can’t even remember now when it stopped hurting but after a few years I didn’t need to keep seeing the kidney specialist any longer. 

 

When I woke up from the surgery the first thing Larry said to me was that he loved me.  The second thing he said was he just couldn’t believe I had sent the chicks and kept the secret for more than twenty years!  We had a great laugh.  I didn’t even really care the secret was gone.  We had a blast telling everyone about it for a long while.  Even now we love to share our mail-order chicken story with anyone who will listen.  And even now I am still proud of myself for pulling it off so well!