wave of emergencies
F. Emergencies, Surgeries, Fatherhood G. Daddy (2008)
Parker birth, appendix, laurel st project w DJ, appendix removed, Fred S house work, Brandon wedding, Bach party, fat looking like shit, blood test panic, first cold turkey detox, flushed from pills and removed from system, FENTANLY intro, Dr Lozar, abuse, back surgery w doubts leading, post surgery agony, hospital stay and dr beside himself with med amount due to tolerance from F, hospital mate,
The close of 2007 marked the start of a medical and situational gauntlet I was about to walk through.
December 2007 - as we traveled home from a family trip in Hawaii, I felt incredible pressure and pain in my left sinus inflight and once landed back in San Diego. I remember having to go to my father’s business’ company party at Dave and Busters that year and having excruciating pain in the left side of my face. I remember my teeth and face felt numb, pressure, blurred vision
December 2007 marked the start of a very rough run and series of events medically. Keep in mind, Christina was pregnant with Parker 8 months. Returning home from our family vacation to Hawaii, I felt an incredible - pouring pain in my head, left forehead and side specifically. Thankfully I had plenty of meds to bury the pain but it was excruciating and it did indicate a larger underlying issue. Within the next week, during my fathers company Christmas party, I began to get headaches, teeth were numb (like on plane) and vision was weird out of the left eye. New step, emergency room and with CTScan.
One the scans came back the dr did observe a mass in my left sinus and indicated it could be 1 of 3 things - tumor, polyps or infection. We wouldn’t know until they got in. I was scheduled for surgery immediately and went under for the procedure. Their goal was to remove the mass, take tests/biopsy as needed and roto all other sinus cavities and fix a deviated septum.
Once the surgery concluded, the Dr same to brief myself and family only to find out that the mass was NOT 1 of the 3 things rather an extremely rare fungal growth as a result of an inhaled and implanted spore from the jungles of Hawaii. The mass was between the size of a golf and baseball. I was now completely packed with gauze throughout the entire sinus’. I will attest, one of the absolutely worst experiences, pains I have ever felt was the removal of the coderized gauze from each sinus cavity and all the way center forehead. The gauze has to be ripped from my face, it felt like my brain being pulled out through my nose. Definitely one of the worst experiences of my live..
Queue 2008 -
Parker was due at the end of January - I had just recovered from sinus surgery and we were waiting his birth. Still on a steady, yet within prescription guidelines, Vicodin prescription. Parker was born Jan 26 - it was a big thing for my parents as now they became grandparents. I remember feeling fear, calling my dad and he hooted with excitement.
Arrived to hospital, typical delivery from what I could tell other than the fact she had to push for 4 hours straight - the dr was on the brink of taking her to the OR due to risk to the baby- dr came in and said, this is it - if he’s not out on the next, we go to surgery for c section. She pushed like absolute crazy and Parker came out - since he had been in the birth canal for so long, he came out with a cone shaped head and crunched ear. I thought something was wrong and was relieved when normalized. I remember being in a state of awe when Parker was finally delivered, I had never even seen a generic birthing video at that point. He was crying, breathing healthy - I was a dad, at 24 - holy crap! :-)
The weeks after birth were among the hardest of my life. Christina unfortunately was thrown into a deep postpartum depression and I was on 100% baby duty for the first few weeks. I was feeding him every 45 minutes, reaching a point in which I could not walk down the hallway without bouncing off the walls, literally. This was a deep depression as I thought the mother of my child wanted nothing to do with the child she just delivered.
March 2008, I was working on an AV job with DJ downtown San Diego - I remember feeling a pain in my abdomen when I started my day, I continued to the project and worked alongside DJ for Precision Electric. The pain in my stomach increased steadily to the point I knew something was wrong. I proceeded to get in my vehicle and drive to the hospital. During this drive, as I was talking to my dad, the pain reached a level so bad, I could not continue to drive. I pulled off the freeway and my dad called an ambulance to take me to the hospital. They originally took me to UCSD, but then promptly moved me to my home hospital, Kaiser.
They performed their exams and operated with no sense of urgency whatsoever, in fact, due to shortage of space - they had to move to me to a nurse’s changing room in which they promptly continued to load me full of meds, negating the pain I would have felt otherwise.
I voiced concern to the nurse and yet they continued to leave me in this locker room for 4 hours to the point where they realized my apendix had ruptured. I was one of a very few, select amount of cases in which the patient’s appendix ruptures, but they do NOT go septic as a result of the contamination of the abdominal area. They closely monitored me, confirmed the appendix had indeed ruptured and proceeded to discharge me with meds and the intent of allowing the swelling to decrease as a result of the rupture and then in 1 month’s time, remove the appendix altogether. As you can imagine, this left me with a month in which I felt pretty crappy and had to endure until the ruptured organ was removed.
April 2008, I finally had the appendix removed via laparoscopic surgery. They successfully removed the ruptured appendix and I was given a clean bill of health, at least in terms of my abdomen, internal organs.
In addition, during this time - we had struck a deal with Christina’s family to renovate, lease and ultimately buy the Poway house on Valle Verde. This became a nightmare on many fronts starting with the exit of the home I had bought from my father, out first home. He did NOT want to keep the deal as is and provided options for exit - something that was NOT fair whatsoever to Christina and myself, ultimately prompting the first major fracture of our marriage.
Therefore, I spent much of 2008, while experiencing all these medical emergencies, working each and every day to gut, clear out and fully renovate the Poway home. We brought Parker home to the Telkaif house and within 6 months, he was living in the Poway house.
2008 continued with me as a pretty hot mess. Brandon and Caitlin got married at my parents home in June 08 - I helped enable the bachelor party at the river, attended his wedding, but I was clearly a disaster, overweight, strung out, pale and reclusive. Im embarrassed at how I conducted myself during his wedding. Im regretful that I never stood up and spoke kind words about my brother but our LITTLE brother did.
September 2008
Leading into fall 2008, I was on a steady dose of pain medication by way of Norco 10/325 pills. Early September 2008, I had a blood test to assess the condition of my liver and kidneys. These results were concerning as my enzyme levels were elevated indicating distress. This was the first time I sensed danger in the medications prescribed and immediately took the remainder of my pill supply for the month and flushed them down the toilet. I did not want the continued stress on my internal organs and I knew that I was starting to really love the pills and how they made me feel. I tossed everything I had, unaware of the implications associated with sudden, cold-turkey detox. This was my first experience (of many) with opiate withdrawals. I remember going to the Kaiser CDRP (chemical dependency and recovery program) to obtain my standard issue cold turkey detox meds. I remember taking the meds as prescribeed on the interval instructed. I felt like an absolute zombie, lots of sleep, Symtoms subdued as a result of the cocktail of meds prescribed.
I was able to push through the detox period, I pulled off all the opiate pain medications and as part of this effort, I was going to push for long term fix and absolutely REFUSED to take pills again.
I dropped my current primary care physician because I felt he was too inclined to prescribe heavy doses of pain meds and wanted a Dr that would focus on long term fix. I landed on a Kaiser Dr out of Carlsbad named Dr. David Lozar, I remember the appointment like it was yesterday. I showed up to the appointment in October 2008 with my wife and new baby. The moment Dr. Lozar came in the room I stated, “No Pills” - I was completely set on never going back to the opiates and committed to long term resolution not short term med fix. He dismissed this comment and conducted his exam. At the end of the exam, he sat down, directly in front of me, my wife and baby beside and told me, “ you have to think of your qualifty of life.” I responded with, “No pills” - he stated, “I hear what you are saying, but you need to think of your qualify of life, you hav a life and son to lookout for and I don’t want you in pain.” I proceeded to state, NO Pills - he said that is not a problem, there is an alternative which is. Fentayl duragesic patch, its a sticker you wear and chang every 3 days. He aggressively pushed this prescription and I agreed because I was told it was safe and effective.
I used the patch for about a month as described. This changed drastically when I googled around and found out methods to accelerate the release of the drug which worked to my absolute detriment. I found ways of accelerating the 3 day supply of F into a single day by way of chewing on the Mylan patches. A user can proportionally distribute the 10mg patch throughout the day. I remember I would store the cut F patches into a camel Snus can as my way of organization.
Jan 2009
My first spinal surgery was performed by Dr Green at Kaiser in 2009. This was a lamenectomy of L4-L5 - he was to cut out the disc bulge and share the vertebrae, bone to make more room for the nerve root. The memory that stands out most to me is the moment I woke up from surgery. I woke up in exrutiating pain, I had never felt pain like that after a surgery and it was because of the tolerance that I had built and the standard, post surgery meds administered. Since my tolerance had increased so heavily, the dilaudid prescribed after surgery barely put a dent in the pain I was experiencing. It felt like my back had been opened up with a chainsaw. They increased my meds, but noted the massive amount required to get my pain under control.
During post op, the Dr had to significantly up my post op meds from 1 ML/mg dilaudid every 4 hours to 2 ml every 2 as needed.
I remember making friends with my roommate who also had a surgery with Dr Green and he too mimicked my comments around under prescribed meds and the Dr ended up increasing our doses significantly for both.
This surgery recovery was extensive and lengthly - I spent Feb/March 09 focused on my recovery and rehab. I sprung into action, I was back at the gym almost everyday, I was aggressive and headstrong about my recovery. I was going to spring into a new lease on life. I dropped a considerable amount of weight - I did use cannabis as a means of tapering myself off of the prescription pain meds. The codeword with Christina was ‘BBQ’ I would keep the pipe in the BBQ and it successfully allowed me to move from an intense, Fentayl dependence, addiction to no opiate use.