Given the number of community events that I typically attend (e.g., The Sensemakers Club, 1 Million Cups, A2UX, UXPA Michigan, A2B3, A2 Sustainable Innovation Meetup, Leaders Connect), I thought other regular attendees might be wondering why they haven’t seen me in a while.

On September 24th, in the middle of the night, I had an episode in which I nearly passed out while returning to bed after a visit to the bathroom. Carol called 911, and the EMTs came to check me out. I rode with them to the ER at Trinity Hospital. I had a GI bleed, and the doctors had difficulty identifying its source. I had to prep for a colonoscopy and ended up having the first one on the 25th without anesthesia (do not recommend). I was supposed to have an endoscopy on the 26th, but the anesthesiologist got called away, and they can’t do one of those without anesthesia. The GI doc told me that the procedure was canceled, but he didn’t tell the Charge Nurse in the OR, so I was left in a cold hallway for two and a half hours before being returned to my room. They told me that I could stay in the hospital and be first on the schedule to get the endoscopy done the next morning, or I could be discharged and have the endoscopy done as an outpatient procedure. I hadn’t eaten anything since dinner on the 23rd at that point, so I opted to get discharged and go home.

I was home for about five hours before I ended up having to go back to the ER (Carol drove me this time) because of the recurrence of the GI bleed. I spent 18 hours on a gurney in the ER, waiting for a bed to open. Once I got back to a room, I spent six more days while having the endoscopy, multiple CT scans, another colonoscopy, and an attempted radiological embolization of the bleed going through an artery in my groin. All of these resulted in them being unable to identify the source of the GI bleed. During this time, I had multiple episodes where I nearly passed out and had to have the rapid response team come and get me stabilized. I was also getting regular blood transfusions because my hemoglobin kept dropping to critical levels.

Finally, I ended up being referred to the colorectal surgical team and had surgery. They found the sources of the bleed, one in the colon and one in the small intestine. During surgery, they had to give me two more units of blood, so that meant a total of 19 units throughout my entire hospital stay. They had to remove my colon completely, so I now have a temporary ostomy. The plan was for me to spend three days in the hospital after surgery and then recover at home, but there were a couple of complications. First, my uvula was engorged and kept getting stuck on top of my tongue. This made me gag and vomit numerous times. It also made it nearly impossible to talk. I was given a steroid treatment via IV for several days to help resolve that. Then my small intestine decided it didn’t want to work (the term they give it is called ileus). They put in a nasogastric tube for about four days, and I was unable to comfortably talk while that was in place. Once they removed the tube, I could start eating regular food. Then it was just a matter of getting the output of my ostomy the way they wanted (volume and consistency) before I got discharged. Ultimately, I was in the hospital for a month.

Now that I have been home for a week, I am feeling much better. Sleeping in my own bed has allowed me to get much more rest. Eating home-cooked food has really given me more energy. In the coming weeks, I hope to get back to many of my regular activities, and in a couple of months I should even get back to the gym.