I've probably seen every episode of "Married with Children" at least five times each.
Its crude and dark humor appeals to me. One of my favorite episodes involves Al getting some tickets to a highly popular annual basketball game featuring the Harlem Globetrotters. Next door neighbor Marcy forbids her husband, Jefferson, to go, and eventually Peggy, Al's wife, bugs him enough to where he agrees to take her.
In true Peggy Bundy-fashion, she proceeds to aggravate him the entire game. She says just minutes before the buzzer for the first quarter that she has to use the bathroom. She wants Al to take her. He tells her not to make him miss the first quarter.
When do they get back to their seats? In time to hear the announcer say, "What a marvelous 1st quarter of basketball that was!"l
Toward the end of the episode, Peggy gets Al to switch seats with her. The announcer then calls Peggy's seat number as the one that has won a chance to make a shot from the free-throw line. The prize, if the shot is made, is $10,000.
Al slyly looks up, head tilted, and says, "Slow day up there in Heaven, God?"
Peggy, of course, misses the shot, though she makes a good effort, and the pair leave the game penniless.
This episode came on while I was recently in the hospital. Y'all, how about that last column I wrote? How maudlin and dramatic was that thing? But at the time, I guess I was in a really dark place. I wouldn't say I was fighting depression. I'd say I was depression personified.
For those new to these parts, I have end-stage renal disease, or kidney failure. I was on peritoneal dialysis. This involves a catheter being inserted into your abdomen. Four to five times a day, you fill this catheter - and thus, your abdomen - with fluid and it sucks in all the toxins. Before you put in more fluid, you drain the old fluid. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Sometime in October, I got a bad sinus infection. I tried three rounds of antibiotics. Nothing helped. By late November, having worked myself nearly to death - because I am a workaholic - I also had some fun bronchitis.
I went to the ER on Dec. 1 and was admitted for hyperkalemia (high potassium, a no-no for kidney disease patients), bronchitis, the sinus infection and unspecified back pain (I was barely able to walk). Released Dec. 7, I went home feeling moderately better. They'd changed my dialysis prescription to make me do more exchanges (treatments) during the day. I went from doing four to six. I felt a lot better.
Shortly after Christmas, I woke up with that familiar feeling - a scratchy throat and barely able to talk. I knew I was sick again.
We did two more rounds of antibiotics, and it seemed to clear out.
In early January, I started having bad chest pains. I didn't think it was anything to do with my heart. It was more like extremely sore muscles. Felt like they were on fire.
Dr. Cain did an EKG, saw something he didn't like, and before I knew it, I was back in the hospital. Thankfully, that visit was only two days. My heart was deemed fine, but during the visit, I tested positive for flu, and the doctors found that my spleen had enlarged by 40 percent. It was almost twice its normal size.
This was judged to be one of the things causing my chest pain.
I was loaded with medications over two days and given more stuff to take home and that was that.
I was home only four days. Released on a Wednesday, I made it to Sunday. I went to take a nap about 1 p.m. and woke up dizzier than a drunken wild horseback rider.
I also couldn't see - everything was a glowing white.
I sat in the living room with my stepmom for a couple of hours, more and more distressed that my vision wasn't returning, though the dizziness had went away.
My father came in the living room and asked me what I wanted to do. I told him to call 911.
I knew I was going for admission No. 3.
While waiting for a room in the ER, I had two panic attacks. There were just so many people coming at me and doing this and doing that, and no one was telling me anything. They gave me three IVs on the spot and started all these antibiotics, and I was like, "Whoa, what is going on?"
As they'd taken blood first thing when I got there, and ran some other tests, they had discovered I now had pneumonia, MRSA and peritonitis (which meant the end of my peritoneal dialysis).
I was also septic in my abdomen.
I basically had won the sickness lottery. I used the numbers from "Lost."
Visit No. 3 lasted 10 days. It was probably Day 7 before I started feeling well. They'd put a "port" in my neck for hemodialysis and started me on that every day to help clean me out. They took out the peritoneal catheter and cleaned out my abdomen. The surgeon who did the procedure said it was full of pus and infection.
I was running on seven antibiotics.
And at some time during that seven-day period, I saw that episode of "Married ... with children," and for a second, I wondered the same thing: "Slow day in Heaven, God?"
Having grown up in a fundamental Christian and independent Baptist school, I know better than to ask the Creator a question unless you really want to know the answer.
I've had a lot of medical maladies over the year, but I have never been as sick as I was that third time in the hospital. My doctors surmised that had I not gone to the ER that Sunday, my parents probably would've found me in a coma the next morning, if not dead.
As for how I'm doing now, recovery is slow-going. Pneumonia, flu, bronchitis, etc., really took a toll on my body and made me weaker than I've ever been.
At the same time, hemodialysis can be draining when you first start.
Right now, I feel like I have no energy whatsoever.
Fellow patients and my doctors say it will balance out, but it's going to take longer for me because I had so many other issues.
Some good news? My spleen is now only enlarged by 15 percent its normal mass.
Hemodialysis is also working well. It's doing it's job. It's just kicking my tail while doing it.
I've had a lot of folks text me and ask me why they haven't seen me around.
Well, for one, the only time I leave the house right now is for a doctor's appointment or to go to dialysis. Because they use a lot of bleach products and other things that stain clothing in hemodialysis, I wear old clothes that are stained or tattered. I'm not going out in public in that after or before treatment.
Second, even if I wanted to go somewhere after treatment, I can't.
I'm out of breath, I am barely able to hold my eyes open and I have trouble walking.
I'd like to take a minute to thank a few people who have helped me out in the last week.
The first is my longsuffering mother, Marcia Baker. Whatever I've needed, she's brought it right to me. She's taken me to appointments and to dialysis. She took probably 15 days off work during my various hospital stays, basically emptying her vacation time for the year.
She also hasn't panicked like she normally does. I expected when she found out that I was put in the hospital the second time, and then heard it was because of heart issues, that she'd immediately freak out and I'd have to calm her down.
But she acted like a warrior. And again, anything I needed, whether it was ordered by the doctors or it was just something I wanted (ginger ale), she made sure I got it.
The second is the Rev. Kevin Massey, the preacher at New Salem Baptist Church, where I have played piano for 20 years.
Kevin has taken me to dialysis on several occasions when my mother was at work. (I cannot really drive right now because of the lethargy; it's almost like I have narcolepsy). He didn't have to do that, but he's been great about it.
Likewise, Jo and Dean Quesenberry, fellow members of New Salem, have also taken me to the clinic for my treatments. I don't qualify for transport, so if it weren't for them, I probably wouldn't be able to go those days.
My parents - father, Troy, and stepmother, Debbie - have also been great. They have a lot of health problems themselves, but they're doing their best to watch after me.
Folks have asked me about my role with the paper. I don't know what the future holds, honestly, but part of what got me here is my never-ending ability to put work before everything else. Hi, I'm Bobby, and I'm a workaholic.
I basically helped run myself into the ground. That was the answer revealed to me when I dared to ask a Higher Power, "Why me?"
I will help out with the paper as needed. But right now, I sleep so much, it's difficult to imagine even working a half-day. It took me about three days to get this column out. Normally, I could bang out a column in 30 minutes. But typing wore me out. Seriously.
We have brought in some people, and I'm helping them as needed. They are doing the best they can; please be kind to them.
And continue to remember me. Pray for me. Whatever you do to feel closer to God, mention my name while you're talking to Him.
