Over the Shoulder!

It seemed like an innocent enough start to the day but ended with with mayhem.  Brian Jr and I were throwing the football in the street out front of Mike and Cathy's house when Mike came out to throw it with us.  This has happened a hundred times in the past but today was catastrophically different.  He was in his PJ's and bedroom slippers (also not out of the norm).  I threw a pass to Mike which required him to take a few steps back and catch over his shoulder - he lost his footing when his slippers got tripped up and fell onto his buttock.  Initially he hopped up and walked it off a little sore but several hours later he had a buttock the size of a cantaloupe and the next day the size of a watermelon.  He eventually went to the hospital to get checked out and one of my partners found that he was in kidney failure and wanted to admit him because his blood counts (red cells) had dropped and his white blood cell count was very high (normal for mike).  He didn't want to be admitted and made quite a fuss at the hospital but in the end it was the right thing to do.  He ended up staying in the hospital for a week.  The reason his buttock and leg swelled so much was because he had caused a significant amount of bleeding in the buttock which spread down the leg, then because of immobility he developed a blood clot in his leg which eventually went to his lung.  He left the hospital on blood thinners ironically.

While in the hospital we were able to visit him a couple of times and one of those times the Oncologist doctor came to see him.  He sat at the bedside and asked mike a series of questions about his fall and about his medical history.  mike was in such a daze from being given Morphine that he didn't answer any of his questions but instead asked repeatedly for enemas.  He was given multiple enemas in the hospital and the strange part of it all is that he has no recollection of asking or being given any of them. For his birthday this summer he got an enema bag from our family!

Robin had her 35th birthday during this time.  We celebrated at the bedside of Captain Enema.  Oh the memories!