Monday
November 19, 2001: My wife took me to the
Mayo Clinic where Dr. Sanford J. Finck removed the drainage tubes and bottles. I was a total invalid, in constant and excrutiating pain from the wound in my abdomen and the bedsores, constipated, able
to walk a short distance only with the aid of a walker and unable to get in and out of bed without assistance. The medicine
to dull the pain, darvocet, was making me feel terrible, bilious and somewhat suicidal. However, on Friday November
23, 2001, I discontinued the darvocet, felt better immediately and the suicidal thoughts went away. To clean and
dress the wound in my abdomen the Mayo had arranged for nurses to come to my home. They also arranged
for home visits by physiotherapists.
Because of my collapsed lung I had been sent home from the Mayo Clinic with a breathing exercise device.
It was an effort to use but I persevered and my breathing gradually improved. I also had invasive candidiasis.
Candasis is a fungus that occurs in one's stomach naturally. Does no harm in the stomach, indeed it may be
both useful and necessary, but when it gets into one's bloodstream, as it did in mine (hence the term "invasive") as
a result of the Mayo Clinic's surgical mistake, it causes many problems. I have read that four out ten people
who contract invasive candidiasis, die from it. I had to take a medicine made by Pfizer called Flucanizole
for over a year. It cost over $700 per month.
