Trouble Amidships

Heat waves. Huge, towering heat waves, reaching for miles and now crashing down with tsunami-like force on most of the province. Temperatures in the mid-30’s, health warnings issued in urban centres, but even rural areas suffering in the brutal air.

Miserable Toronto mid-afternoon

This was the setting on my brief return from the boat to Toronto to do some work that had come along. It meant leaving the relative comforts of the Mary Mary and having to stay in our top-floor apartment oven for three nights.

So it wasn’t surprising that, even on the first night in our old bed, I was tossing and turning and sweating, even with the A/C on. My stomach was churning and painful. All of this I put down to the torrid city, being away from boat and questionable meals.

I put up with it for the required amount of time and on Friday, July 13^th headed back to the boat, the work in town complete. I felt wonky the entire drive and by the time I stopped at a highway stop to get some gas and breakfast, I was spacey and feeling like I was moving in slow-motion. But I motored on and finally arrived back at Hindson Marina and collapsed onto the bed. Something was much amiss…

The next day I continued growing more feverish and painful and finally Brooke went into town and bought a thermometer (you should have one of these in your boat first-aid, we realize now) and it relayed the obvious. I had a fever of 102.8.

Off to the hospital…. I couldn’t stand up very well by this time but fortunately the emergency wasn’t crowded, even on this holiday Saturday and I was soon issued into the back-rooms where I could lie on a gurney.

 

Georgian Bay General Hospital - it looks nothing like this at the moment.

I was seen to by a young doctor who quickly came to the conclusion that I probably had appendicitis. This was confirmed, after drinking two glasses of foul-tasting dye, by a CAT-scan and I was admitted, post-haste for emergency surgery. There was a problem with room space and, at first, it looked like I was going to have to spend the night in the triage room. This was decidedly a bad thing. There were 8 curtained areas in the triage and the three immediately surrounding me held, in their murky depths: an old man who couldn’t hear very well and was continuing a lengthy conversation at the top of his lungs; an old lady who every now and then would wake from her stupor and start calling out “Help! Help! Help, help, help, help!” only to admonish whoever responded to her with further shouts of “Get away from me! Leave me alone, you fools!” and another woman, who had some sort of back injury and was moaning pitifully every few seconds. The potential for having to spend the night amongst these poor wretched wounded had me on the verge of panic.

But, fortunately, a room was found and I was re-located there. The next day, in the morning, I was visited by Dr. Walc (or Dr. Claw in Backwards Land) and he informed me that they would be ‘going in’ shortly. And so it was that around 10:30 a.m. I was wheeled away to surgery.

This was all happening way faster than my previous bout with abdominal surgery. When I had cancer and they removed my Prostate. There it was a long, drawn-out affair. Here it was steaming along and before I knew it I was spread-eagled on the operating table and a very-pregnant nurse (“I’m going to work right up to my due date!”) was bidding me farewell as the oxygen mask was lowered past her bulging stomach and onto my face. Farewell, as in ‘see you in dreamland’ I guess she meant. I hope she meant.

Next thing you know, wham bam, and I’m back in my room with a 5” gash in my side through which the offending useless sausage was removed. Apparently I had to have a longer cut than usual as my appendix was stuffed up under my bowel for some reason. Later I was to find out from my agent that when his brother had an appendectomy in China, the cut was only 1” long. Lesson learned: If possible have operations done in China. Of course, an hour after they operate you need to have it done again. (Sorry…)

Three days in the hospital altogether and then hobbling back to boat to further recuperate. More heat and more sweat but soon the weather would break and I could continue on. Looking forward to getting back on the water, but it won’t be until I can walk better than the 90 year-old man I seem to have become.

Which is all to say that I have good reasons for not updating the blog with important boating adventure news. I’ll catch up later.