Chapter Six: Preparations

August, 1997

I joined the work program during my junior year of high school, and managed to arrange a job with the school district as their main PC technician. The arrangement was decent...at the time, $6 an hour seemed pretty good when my friends were making $5.15 at Burger King. I was responsible for 5 campuses at the time, and our technology wasn't all that advanced. I was still driving "The J-Rod", as Mike had taken to calling it, although quite reluctantly. It was embarrassing to be seen in the car, but at least it was mine. About three weeks into the school year, I came down with the worst case of tonsilitis I'd ever had. I used to get it every year at the end of school up through sixth grade and hadn't had it since. When I was in fourth grade, the local Ear-Nose-Throat specialist, whom I'd been seeing for this problem every year since kindergarten, told me that if it came back the next year, he'd take my tonsils out. Sadly, Dr. Davis passed away six months later, and when it came back in fifth grade, the doctor we'd seen told me that they won't do a tonsilectomy unless it's a very severe case. I heard the same thing in sixth grade from yet another doctor.

My father found a new ENT specialist in San Antonio. Dr. Henderson was all too happy to take a look at my tonsils, but was in shock during the exam as they were the largest she'd ever seen. I left her office with the usual prescription and a tonsilectomy scheduled for two weeks later. The antibiotics helped as always, but by the day of my surgery, they were still swollen. Dr. Henderson checked them before taking me in to the operating room. I expected it to be a short operation and that I'd be going home that night, but I was sadly mistaken. Instead of the 45 minutes to an hour that they estimated, I was under for about two and a half hours. When they woke me up, I was told that I'd have to stay overnight for observation. Dr. Henderson visited me in my room later and brought a glass jar with her. When she removed my tonsils, they were still the largest she'd ever seen, and she wanted me to see why the operation took so long. That jar sat in her office for quite some time.

I didn't mind eating jell-o and ice cream for a week. The immediate problem was that I could not have a cigarette, but this paled in comparison to what happened the week after. It was my grandmother's birthday, and we all went out to dinner. (Warning: Shameless Plug ahead!) Po-Po Family Restaurant is a little place in the middle of nowhere with some of the best food I've ever eaten. The appearance from the outside, a somewhat run-down building with a neon sign saying "EATS", is rather deceiving, but the crowds tend to give away the secret. It just so happened that my grandmother's birthday fell on a Friday that year, which, back then, was all-you-can-eat fried shrimp night. I'm a sucker for fried shrimp, and there's something about theirs that is horribly addictive. Sadly, I hadn't made it to solid foods yet. Rocky Road ice cream was still a challenge for me and it hurt like hell! I was quite upset, but I opted for a bowl of mashed potatoes and some chicken gumbo. Carol, our waitress (every time we've been there since the late 80's), was kind enough to get me a real strawberry daiquiri instead of the non-alcoholic version my sister usually ordered. I'm not sure if it was the cold drink or all the rum, but my throat felt better! I stole a shrimp from my sister's plate and tried to eat it...small nibbles at first, but I failed and almost screamed from the pain. No more shrimp that night. I sucked down another daiquiri and enjoyed the rest of my mashed potatoes, then told my father he was still on the hook for some shrimp when I was healed up.

After my tonsils had healed, it was time to get serious about the Shriners and my hip. My first appointment was in early October. I've never cared much for Houston, but my dad's best friend since high school lived there and I hadn't seen him in ages. Dad and I made the trek on Sunday and crashed out at their house for the night. The next morning was a long waiting game. We arrived at 7:30 for an 8:30 appointment, but were far from being the first in line. I was called in to see the doctor around 10, then waited another hour to see Dr. Haynes, the main hip surgeon for the Houston unit. He informed me that they'd never done a hip fusion at that hospital, but he was very familiar with the procedure and felt very confident that they could help me. I was sent off for x-rays, then returned to face the hospital board. After a short discussion about my current condition and the alternatives, it was decided that they would accept me as a patient for the hip fusion. I had another pre-operative exam scheduled in March, and they would schedule the surgery at that time so I could have it done during the summer and not miss as much school. We finally left the hospital around 3 and were both starving. My father, always the tour guide, went well out of the way to show me a few things and get us lunch. We ate at Furr's, which is an all-you-can-eat cafeteria restaurant. For you San Antonio folk, think of Luby's, but you can go back for more. As we left, my father told me that back when they lived in the area before I was born, the restaurant used to be an adult movie theater! I was a little shocked by that, but it didn't really surprise me after considering the layout. We then drove up to Humble to see the house where I lived the first year of my life. It was right on the edge of Houston Intercontinental Airport, and apparently I got used to the sound of jumbo jets flying overhead sometime in my first month of life. To this day, it still doesn't bother me in the least.

We made the trek back home, and I began to worry. I wondered how I would be able to do even the simplest things with a hip that doesn't bend. I even tried to do various things without moving my hip joint and was quite afraid of how it would change my life. The doctors said that I would be able to walk, albeit with a limp (which I was used to anyway for the last few years) and that I'd be able to do most of what I was able to do at that time. I started walking more often, trying to build up the muscles before surgery for an easier recovery.

The J-Rod continued to fall apart. One Sunday afternoon in early December, Mike and I were driving back to Boerne from San Antonio and I heard an unusual noise. My engine sounded louder, and I thought I could hear something scraping along the pavement of I-10. We pulled off, and sure enough, my exhaust pipe had rusted through just in front of the muffler. I'd been dragging the muffler down the freeway for a couple of miles! Mike was quick to pull it off and throw it in the trunk, and I learned a new trick. I found out that I could force the car to backfire at will! This was particularly fun in underpasses and while driving down Main Street in Boerne. I left the disconnected tailpipe in the yard that evening so my father could see our next project. We met at a mechanic's shop the next afternoon to have a whole new exhaust system put on, and I was still able to backfire it afterward. The speedometer was the next to go. It worked up to 45MPH, then it would start bouncing to the top end and leave me no clue how fast I was really going. To make matters worse, after my second carburetor replacement, the car would no longer idle without stalling. I was forced to brake with my left foot, shift the car in neutral, and rev the engine any time I had to stop.

The J-Rod came to its death shortly after the Super Bowl. On the way home from the party Mike and I went to, the car started shaking violently. I wasn't sure what to think, and when I told my father, he suggested I not drive it until his day off when we could meet at the mechanic's to get it checked out. The car sat in the driveway for two days, and on Wednesday, I drove to school at very slow speeds. Anything over 30 and it would shake so bad I thought it would fall apart. I made it to class, and when I left to meet my dad, it stopped permanently. The U-joint blew and the drive shaft was hanging from the rear axle. My father finally decided to give up on the car and donated it to the school's auto tech program, and I was stuck without a car for the rest of the year.

During the next exam at Shriners, my surgery was scheduled for the second week of July. I was told to expect about three months in the hospital for recovery, and at least a year of physical therapy after that. We got a call in early April about moving the surgery up to June 8, which we gladly accepted. School wound down again, and we flew off to Tennessee for the last few days I could enjoy before going to the hospital.

My aunt and uncle had, over the previous two years, taken up sailing. They bought a new sailboat during the winter months and waited until we could join to take it out on the lake. That was one of the most peaceful days I'd had in quite some time! We drifted around a rather large lake, jumping in the water occasionally, and my sister and I learned basic sailing techniques. Unfortunately, though, with my light complexion, I'm an instant target for sunburn. I thought I'd managed to get everything covered with sunscreen, but there was a small spot on my right ankle that I couldn't reach because of my hip. It looked fine all day, but the next morning it was bright purple! We all worried about it affecting my surgery the next week...