Post Surgery

It’s much more relevant to write about life in general after surgery, rather than specific post-surgical details.  Having said that, I will say that the infection I got after surgery nearly killed me.

Surgery was on  October 8, 1974.  I was two weeks shy of my 18^th birthday.  As I have mentioned previously, I was (and still am) a big sports fan.  As much as baseball was always my favorite sport, I was also a huge boxing fan at that time, in particular, a fan of Muhammed Ali .  The first time I remember smiling after my surgery was 22 days later when my brother Larry got home after sneaking in to the local drive-in theater with a few friends and watched Ali beat George Foreman.  I can clearly remember when he came home and told me that Ali had won.  I can actually say that was the first thing I can remember after surgery.  The first three weeks are, I guess, buried somewhere in my subconscious?

Now that the diseased intestine was removed (large section of my ileum, smaller section of my colon and my appendix) I was, once again able absorb those nutrients that I had previously been unable to.   Unfortunately, having missed those 4 years of puberty, I needed some “help” to get it kick-started once again.  At that time I was 18 years old,  5’1” and around 85 lbs.  I was sent to an endocrinologist, who did a series of x-rays and blood tests.  Through the series of tests, it was determined that my full height potential was 6’1”.  A series of hormone shots were scheduled which, according to the endocrinologist, should get me to around 5’8” (I actually topped out at 5’9”).  I also have a very clear recollection of getting that very first hormone shot.  I was lying face down on the doctors table and the shot was injected into my rear.  Within seconds of receiving the shot I got my first erection in, you guessed it, four years.  That erection lasted about 6 months…talk about embarrassing.

It was a long, long road to get the physical strength back to first just live a normal life and then to be able to compete in some of the sports that I had grown up playing.  When I was in high school, because I was so sick all of the time, I could not compete in baseball at the level I wanted to.  I looked for a sport that would not require as much physically and would still allow me to compete.  I started playing golf and eventually made my high school team.  Golf was the first sport I was able to participate in after surgery.  Eventually, in my early 20’s, I started playing baseball again (this time it was softball).  It was tough, because as a kid, I was a pretty good player.  Now, I considered myself a below average player.  I think I got the most physically out of what I could do, unfortunately, it was not enough to really compete at a high level.  Today, at the age of 55 I am still getting stronger every day.  As far as I am concerned, I will never reach the physical peak that I would have if I had not gotten Crohn’s disease.  This is a great thing.  Because I have this attitude, I work every day of my life, striving to reach this “unattainable” goal.  Today, this is one of the reasons I am winning the never ending battle with this disease.