Impaction Action- The first time I remember hearing the word in the sense I am using it for this tale was in 1974. I had just graduated and school had ended and my cousin Paul had surgery in Jackson, TN to correct some bones in his feet. I volunteered to go to the hospital and stay with him a few days so his parents could have a break. I stuck out alone in my Satellite Plymouth on the longest drive I had yet undertaken alone. I got to the hospital and allowed his parents to see to their other boys and work. For the next three days I sat around the hospital and I got Paul things to eat from the cafeteria, the vendors, the canteen, the little café across from the hospital, and the nurses’ station. We ate and ate. Candy was brought to him by his granny and it lasted not long. It was tiring as I remember the hospital stay and you know sometimes it seems like you had rather dig a ditch than sat at the hospital. I have to tell you there were a few moments when the levity made it almost worthwhile. For example, one evening the nurse came in and said to Paul, “Honey, I need to get a specimen.” She said this with a small glass container in head. A sleepy eyed Pau responds,” Ma’am you will have to wait and see my Mom for that.” I told him what she needed and he sheepishly laughed and submitted. Little did I know as I went home I would soon have my own hospital stay and I had not been in one as a patient since third grade? All the sitting and lying around and eating had bloated me up a mite. I had not gone for a while and it seems I had forgotten I needed to. One Sunday I did not want to go to church and felt so sluggish. I stayed home from Church and when Mom got back she looked at me and said for me to go to bed as I had a bit of fever. The next thing I remember is Mom and Uncle Roy was talking over me in my room about caring me to the emergency room. The next was I was in a room at Magnolia Hospital. Two nurses’ aides were trying to stick me in the arm and laughing as even then I had deeply buried veins. In my dazed condition I hear, “Oops, I missed again.” This would be followed by a tehe laugh. Again it occurs followed by a,” My turn!” I remember shouting, “Give it to me and by the Lord I will do it!” The head nurse comes in and hits it right away. My IV contains glucose and soon I am better and ole Dr. Frank Davis comes in and I hear that I am stable but if the stuff I am about to take does not help they will have to operate. With my attention now riveted I asked out loud what was wrong with me. I am told this, “Son you are impacted. Plugged up and what I am going to give you should work you in 12 hours and most likely will but if it does not we may have to operate. It should work so think of it as Drano opening your pipe.” I knew what this meant but I had mostly though of impacted, impact, or impaction as hitting with a force not a plugging of one’s shall we say butt. It worked and worked and worked the next morning and thus I was spared the knife. Shall I say I had a few Uncles and friends who made me the ‘butt’ of more than a few jokes with me being a mite hefty? Soon it was ’behind’ me and I had forgotten most of it but always was more mindful of as the commercials on TV say regularity. Three years fly by and I find myself at MSU as a junior. One of my friends who was a good student and did not ever miss a class went missing. He was not in class for over a week. It did not seem like Tom so we went looking for him. No Tom was found. Then we heard that a friend of ours was at the Campus Infirmary asking for us. Henry and I went to see who it was and it was Tom. He would be okay but he was recovering from (you guessed it) an impaction. The situation was different from mine in the manner of what caused it. It was not overeating and inactivity. Tom like I had a weight problem and tried many things to lose a bit of weight. He had seen one of TV’s first infomercials where a guy in a lab coat playing a doctor on TV told Tom about Starch Block. The product would stop one from absorbing starch which affected fat and calories in what one may eat. The starch would be taken out of the body in waste products and with less calories and more fiber and less sugars or fats, you would be bound to lose weight. Tom tried it with a sensible diet and exercise plan (that is what most need to do and only that) and lost 4 pounds in two weeks. It seemed slow to him and so he hit on a brilliant idea. Less starch meant more loss and so more Starch Block would speed things up. Well as it turns out it did not work that way. More of the product with less fluid as Tom found an over the counter diuretic soon meant the tablets of white chalky Block turned to a mass like concrete in Tom’s intestine. He could not eat and he could not go. Impaction: No Action! The doctor had to create Colon Blow for him or operate. The chemical jack hammer had broken up the cement block and regularity returned to Tom as I remembered the danger of Impaction. All I can say is that I gained a new respect for Ex-lax. I was so glad that Mom kept a blue bottle of Milk of Mag or Haley’s MO under the sink. It is your bowel. Don’t leave home without it.
Posted on: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 17:07:11 +0000
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