Surgery 1

On Sept. 1 2010, I had a sixteen hour surgery, as they removed the right half of my mandible (jaw bone), tumor and all, and replacing it with a constructed replacement from my right fibula (leg bone). The surgery went remarkably well, as was best reflected by Michael’s Facebook post :

Michael Hart

September 2, 2010

"His pulse didn't flutter. He came through like a champ." -Ryan's Doctor at the end of his 16 hour surgery.

My first memories after the surgery are that of the dark half-room and the old fella I was sharing the room with. Then there was my sister (Lindsay) and Michael’s account of my crude gesture to the doctor when he told me when I first awoke that the surgery went great. ( Think of the Asian man in “The Hangover”), that’s the most detail I am willing to explicitly write about. Then I remember a sunlight room, rather spacy in ICU, so peaceful with mom and Lindsay sitting at the foot of my bed. Then Linds leaves for a bit for Uncle Don, only two people were allowed in at once.

Then there was a bizarre transfer, there were students doing the transfer from one bed to another—I was very stoned for this, but I remember something peculiar about it, as if we just chilled their waiting for some unknown delay to do the actual action but just looking and interacting, I was so happy to be around them. I think they got a kick out of my dry-erase board. Since I was unable to talk, my visionary family got me a dry-erase board so I could write messages. That board was the source of a lot of humor. There was something about the anticipation of my company waiting to see what I would write that was entertaining, for me anyway. One night I buzzed the nurse in because I was in need of assistance, but she failed to understand what I needed and began to leave the room. I knew that their presence through the night was sporadic, so I had to stop her from leaving; I had to get her attention. So with that, out of half-urgency to correct the issue and half frustration of her error, I chucked my board at her just as she approached the door. She was shocked, “Did you just throw this at me?”

The sequence of all this is really clouded, so I’ll share some memories in no particular order. I am in awe of the difference in perspectives of this surgery experience. I mean, there was sixteen hours through which my family sat around waiting, possibly fearing my death or irrepairable damage. All the while, I was unconscious, complete nothingness. And then throughout the time in the hospital recovery, my experience was once of pain, morphine, and visitation pleasantries. All the while, the others had to sort out who was allowed in my room and when, there is probably so much about their experience of this that I am unaware of.

One instance was waking up to hearing the unique voice of my baseball coach, look to my left and he’s chatting with my Dad. Steve is a “role model” or whatever of mine. I hate to say this in context that he could ever have a chance to read as his ego does not need that kind of boost, but I will share more about my relationship with him later in the book. Anyway, him taking the time to come see me meant a lot. I liked that he came at a time when I had no one there other than my Dad rather than one of the several instances when I had an entourage hanging in my room. Of course when I expressed my appreciation, he went on to let me know he had the choice of coming to see me or going with his wife to do something miserable so that’s why he was there. That’s him; he is sarcastic and funny as hell.

A pivotal moment in my life-history when this high school baseball coach of mine told me he thought I had the ability to play in college, and showed me how to load my swing properly. I had been acquainted with and looked up to Steve when he took over the legendary Coach Bill Hager. The shoes he was set to fill really put him in a spot of admiration; I had seen Coach Hager as a sort of a super hero after following the team as an eleven-year old über fan. That year they won a Pennsylvania state championship with four little white boys who could shoot the lights out, and a black center named J.J. Horne who went on to play football at the University of Pittsburgh. These fellas were superstars in my eyes. Michael and I even created them all in a “season” on a NBA basketball video game on Nintendo 64 called Kobe Bryant Courtside. Yeah, it was one of those deals.

Anyway, Coach Steve ended up doing an unbelievable job, as he won the 2006 State Championship and ended up winning the coach of year award for the state of Pennsylvania. After playing in his program through middle school and freshman year, I got the opportunity to get to know him when he helped his brother, Gary, coach the baseball team. He showed me how to swing a baseball bat the right way which meant so much to me as I became a good hitter going into my senior year and ultimately enabled me to play college baseball.

One day, I got a visit from a two car-full crew of my Thiel College Baseball teammates. This meant the world to me. It really made me feel like a special part of the family within that program, for them all to take the time during school to make the trip to Pittsburgh. They stopped at Walmart on the way and each picked out some goofy gifts from the toy section, it made me smile. I’ll never forget how emotional they got upon seeing me in such rough shape; no matter how much they messed we mess with each other, there is so much love there. The amount of love mail received was unreal. I felt like a sort of celebrity. I didn’t’ realize it at the time, but one day my friend Lainey came over to help me pack before I split for vacation and we looked back on all the cards I had saved. One of my fondest memories of Lainey is when after my surgery, she drove all the way from Penn State to see me. Not only that, since she didn’t have class until midday the next day, she offered to stay with me through the night. She did, and she was right there the entire night to wipe the mucus from my tracheotomy sight whenever I needed.

Another bit of ridiculousness occurred when the hospital made the foolish decision to allow Mason McFeaters and Cody Trinch walk into that hospital together. Don’t get me wrong, they are both real nice kids individually. But when those two get together, they become ten year olds. Anyway, for some reason beyond me, there was a span of time when they were the only ones in the room with me. Since I couldn’t talk to them, they grew bored and started pitching to each other with the toy baseball bat and ball from the collection of toys the Thiel guys brought me. A couple times, they even yanked it and hit me with the ball. While some may be put off by such childish behavior, I loved it; it was right in line with their typical selves, which I appreciated.

Another distinct memory I’d like to tell you about Christie the Cougar. Yeah you heard me right. After surgery in Pittsburgh, there was this nurse that was an absolute doll, middle aged, and really hot. She was very kind and charming and joked around with me—of course Michael and I had our fair share of fun charming her socks off. We sure had our fun, between the morphine, my goofie family, and my dry-erase notes, I remember a lot of chuckling. Even if sometimes the laughing hurt a bit, I’m convinced all the humor that surrounded me influenced my relatively quick healing.