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Chapman: Chronic Pain, Syncope and Surgical Emergencies

Day 3 · 6:09:56 · Shawn Buckley · Mark Chapman · Dean Allison

  • 💥 Whole-body pain from ears to toes, random full-contraction muscle spasms, numb/burning feet and tramadol dependence.
  • 🚑 Wife has lifted him off the floor five times after syncope; June 2024 ischemic-colon emergency required laparotomy.
  • 🏥 Days later gallbladder inflammation forced another surgery; right-leg paralysis followed and future events remain unknown.

cascading multi-system failures and near-fatal abdominal crises.

← Chapman: Cognitive Crash, Fatigue and Loss of Career | Q&A: Pilot Community Cardiac Injuries and Shortages →

Transcript

Shawn Buckley · 6:09:56

Because you also deal with chronic pain.

Mark Chapman · 6:09:58

I, I do. Uh, somebody here said they had tramadol. Uh, I have tramadol. It's in my bag right there. I have metoprolol as well because if I get tachycardia, I need to take it. I get chronic pain. I have a hard time sitting still. The pain is from the ears to the toes, and it's just like the whole body is hurting. There are many nights I'm up at midnight because I just can't lie there anymore and I have to get up.

Shawn Buckley · 6:10:29

And this is basically daily, so you'll be in pain now?

Mark Chapman · 6:10:33

I am, absolutely. I, I feel like I'm sitting on a tree trunk. I'm not, I'm sitting on a cushion and a chair, but it feels like I'm sitting on a piece of wood. Um, you know, my, my feet are numb. I can't feel them at all except for the times when they feel like they're freezing and burning and hurting all at the same time, which occurs occasionally. And I also get— somebody else mentioned, uh, muscle contractions. I'll get a random muscle in my body will decide it's time to fully contract and stay that way. Might be one finger, might be a calf, might be the side of my head, and that muscle will go to instantly to full contraction and you can't release it. You have to take something like Flexeril to try to get it to pivot. And, uh, and those are random. There's no way to predict them, and they're not that infrequent.

Mark Chapman · 6:11:37

And, you know, so the evidence is circumstantial. I started having trouble the next day. I think that's pretty seriously plausible connection. But all of these things that have gone crazy— I have a a— it's like a kaleidoscope of symptoms that I have. Uh, I have gastric trouble. For some unknown reason, my GI tract will go into turbo mode at the most inappropriate times, and that's a problem, right? Because it now wants to get rid of everything. Uh, shall I talk about this summer? I had, uh, on the 27th of June this year, was sitting reading email and I suddenly felt really tremendously bad. Within 15 minutes I was in huge abdominal pain and nausea.

Mark Chapman · 6:12:39

I spent the night in the bathroom. My wife found me on the floor in the morning. By that time I was passing bright red blood. We called 811, they said call 911. We went downtown in the ambulance, got downtown. In half a day they said that they had unexplained thickening of the colon and, uh, they didn't know why, but they were going to open up and have a look. So they opened me up, they looked inside. They didn't do very much else, and they closed me back up and sent me to the IMCU. I was there for four days, and in the middle of that, I texted my wife. I said, Sharon, you need to consider the possibility of my death, as I didn't think I was going to get out of there. So, uh, they— after four days there, they sent me to the VG Hospital to, uh, recover, and that's where I discovered I had a paralyzed right leg.

Mark Chapman · 6:13:47

Couldn't walk, couldn't stand up. It took two— it took me two weeks before I could stand up and move enough for them to let me out of there. I got home and was being seen by the Victorian Order of Nurses and Home Care, wound care. They finally discharged me from VON care. The very next day, I had chest pain, 10 out of 10. I didn't know whether that was a heart attack, collapsed lung, or an aneurysm. Back in the ambulance, back downtown. After a day in the ER, they said your gallbladder has become inflamed and thickened. That sounds just like what had happened to the colon. So they scheduled me for OR to get that out. 3 Days later, they took that out of me. Now, my visit to the surgeon from the first event, she said I had something that she would call an ischemic colon, which means the blood flow to your colon is blocked off.

Mark Chapman · 6:14:51

Well, why was that? She doesn't know. Will it happen again? She doesn't know. Uh, it may have been a clot, and what might have saved me— because I'm on blood thinners for life because of the atrial fibrillation. So if you have AFib, you can form a clot in your heart, and if they cardiovert you, it can bust out and hit you in the brain and give you a stroke. It might have been that blood thinner that saved me from the ischemic colon, because they were presuming it was necrotizing. So they just basically put me back together and let me recover. Uh, what's next? No idea. I, I won't be surprised. Whatever, whatever comes next, it's just one thing after another after another.

Dean Allison · 6:15:42

I want to thank you for your service, first of all. Um, and serving our country. My question, you know, you—.