Help Deane Ogden with Expensive Medical Surgeries

****Scroll to the bottom for ongoing status updates****

 

ORIGINAL POST: This is Brian Ralston....Deane's SCOREcast partner and podcast co-host for many years along with Janis Hackett (Dean'e Aunt) and Karen Pierce, (Deane's mom). We are working together on a GoFundMe for Deane Ogden's expensive medical surgical procedures to save his life in Bali, Indonesia.  Deane's Aunt Jan is the beneficiary of all funds here in the USA as GoFundMe does not have a presence in Indonesia and the beneficiary has to be in the states and Janis will transfer those funds to Deane's USA accounts privately. We have set the goal now at $25,000 and 100% of the funds (minus Go Fund Me fees) are for the specific purpose of his surgical bills and rehabilitation costs which are significant. Deane has already had tens of thousands of dollars in surgery bills from this medical situation previously and with these new complications, an expensive second surgery and possibly more ahead, along with his rehab in the near future, they are now in a bit of a financial pickle. The story of how we got to where we are today is long and written out here below, but it is best to hear from Deane in his own words how the original issue developed. In a nutshell, it seems this is all a long and developing complication from his Gastric Bypass surgery over 18 years ago.

 

FROM DEANE ON FACEBOOK:

 

My “office” for the last week. (See image above)

 

Last weekend I was looping cables up in my studio after breakfast with V and the boys when I doubled over suddenly in excruciating pain. I fell to the studio floor, luckily near the bathroom door, and just laid there thinking I somehow must have just been prison-shivved in my gut. It. Hurt. So. Bad.

 

My phone was in my pocket, but I couldn’t reach it. Every time I moved anything another shooting pain tasered thru my abdomen. Dripping in cold sweat and crying like an infant, I finally shook my phone free. “Hey Siri, call Vrina.” Looking back now, that might be the first time that bitch Siri worked correctly. Maybe there is a god… and his name was Steve Jobs. “Honey, please come up here. Come up here quick.” I thought to myself I might die before she made the 2-minute trip.

 

Thirty minutes later we were on our way to the local emergency room. Those poor docs tried everything to make me comfortable: pillows, different elevations of the bed, pain killers, chest/abdominal MRIs, they even lit me up old school with barium and gave me the ol’ plunger. Not fun. Nothing revealed any kind of anything.

 

This entire time, my incredibly resourceful wife is on her phone looking up “bariatric surgeons” in Bali. Fall of this year will be the 18th anniversary of my bariatric bypass operation at Huntington in Pasadena. Vrina was convinced it had something to do with that, despite never having a single complication in 17 years.

She found Dr. Agus at BIMC Nusa Dua and called him. Next thing I knew, I was back in another ride to see him down in the bay. It was the longest most painful 45-minute car ride I can imagine ever having… well, maybe except for that time I rage-drove to an ex’s place in Palm Springs. I was getting that fucking couch back!

 

After a huge round of additional MRIs, Dr. Agus realized there was a sizable blockage in my small intestine, possibly multiple, he couldn’t know the extent without opening me up. I was deteriorating fast, so they rushed me into the operating theater. I have poor circulation, so they adorned me with compression socks, some real special white see-through numbers, and the lady who was assisting my anesthesiologist said, “Wow, you have the nicest legs in here.”

 

Fade to back. That’s the last thing I remember about that day.

 

I woke up thirteen hours later in ICU. They wheeled me upstairs after some routine tests and IV stuff to where Vrina was. She had the room where we’d be staying already decked out and homey with all the accoutrements to make me comfortable.

Turns out, the gastric bypass I had 17 years earlier did save my life, but not without one big complication: Intestinal Herniation (IH). It’s tough to explain, but just imagine two snakes eating themselves and you’ll get the picture real quick. IH effectively shuts down your colon because it cuts off the bloodstream, not to mention the entire GI tract, and starves your large intestine thereby collapsing it completely. Once inside, Dr. Agus pulled apart over 52cm of herniated small intestine. They didn’t cut anything or break and reattach anything, he just did it with his hands.

 

If you’ve read this far, well… you maybe need more to do. But I do appreciate it. But, here’s the thing he said that stays with me…

 

He said, “I had your intestine fully out of you. I was looking at it. We only had a few minutes to decide if we should cut out the herniation and reattach the newly cut parts together or if I should try and push everything out of your organs and not make any incisions. I stood there. I closed my eyes. I thought ‘This man is only 47, he has a beautiful wife and two kids. He’s successful. He’s happy. If I cut, the chances of him living longer don’t necessarily go up but the chances of him having a tougher recovery do. Plus, it could cause other issues. On the other hand, if I don’t cut, this could happen again. But, this is a healthy intestine. It’s not weak, it’s not thin.’ So, I decided to massage all of the blockages out manually. That felt like the right call.”

 

What a guy. Considering all that? I mean, I know that’s what you are “supposed” to do, I’m sure, but I think we’ve largely forgotten in the madness of all this pandemic divisiveness that a doctor’s very job is to make sound but nuanced medical decisions on a case by case basis. What an incredible tightrope to walk, to go home every night with the weight that you either saved someone’s life or that you ought to be thrown in jail for the rest of yours. I’m in awe of that.

 

Look, I freely admit I might be over romanticizing the situation, but I’m hard pressed to look around over the last two years at our medical system and see that kind of nuance and personalization, certainly not from a National or global health perspective. It’s always the “hammer of the science” and I’m sorry, but they have just gotten a shit-ton of it entirely wrong. Go watch Bill Maher’s show-ending monologue from last night in YouTube. He nails this. And he’ll likely be launched against by the Cancel Dweebs for saying so. (https://youtu.be/or4vncEcuBo)

 

But it clearly does happen on the ground. Doctors personalize each case and weigh the costs of their decisions based mostly on how those decisions will impact each patient individually. And that’s what we want right? What major over-arching good does a one-size-fits all approach do for a guy like me laying there with my goddamned guts all over the table? There might be protocols and procedures that are important to the unification of medical systems, sure, but in the end, I want a guy like Dr. Agus standing there, eyes closed, pausing rationally, weighing, considering, fighting himself, and thinking about how he’s about to make the decision that is going to radically change the lives of four otherwise happy people.

I’ve had a lot of time to ponder, think and square things in my head this week as I’ve laid in that bed while those cute little nurses sponge-bathed me. That part wasn’t tough. The tough part will be walking out the rest of this in a world that demands compliance. Eat this, don’t eat this, watch that, don’t watch that, say this, don’t say that, believe this, don’t believe that. It’s easy to make rigid and rugged decisions that govern the masses and I know we need those to have a functional society, but boy howdy do I hope we can somehow find a path back to trusting our boots-on-the-ground professionals with a little bit of autonomy. That goes for doctors and nurses just as much as it does for producers and mix engineers.

 

 

STATUS UPDATE - FEB 11, 2022: Deane is back in the hospital due to complications from the first surgery. While the previous blockages and herniations were fixed, his GI tract is now leaking into his abdomen which has caused sepsis. They are addressing the sepsis successfully and he is set to go back into surgery , Sat, Feb 12th to find and stop the GI leak. This will likely require removal of a section of his GI tract. Deane is ready to get this issue addressed and fixed and get back to his family....but he has a long way to go.

 

STATUS UPDATE - FEB 13, 2022: Deane is out of his second surgery.  And it went very well.  They removed a section of his intestine that was causing the GI leaks.    He is awake and recovering in ICU.  He says he feels better than he has in weeks since this all started.  The next few days are critical but he has a good start after successful surgery.  

 

STATUS UPDATE - FEB 14, 2022: Deane's GI tract has developed another leak after his second surgery.  They are preparing him for a third surgery to go in and possibly remove more intestine.  This time they will likely bypass and block off his entire GI tract completely with a stoma for a few weeks to give the intestine time to heal without any food or digestion occurring.  And then in the future they will have to go in for a fourth surgery to re-connect everything back up after it has healed.

STATUS UPDATE - FEB 15, 2022: Deane's blood work is not yet stable enough for his third surgery.  They are giving him some nutrients and albumin to get his levels up so the next surgery will be set up for success.  The surgery will be happening soon but the exact date / time we do not yet know.  

STATUS UPDATE - FEB 16, 2022: Deane's doctors believe there is a path forward to let his body begin to heal the latest GI leakage itself with the aid of some IV therapeutics.  If there is a way to avoid a third invasive surgery, everyone would like to do that since many of these current issues are all complications from previous surgeries.  Deane has had a couple blood transfusions in the last day or so and his lab work is getting better as is the fluid from this second GI leak.  So they are currently monitoring his labs regularly and are cautiously optimistic his healing is beginning.