P.J.’s Journey: TMI!

Joshua, our youngest, is a fan of chat/text lingo.  He often tries to stump me with acronyms.  He says things to me like “BRB, Mom!” and “TTYL!”  For those of you who are text lingo challenged, BRB stands for “be right back” and TTYL is “talk to you later.”  I laughed so hard one night when he was quizzing me to see if I was up-to-speed on all the acronyms and he asked “Do you know what TTFN is?”  “Tata for now!” I proudly responded.  “What about GGP?” he asked next.  “Gotta go potty… duh!”  (I flashed him my “you’re not going to stump me” smile!)  Then he said, “Okay… so you know what OTPNTP, means?”  Uh oh… he had me.  What the heck did that mean?!?!  NTP… Notice to Proceed?  Hmmm… I finally conceded and he said “Mom!  It means ‘on the potty, need toilet paper!'”  Well, of course it does!  Why didn’t I think of that?  I always text that to A.J. when I’m in the bathroom and out of TP.  Crazy kid!!

One of the first of those types of acronyms that I learned is TMI (too much information).  So when my friends start telling me about their love lives and they cross the line, I might say “TMI!” or when a family member shares details about a gastrointestinal disorder, I definitely hit him with “TMI!!  TMI!!”

Do you remember the days before the world wide web?  OMG (oh my gosh), I can’t imagine what we did without this form of modern technology.  Some believe it has been our downfall, but IMHO (in my humble opinion), I think it has provided all of us, especially when it comes to information about modern medicine, a second, third, fourth, etc., opinion!

Some doctors don’t appreciate my need to look things up and I understand that.  Although, Dr. Dhaval Adhvaryu, P.J.’s surgeon, got a kick out of it when I told him I’d “Googled” him.  So he obviously likes being “Googled.”  He said that he appreciated and understood that I wanted to know who was cutting on my son.  When I had my Glaucoma surgery in 2010, the information I read on the internet ahead of time scared me a little and the surgery itself turned out to be a piece of cake, and I was sorry I had looked it up.  So when I had my ankle surgery this past year, I deliberately avoided reading about it… until… after two weeks when I was in a lot of pain and was very frustrated.  Ugh… it was not a good thing.  I found the blog of a lady who’d had the same surgery and saw pictures and everything.  There I was, in pain, lying in bed with the computer in my lap, balling like anything.  I called A.J. on his cell and wailed “This is just awful!  I am going to be in pain like this for three more months!”  And that was pretty darned accurate!  Now, seeing everything P.J. has been through in the last 6-1/2 weeks, I feel like such a ninny for the way I acted.

The days following P.J.’s accident, we avoided reading about burn treatments on the internet.  We thought it would be TMI and we wouldn’t be able to handle it.  Gradually, we’ve learned so much from talking to the nurses and doctors, and we have read supporting information on the internet that has helped us to understand better what they’ve already shared.  I’ll never forget that on the day Dr. Reza Sheybani, the Pulmonary Specialist, told us P.J. had pneumonia (only a day after we learned that he was in a coma), A.J. immediately looked it up on the internet trying to find the chance for someone who is in a coma surviving pneumonia.  He didn’t like what he read, especially considering all of the other things P.J. was dealing with at the moment.  But the internet would also tell you that the way to calculate a person’s chance of survival who has been burned to the extent P.J. was, is to add their age (19 in this case) to the percentage of body burned (70%), subtract from 100%, and you have their chance of survival.  Now, you don’t have to be a Mu Alpha Theta to figure out that what that meant was that the odds were not in P.J.’s favor at all.  But what you won’t always get from reading the TMI on the internet, is that new medicines, technology, and processes are developed and invented every day that can increase those odds.  You might also not get that the power of prayer, and a person’s strength and attitude play a big role in their recovery.

Our boy is strong; he is special; and he is kicking butt in the burn unit.  TMI or no TMI, it doesn’t matter.  He is AAK (alive and kicking) and that is just FWM (fine with me).  As always, we TYVM (thank you very much) for your prayers, notes of encouragement, cards, blood donations, etc.  We would not be able to do this without all of your support.  TAFN (That’s all for now)!

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