Medical procedures.

Sometime around 1988, I guess, I lost 65 lbs. in 10 weeks. This was after my wife and I broke up. I quit eating meat and sugar. I didn't suppliment my diet with other proteins. (What happened to the i before e except after c rule?) I didn't eat many veggies in those days, either. All I did was drink and...otherwise party.
In early 1990, I came down with flu-like symtoms and went to the hospital. They did some tests and discovered that my white blood cell count was extremely high. They gave me something to take and I began trying to work some meat back into my diet.
Around November of 1990, soon after I turned 30, I began experiencing excrutiating stomach pains and feeling very ill. I was hospitalized. Doctor after doctor saw me. They ran every test you can imagine, for 2 weeks straight. The whole time, I was getting sicker and sicker. I also began getting spots on my feet and legs. They biopsied my intestine by cutting me open, right down the front of my stomach, and removing a section. (That's the first time they cut me there. They went around my navel and when it healed, it left a clean scar. Operation 2 was another story. More on that later.) Finally, they came up with a diagnosis: Poly Auteritis Nodosa. PAN syndrome. The spots on my feet and legs? Henoch Schindlin Purpura.
The condition was so rare, one doctor told me he was going to do a paper on me.
I asked them, over and over, what had caused this. No one could really tell me. But, I know it was my horrible diet - going 2 years with no meat and no alternative protein source - and the alcohol and the drugs.
I had a tube in my nose, running down my throat, a catheter, and 2 IV poles with about 4 lines stuck in my arms. Even though I had been diagnosed and was being treated, I was still very sick. And I wasn't responding to anything. A doctor came in and did a little operation right there in my bed. She sewed a patch into my chest in which to insert IV needles. This, for some reason caused a difference in the way my body took the drugs. Up until then, they thought I might die - but, they didn't tell me that. After I had been in the hospital for about a month, I slowly began to come around.
I was given Morphine for the pain. I had a lot of it. Pain - and Morphine. When I came home, I was a mess. I had withdrawal and would break down and cry over any little thing. Even a stupid TV commercial. Also, for some reason, I couldn't sleep in my bed. I slept on the couch for weeks.
I've left out a lot of details. Some of the tests were horrible. I felt like I was dying and being tortured. A lot of people came and went in my different rooms: patients, visitors and nurses. Teams of doctors and interns would look at me, talk about me and question me.
I heard that one of my room mates died soon after he was discharged.
That, in a very small nut shell - an almond, maybe - was my first operation. Like I said, number 2 is a whole other story.