Last time I told you my ‘suit story’ which took place in front of Thorek Hospital at 3 in the morning. Well, Thorek loomed large in my life some 5 years later when I was working for Glaxo, Inc.

Things didn’t work out for Adria Labs. Recall that they were in a race to launch the first of a new class of non-steroidals to treat pain and arthritis. Well, Eli Lilly beat them to market with the launch of a product called Oraflex, the first of a new class of medicines. Although a highly efficacious product, it unfortunately caused kidney and liver damage. The drug was pulled from the market within its first year. Adria’s entry in the same class was approved in Europe, ran into similar adverse event problems, and was also pulled, never to be marketed in the US. As a result, I found myself a casualty of the layoffs that followed. I was informed of my layoff after just more than one year of service on a pay phone during a routine call-in on a Thursday afternoon. Turns out I had an appointment at a drug wholesaler the next day and decided to do the right thing and follow through with the appointment. I knew they had a lot of merchandise returns that they would otherwise have to sit on forever. During that Friday afternoon visit I tell the customer of the layoff and he begins pulling out business cards of companies he would recommend. He becomes animated as he gets to the card of the local Glaxo Representative. He tells me that Glaxo is an up-and-coming company with a great new product (Zantac) and solid supporting products. I take a few cards, thank him, and head home to make phone calls. After speaking with the Glaxo Rep, I finally get in touch with the District Manager, Herb H., a truly nice guy who, ironically, would end up reporting to me some years later. Herb tells me that indeed he does have an opening in Chicago and, as luck would have it, his Regional Manager will be in town on Monday. We set an interview for that morning in Schaumburg, IL.

The Regional Manager, a strange hyper-sort-of-guy named Jerry E. was in town to kick off a training class at the Embassy Suites in Schaumburg. He and Herb step out of the training session to interview me. The interview goes swimmingly, and they offer me the job on the spot. They ask if I can start today! So I join the other 15 or so new employees in the training class for the afternoon, then head home that night to pack a bag for the week stay at the hotel. An odd collection of people made up the training

class, but it did contain Pete Seaton who became a quick friend. One of the nicest guys you will ever meet, with a quick but always kind sense of humor, he became a District Manager and Regional Vice President in record time.

Back to the story, it turns out that I was out of work for only one day (and worked half of it!) and had really fallen into some great luck by finding Glaxo. It was like going from the Minor league to the Pros in one day. Not only did Glaxo have Zantac, which was to become the #1 selling drug on the planet for many years, but my bag now also contained Ventolin (albuterol), the first and only short-acting beta-agonist which is still an essential rescue medication for asthma; Beclovent, the first inhaled corticosteroid which was to become first-line maintenance treatment of asthma; and Beconase, which was the first nasally-inhaled corticosteroid for seasonal rhinitis and allergies. Throw in a few exceptional injectable antibiotics for good measure, and an extremely rich pipeline of life-changing medicines that would feed my career for decades to come.

Anyway, Beconase was the subject of my call on an ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat physician) who had an office in Thorek Hospital (Remember, this is a story about Thorek). I’m telling him all about the wonders of mast cell stabilization and he is staring at me paying rapt attention. I was killing it! Then he says:

 “I can fix that you know”.

I’m sorry, what?

“Your nose. I can fix that. How in world do you even breathe?”

It was true that I had broken my nose on several occasions and I had a severely deviated septum. I actually did take decongestants every night, with a planned rotation of classes because you begin to rebound from each molecule after a few weeks. Still, this was one very direct assessment. He told me in some detail what he would do and proclaimed that it would not cost me a cent. He would just take what the insurance company gave him. Not the best way to make a medical decision, but I decided to give it a shot. He removed turbinates, which are curled fluid-filled bony structures designed to warm and moisten the air we breathe, but which often block nasal passages when enlarged. He also broke and rebuilt my nasal bones, and straightened out the deformed cartilage.

We scheduled the work at Thorek Hospital. On the day of the surgery, I was administered preoperative cocaine as an anesthetic, and I guess it brought out my ebullient personality. I remember telling the doctor and nurses a few jokes as they were rolling me into the surgical suite.

A doctor finally catches up with a patient by phone and tells him “I have some bad news and some worse news”. The patient says “Holy Mackeral! Tell me the bad news first.”

“Well, the tests showed that you have only 2 days to live.” 

“Oh my God! What could be worse than that?!”

The doctor says, “Well, I tried to reach you all day yesterday.”

So, despite the bad jokes, the surgery goes well, and they packed my nose with yards of gauze. Seriously, it’s like those magic tricks where the guy just keeps pulling a string of handkerchiefs out of his mouth. They pack it tight!

I have to stay in the hospital overnight and the nurses virtually ignore me.  My new bride Jean has to fight for any attention, including pain meds and the mandatory changing of the bandages every two hours. She decides not to leave my side that night. I get to see a new side of my wife as we quickly learn that Thorek is not at the pinnacle of patient care.

I must have the packing in for a week and after the initial swelling goes down, I’m looking at a new face. My nose is straight as an arrow, no turns, no bumps. Strange, but I hate it. Just doesn’t feel right on my face. Before and after:

Fate intervenes a day or so later as in the middle of the night I have a sneezing fit and blow most of the packing out of my nose, including critical blood clots. Profuse bleeding begins immediately. My wife does not wake as I make my way to the bathroom. I pinch my nose, put a compress on, do other things that have absolutely no effect at all. Finally, I call to Jean who wakes and comes over to the sink which is now filled with red water and blood. She takes one look, turns around and stumbles back to bed before fainting. She tells me she can’t get up yet! I seriously remember just looking up to the mirror at my black and blue face with blood streaming down my nose into a sink full of red, as I start to get faint myself, thinking that I’m in some trouble here.

Jean finally rallies, and we call the ENT at 3 in the morning. Of course, he tells me to go to the ER, where we encounter a fresh-faced resident. Of course, he has already been called by my ENT who told him to put a balloon patch in. Of course, he has never done this before. Essentially, it’s a procedure where you place an inflatable balloon into the nasal passage and blow it up to seal the passage and block bleeding to let a new clot form.  He bungles the procedure badly, overinflating the balloon and breaking bone fragments.

The bleeding does finally stop, and the nose does eventually heal.  In follow up appointments at Thorek, my ENT is not happy at all with the final product and curses the work done in the ER. I, on the other hand, am thrilled that I can breathe better than ever, and I am happy that my nose has settled back into more curves. The procedure was one of the best health decisions I have ever made.

And although each episode had its dicey moments, I survived Thorek Hospital once again.

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