SOBUMD has gone under the knife.\u00a0 Well, robot.\u00a0 \u00a0In her constant bid to be the most optimised woman in the world,\u00a0she’s done away with her\u00a0appendix, uterus, cervix, gallbladder,\u00a0plica in her right knee, and several kidney stones.\u00a0 This time her\u00a0digestive system was on the hit list, and so yesterday,\u00a0on the eve of the seventh anniversary of her first hysterectomy,\u00a0she had\u00a0a paraesophageal hernia repair and fundoplication.\u00a0 Which is really fun to try to say after your third Scotch.<\/p>\n
The procedure was scheduled for 10:45am, so of course we had to be there by 08:30.\u00a0 The procedure actually started just a little after 1pm.\u00a0\u00a0 I told the nurse that, since I hadn’t taken anything by mouth for more than 4 hours, at this point they could operate on me.\u00a0\u00a0 They gave her a nice shot of whatever Ruffies want to be when they grow up, I kissed her giggling head as she got loopy,\u00a0they wheeled her off, and I went to find a nice quiet spot to read and type, or possibly lunch.<\/p>\n
This hospital center was laid out by the guy who built Gormenghast – you’re either in the Main Tower or the Pavilion or the Third Side North Wing or the East Inner Waiting Area or the West Outer Waiting Area or the Shared Infection Common Area or the Cafeteria – not to be confused with the Other Cafeteria, which has coffee.<\/p>\n
I walked through the cafeteria to see what was available for lunch.\u00a0 You’ve seen those big hospital cafeterias, right?\u00a0 This was like that, except smaller and without any of the good looking food.\u00a0 I checked out the Other Cafeteria, which had coffee, but they didn’t have much else that looked decent.\u00a0 Finally I\u00a0availed myself of the “extended” cafeteria option about three blocks away, where the menu included\u00a0Hanger Steak (rare), Ozzie\u00a0rolls,\u00a0and fries with mayo.\u00a0 Hey, a man’s gotta eat.<\/p>\n
From there I found the local library, thinking that a library is a good place to read or write quietly.\u00a0 It turned out to be Take\u00a0Your Obnoxious Brat to the Library Day; there are disadvantages\u00a0to summer break.\u00a0 Mind you, reading is a vital part of learning, and I encourage the idea that people should take their kids to the library.\u00a0 That’s probably why I myself so seldom go there.<\/p>\n
Eventually I gave it up as a bad job and went back to Gormenghast Hospital, where I commandeered the “Consult” room in the Left Outer Pavilion Common Wing, on grounds that it was small, quiet, well lit, and hey, I was consulting with my book.\u00a0 The Dr found me there after working on SOBUMD for two and half hours\u00a0and\u00a0told me all was well – or at least as well as it could be after pulling someone’s esophagus down 2 centimeters into their stomach and stapling it there – and that she’d be out of surgery in about another 30 minutes, and then an hour in recovery.\u00a0 \u00a0(He’s the boss, so he has his minions close ’em up.\u00a0 It’s like the pilot who has his co-pilot do the takeoffs and landings.)\u00a0<\/p>\n
I finally got to see her, just as she was waking up from the Rohyponol they’d slipped in her IV.\u00a0 She saw me and asked what had happened, so I told her\u00a0I didn’t know how to tell her this, but they’d amputated the wrong leg.\u00a0 She was still pretty loopy, so I told her I also had brought along that power of attorney document I just needed her to\u00a0sign.\u00a0 The nurse looked up rather sharply at that, until she saw SOBUMD snickering.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then I let SOBUMD hold her security iPhone – just holding it made her perk up a bit, even though I wouldn’t let her turn it on.\u00a0 The nurse was filling out the Room Attendant forms, and asked, “”Do you have any spiritual or cultural needs we should attend to or be aware of?”\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Really, just her iPhone…”<\/p>\n
They don’t kick you out at 8pm, but they do make getting your car back a real pain in the ass, so I left before the valet parking witching hour and came home to ensure order. I left SOBUMD snoring, sleeping like a baby, albeit a baby in the NICU with a chest tube, three IV lines, oxygen, an NG stomach tube, and a catheter.\u00a0\u00a0 Of course, babies probably don’t get as much morphine as she got, so at least she’s got that going for her.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
I needn’t have worried about coming home to restore order.\u00a0 Our friend Lauren and her son had driven down from Delaware to stay with the three lunatic urchins this week.\u00a0 While I was with SOBUMD, she\u00a0had taken the kids to the pool, gone shopping, made dinner, mowed the lawn, and re-financed the mortgage on the house.\u00a0 Today\u00a0she’s painting the outside of the shed dormer, changing the oil,\u00a0and\u00a0bringing Candice Olsen over to redesign the basement.\u00a0\u00a0 Lauren said this morning that she was going to sleep last night, but\u00a0decided to re-caulk the windows instead.\u00a0 She’s amazing, and we couldn’t do this without her.<\/p>\n
Today I’m back with SOBUMD, who’s enjoying her morphine with every shot, and mostly sleeping.\u00a0 She’s whispering, which is understandable considering the amount of tubes and wires to which she is rigged, but when she whispers it is a message of thanks for all the well-wishes and good thoughts and prayers that so many of you have mentioned – and I echo that whisper.\u00a0\u00a0 (Mind you, she’s also whispering that chest tubes really suck, but hey.)\u00a0 Thank you all; she’s on a solid road to recovery and looking forward to getting back to life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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I left SOBUMD snoring, sleeping like a baby, albeit a baby in the NICU with a chest tube, three IV lines, oxygen, an NG stomach tube, and a catheter. Of course, babies probably don’t get as much morphine as she got, so at least she’s got that going for her. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2970"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2970"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2979,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2970\/revisions\/2979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}