So, I blazed out of the office a few minutes before noon yesterday. Bill had been insistant that I be at the apartment by at least 12:30 to get to his appt for surgery on time. I got home and he was still at work. What?!! So, finally he gets home and tells me his appt is not until 1:30 so I'm a little steamed by the fact that I rushed to get home by 12:30.
I still am not really sure where the surgery is going to take place. Like many things, he hoards information. So we drive to Stanford Hospital for his appt. for surgery. If he had told me I could have made a call to figure out logistics since this place is huge. We circle the front drive looking for parking when he points out an underground lot. I pull into the drive and it says "for employees only" and mention it to him. He brushes it off saying it won't be a problem. (remember this) I don't want to work him up before having surgery so I find a place to park and we hike to the hospital and find the unit.
He checked in and a few minutes later he goes to the prep room. I am allowed to sit with him so I park in a chair while they go through their checklists. I would rather eat, since I'm all caffiened up and hungry, but I want to make his experience as stress free as possible. He's his usual irritating self, making the staff avoid him. The anesthesiologist (sp?) comes by and starts the IV and a few minutes later comes by and gives him a sedative to relax him. I swear to god that I need to hunt that man down and get a bucket of whatever he gave him. In about 3 minutes Bill's total affect changed. He was friendly, amiable and NICE!!! He waved over the massage therapist who he had sent packing 10 minutes prior and asked if she would do a foot massage. He waved and said hello to all passing staff. It was all I could do not the laugh so hard that I fell off the chair.
They took him for surgery so I went to wait in what I thought was the waiting area. You'd think with all the money that place has that they could designate clearly where you need to be. Apparently they have seperate pre and post admission waiting areas. All of them are cold and have 6 magazines to be shared with 30-40 people. I decided to go to the cafeteria and get a bite rather than freeze my assets off or die of boredom. Unfortunately their cafeteria had a dismal selection of foods and I ended up with a dried out bacon burger and cold fries. They couldn't screw up the Dr. Pepper though, so I was recaffienated. (I must be sick in the head to have taken in more)
Back in the freezer section ....... er ........ waiting area I got a call from the doctor. Bill's surgery went well and he would be ready to go home as soon as recovery was done with him. I'm thinking maybe an hour since he was under general. It was 2 1/2 hours later that I was called to go help him get dressed and sign him out. (If I had to guess I'd say they were tired of putting up with his cranky ass) He was remarkably crabby and again the staff all but avoided him. I'm sure he didn't feel well, but a smart person doesn't piss off nurses. It took over an hour to get all the medicine prescriptions, instructions and have him dressed. I half ran to the garage so that I could bring the car to the front to pick him up.
Remember how it said employee parking? Yeah, well, there were gates down now (like railroad gates) that blocked me from leaving the garage. You need an employee badge to open the gate. There was a little emergency button to page "someone" so I pushed it. The lady asked me what I needed and I explained that for reasons unknown to me my husband had parked our car in the wrong lot and could they please let me out. She made sure to remind me that I shouldn't park there. I told her, yes, obviously that was a fact, but at the moment I just needed to get out to pick him up. We had parked on the 3rd level, so I got to have that same conversation 2 more times before I escaped the garage and picked up Bill. I was so crabby I could have given Bill competition having to take all the crap off the speaking boxes by the gates. I'm surprised that I didn't burn doughnuts on their pretty lawn.
I was sorely tempted to hit all pot holes and speed bumps driving him home, but I didn't given into my lower nature.
I got him home and settled by 7:30 pm. I had to go back out to get his prescriptions filled and pick up his list of demands ........ er ......... requested foods for the evening. It was 1/2 hour in line to drop off the prescriptions, 1/2 hour to fill them, 1/2 hour to pick up the food items and a few minutes travel time. I was home at just before 9:30 pm. Tolerate the whining for drinks, pillows, food and just general crankiness a couple of hours and then after settling sleep arrangements flopped into bed.
I woke up a couple of times during the night to help him rearrange things and get drinks. Then at 8:30 this morning I got him ready to go see the doctor for his follow up and to have them remove some of the paraphanalia out and off of him. More pissing off of the nursing staff, a trip through the grocery store since everything I bought the night before was not what he wanted today and finally I snapped at him that "for god's sake! I need to get to work!" and sweet escape..................
So, I'm dirty (no time for a shower this morning), tired (my eye is twitching) and little hungry (I keep food at my desk so I'm okay) and a lot cranky. I survived it, I did the right thing, and I will sleep like a baby tonight.
