Back among the living
Part I
 
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| Thursday, January 15, 2004 |
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Bob's in the kitchen fixing my dinner (fish sticks, tater tots, and peas with mushrooms), and he told me that he posted his last entry in The Bob Report last night, so now it's up to me. I just told him that it's hard to know where to start--there's so much! He said, "Well, start at the beginning. You left off telling about your feelings the night before the surgery," and I said, "So start on Monday morning and just tell it all, and stop when I get tired and say, 'to be continued'?" and he said that sounded like a good plan.
We were supposed to be at the hospital at 5:45 Monday morning, and surgery was scheduled for 7:30. I had hoped that I could just get up, throw some clothes on, and go, but I was supposed to take a shower the morning before, so I set the alarm for 4:30. I hadn't decided whether or not to wash my hair, and thought I wouldn't (mostly because it takes so long to dry), since who knew what kind of condition it would be in when I got out of the hospital, and why bother? But then I thought, well, I probably wouldn't feel like washing it for several days, so I should probably take the opportunity, so I did. I normally use Bath & Body Works shower gel in the shower, and Clinique soap on my face, so showering (and washing my face!) with Dial didn't make me happy, and I whined about how my skin felt when I got out. Bob basically told me to suck it up, that before long I wouldn't care what my skin felt like, and I figured he was probably right. I showered, dried my hair, dressed in a loose fitting pair of sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a jacket, put on my socks and athletic shoes, and I was ready to go. I sat downstairs in the living room next to my overnight bag, and waited for Bob. Stuff I packed:
We got to the hospital a few minutes early, and Bob let me out at the door. They have this very weird revolving door thing that moves all the time--you don't have to push it--but you do have to keep walking, or I guess it would knock you over. I walked up to the desk and gave the volunteer my name, and she crossed me off her list and told me to have a seat. There were a couple of other small groups of people in the room. One was a group of Chinese people, with an elderly man in a wheelchair who was apparently the one having surgery. When it came time to take information and get signatures, they went to him first, but he didn't speak English, so everything had to be interpreted, and one of the people with him, who I assume was his daughter, even had to hold his hand as he signed the forms. One elderly woman with a gray brush cut came in by herself, carrying a small overnight bag, and I wondered if she was alone, if she'd driven herself or taken a cab to the hospital, but then someone came up and joined her--a younger woman using a walker, and in a really bad mood. Then I was called up to the desk. They asked me if I had any valuables that I needed to put in the safe (I didn't), asked me to check my wristband and be sure my name, birthdate, and doctor's name were correct (they were), and I think that was it. She put the wristband on me and told us to sit down again, and a few minutes later the volunteer rounded us all up and herded us into an elevator, which was kind of a comedy of errors in itself. I'm sure there's some kind of rule or law that if someone is in a wheelchair, a hospital employee or volunteer has to be in charge of it, so the volunteer wanted to push the wheelchair, but the Chinese man's companion decided to take over because she didn't think the volunteer was either a) capable or b) fast enough. She managed to run over someone's foot in the elevator. Then the woman who was using the walker complained because she had to stand, and the Chinese woman made a remark while the volunteer was helping someone else: "Hurry it up lady, we don't have all day! I'm tired!" Later, the volunteer apologized to us for the surly fellow patients, and Bob told her no problem, it's a stressful time and no one was in the best of moods. She came over later while I was waiting in the staging area, and brought me a warm blanket, which I thought was sweet. They put each of us, with our advocate/family member, in our own little cubicle that ran around the outside of the surgery area. A nurse came in, introduced herself, and told me to take everything off, put on a hospital gown and a pair of little socks with tread on the bottom, and she'd be back to process me. As she left, she pulled the curtain across the front of my cubicle. I suppose there's some comfort in the matter-of-factness of it all, the fact that they've done it hundreds, if not thousands, of times. When she came back, she made sure I understood what the surgery entailed, went over my medical history and medications again, and put some lovely white support hose on me. I was expecting these from reading the hysterectomy support boards, but kind of hoped I wouldn't have to wear them--I didn't know whether everyone had to or not. They weren't terribly uncomfortable, and I knew I had more things to worry about than that (and obviously would hope to avoid blood clots, which is what they're designed to prevent), so I just helped her tug them up and didn't complain. They came up nearly to my crotch, and she laughed and said, "I checked: this is the small size." And I'm not that short--there's probably one size for women, and one for men, I would guess. Then she started my IV, and that's when I laughed kind of nervously and said to her, "This is the point where it all starts to become real." To be continued . . . |
