Back Up A Minute

In my previous post I hinted at some circus-style craziness that took place in the recovery room Friday. Recovery rooms are interesting places because try as they might, the nurses there know they're only going to have you for a few hours. So they either care a lot about their job or they don't - the option of developing an endearing relationship with them isn't realistic because you're in and out so fast. You have to hope they take pride in their work because you're not attached to them in the same way as the nurses on your ward - that evolves into a relationship pretty quickly because how can you be formal with someone when you're passing your urine back and forth and talking about your gas-passing habits? Think there's no secrets between you and your priest? Spend a week in the hospital.

Recovery is also kind of awesome because although you've just had a wire stuck into your heart, you don't really feel it, and the anesthetic leaves you in a hazy euphoria for a bit afterwards. It's the one time I get a taste of this dream-like state so many waste their lives trying to achieve through illegal means. While I don't understand that mentality, I really do get why people who want to escape reality choose this method. Everything seems right with the world for a few precious hours. Usually.

Since there were considerable problems in the cath lab with getting my sheath inserted, all the joys of chemical la-la land had been driven away. By the time I got to recovery, I was feeling everything, and dreading returning to the care of Bill, the cro-magnum nurse-child. Communication is not fun when you're in pain. Imagine that the only person to whom you can communicate your needs answers every question with a grunted, "huh?" Then when you repeat the question, they repeat the question back to you in an incredulous tone that answers nothing.

Me: "Hey, when you get a chance, could I get some water?"
Bill: "......Huhmm?"
Me: "I was wondering if I could get a glass of water."
Bill: "..................................can you get a glass of water?"
Me: ".........umm.......I don't know.....that's why I was asking you."
Bill: "You're asking me?"

Every. Single. Exchange. When I'm in pain, my first choice of activity isn't a game of Who's On First? I haven't had anything to drink in almost ten hours. Wa-ter. Why do I feel like I'm being investigated for a murder? Can he read my mind?

Unless you've been in this type of dependent situation at length, you never realize how important certain trivialities become. Bed rails? If both sides are up, you can't get out. You're trapped. Call button? Great idea, but if it's not plugged in, you may as well be pushing your nose. Urinal? After you've been given a diuretic, the last thing you want to see is the urinal on the other side of the room, out of reach. I was hooked up to machines on my right side and didn't have much freedom to move around anyway. Then the nurse disappears for nearly thirty minutes. After desperately pounding the call button, then trying to use the Force, I began to debate the pros and cons of peeing in the bed verses trying to sit up and aim for the floor.

This is my urinal, whose name will not be mentioned here as I only use it when I accidentally drop him or knock him over. I needed him desperately in recovery, and he looked like this, only imagine a much smaller version because he's very far away.

This of course set off the bed alarm, causing a nearby nurse (presumably one of Bill's babysitters) to come in and yell at me for sitting up. When I explained that the call light wasn't plugged in, she informed me that I had unplugged it by raising the bed to sit up.

Okay then.

She left before I could ask for the urinal, and didn't ask why I was sitting in the bed. I sat up again to bring her back. The bed alarm went off and she arrived exasperated to find me suspended Mission Impossible style (except by my neck) trying to aim over the side of the bed. She hands me the urinal, sighs with the weight of the world upon her, and storms back out (poor girl, her neck must be hurting and she's probably distracted and anxious as she contemplates the frailty of life and her fate at the mercy of uncaring strangers. Oh wait, THAT'S ME).

Bill returns to ask if I'm okay to which I wish I'd had the presence of mind to answer: "Hmmph?"

Before I can answer, a race car pulls up to the door of the room. Like one of those kid's shopping carts, pin-striped, cherry red, number on the side. Someone steps into the room and says, "Okay! You ready to go?" But before I could decide if I was hallucinating or had been secretly drugged again, another nurse steps into the room to announce that I have visitors.

The Foley's have our kids, Christie's at home trying to make her way back to the hospital (another story for tomorrow)...who would be visiting me in recovery?

I know what you're thinking, and you're absolutely right. It was obviously a Barbershop Quartet, because that's what you expect to see in a recovery room. In fact, when I first come onto the ward, I ask where the Barbershop Quartet is. First thing that comes to mind.

Tuxedos with red lapels, red bow ties, holding a bag of Hershey Hugs and a black Valentines devil bear.

I have performed an experimental right heart cath on Devil Bear - you can see the wire in the above picture. It only made sense given that his heart is enlarged and sometimes common experience breeds true sympathy. What? Therapists use stuffed animals all the time. DON'T JUDGE ME.

"Do you know Mark Foley?"

"Ummm....yes?"

"This is from him."

They launch into an amazing version of  Let Me Call You Sweetheart and Your Lovely Face. I didn't get a picture or video because electronics don't work in Acid Trip Land. But it was something like this:

Of course all the nurses and techs gathered around to listen. I now know that the quartet was actually a gift from our Foley friends, both Mark and Stacy, to Christie and I, in hopes they would catch her at the hospital. With it being Valentine's Day and me back and forth between rooms, they're lucky they found me at all. Of course everyone thought the songs were from my "friend" Mark to me alone. I didn't correct them. Mark and I have a kind of J.D./Turk thing going on (Scrubs), and are always joking about it, so it seemed like a great joke, given our on-going Bro-mance (though he was quick to assure me that it was Stacy's idea. Sure Mark. Whatever you say).

Once the they made their exit, the race car turned out to be the front end of an X-ray machine, borrowed from pediatrics. So I wasn't hallucinating. Good thing or bad thing?

I finally got up to my room to the welcome sight of Sara, my three-time, no-nonsense nurse who immediately got my pain situation under control and answered to my every beck and call (not really, but she's great).

So that was the recovery room. I'm still recovering from it.