Monday, February 17, 2014

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.

12 comments:

  1. That was awesome! What a great story teller! Did Mark use his credentials to get a barbershop quartet into recovery? Now that's power! Wishing you well...

    (Nice work on the cow!)

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  2. I've tried leaving this comment 4 times, but all these profiles keep screwing me up and over. Too many sign-in and ups and overs. I'm over it. Scan my one retina, please!

    So, um, I love you. Sending you energetic heart enlargement. And I appreciate your story, your sarcastic, earnest tone. Hug.

    Oh, this is LESLIE!!!!

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  3. You shouldn't make retina jokes. As you once reminded me, it's all fun and games until an eye gets put out.

    You should be able to sign in as a guest or use your google name (you have a gmail account, right? It's 2014. Please tell me you have a gmail account).

    Love you too. Great to see you here. Wish you were here, but we've already spent way too much time hanging out with each other in hospitals.

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  4. Thanks for including the u tube as if gave a better picture of what took place. You have given recovery a whole new meaning. The staff will be talking about this for weeks. Hugs and Kisses to you. Love you Son.

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  5. So hilarious. I love the story! We intended it as a way to lift your spirits in the hospital - a gift from our family to yours, but the bromance version is so much funnier.

    As for the sign-in thing, it's your settings. I talked to Sherri tonight and she's the one who posted the first comment. She wasn't able to use her Wordpress account to comment, but you can enable it. I have it on ours and that's how she comments on our blog. It's 2014 - check it out. :)

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  6. Nope. It's set for anyone to post whether they have a google account or not. Always has been. Not sure what's going on there, but several people having the problem. Everything the posts settings is wide open. What else could it be?

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  7. Really? You have it set to accept Open ID in the comments?

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  8. I don't have an OpenID settings that I can see. It's set to accept comments from all users including non-registered users.

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  9. Wish I could have been there for the Barbershop Quartet!!! Of course I would have completely denied all knowledge of this "Mark Foley!" As in, "Dave, who is this Mark and why is he sending you Valentine's? Huh? Why does HE want to be your sweetheart?"

    Seriously, I do wish I could have been there and I could have easily handed &@#%, I mean your urinal to you. I wanted to stay when I saw how it was going to go, but the boys needed to get back home to pack, the dog needed to be let out, OH, and I WAS PASSING A KIDNEY STONE and HAVING A GALLBLADDER ATTACK at that time. Better luck next time to both of us!!! My screaming as I drove down the road back home and then to the Foley's have left both of our boys asking the same questions.

    "Mom, do we all have kidney stones?" and "Mom, when will I pass my kidney stone?"

    I explained we do not all get them, that your body makes them and that Dad has never had one, but my Dad (their Papaw) has had them in the past. After asking if I was there when my dad was passing HIS kidney stone and asking how HE acted, they both went into a litany of Papaw inspired screams, cursing the kidney stone in very colorful words and quite creative descriptions using my fathers beloved word (sh#@). Which is truly the only bad word he says, and as he says , "We all do it." After I got my laughing undercontrol I was able to get onto them for using Papaw's favorite word and promptly let them know that my father is a much stronger person than I and handles pain better than I.

    I think they were actually disappointed, after the entertainment I provided Friday it was much more fun to envision Papaw screaming his favorite word in various colorful forms.

    I will have to work on compassion with those two! ;-P

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  10. Cool. Christie's comment is like a preview of the next post, but from a different perspective. Maybe for a 3rd perspective, you could write it from the kidney stone's POV.

    That's weird about the comments . . .

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  11. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall, except that if I were I wouldn't have been able to correct all of the madness. What a great story you have to tell, though. And I understand that in a previous version of this post you called me Mary. Let's be clear. If anyone is going to be the girl in this bromance it's you. :) Too bad you couldn't ride around in the race car. That would have been awesome coming out of anesthesia.

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  12. Ohhhh my gosh. I'm so sorry! Yowzer! (Stacy sent me, by the way.) Recovery rooms are the WORST. I would almost rather die than have that experience on purpose. I once told my recovery room nurse that I was going to throw up and she looked at me and walked away. So I threw up. All over myself, and the bed, and the floor, and the bandages, and the wires. Then I went back to sleep. I bet that was fun for her to clean up.

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