I'm a horrible horrible wife - The Surgery Saga

Sorry it took me almost a week after the oblation to get around to blogging more about last weekend. Can I use the fact my parents are still here as an excuse?

So to start on Sunday we left the boys with #2 coming down with a fever. We debated me staying, but figured Grandma had 5 kids and could handle it. If not I was only 2 hours away. We did have a wonderful "date" day. I know it's sad when your hubby needs heart surgery for an excuse to have a date, but that's our life. It probably sounds awful, but as I told hubby if the worse case senario happened and he died I'd really regret having wasted the last day we had together, so for the most part I really just enjoyed our time together and didn't think about Monday.

We left the house around noon and had lunch at a not so kid friendly restraunt we wanted to try, drove to Lexington, found our hotel (after teasing hubby about not brining directions and getting lost), checked in, walked around downtown Lexington, had subway and saw "A prairie Home Companion" at the most awesome movie theater. It was one of those old pre-movie theater's that still had a stage, and all the original (or reproduction) decor. It was so pretty, almost didn't notice the movie LOL. Actually the movie was very good and anyone who's father made them listen to the radio show growing up, or who lived in Mpls/St. Paul will like it. Yes I fit both those categories, and yes if you go see it, I have eaten in the diner. After the movie we headed back to the hot-tub room Paul rented and enjoyed the rest of the night. In hindsight the amount of activity in the last part of our evening might not have helped his recovery efforts, but I'll let you're imaginations fill in the details on that :-) Needless to say we didn't get to sleep till after midnight.

The next morning we got up at 5am to head over to the hospital. Hubby did all the fun paperwork junk and when they took him in at 7:30 I had a coffee, donut and tried to doze in the waiting room. Honestly for the majority of the sugary time I was WAY too tired to think about much, much less worry about if he'd be ok. For some stupid reason I choose an mystery to read, I really should have had something mindless. Around 11:30 I was starting to worry since a) it was only suppose to be like a 2-3 hour procedure, and b) all the other "families" that got there when we did, relatives were done. I checked with the person at the desk and they called back. She said he was almost done and was doing fine. Ok great. I go walk around outside and tried to read. 12:30 still no word when my hospital supplied pager goes off, Me thinking he's done rushes back to the desk to find out "he's almost done and doing fine" Ummmmm isn't that what you said an hour ago????. I will say by 1 I was really starting to worry, but then they called me back saying he was in recovery and the Dr was ready to talk to me.

Turns out Hubby did have complications. He had 2 places misfiring instead of one, the freezing technology wasn't working so he had to switch to nuking it with microwaves, and at some point they had to change rooms because the machine in the room they were in didn't appear to be working right. It was new....Nice. In the end one of the things was completely taken care of for sure, and the Dr. Thinks the other one was, but he didn't get as complete a burn on it as he'd like and there is a slight chance the tissue will heal itself again and allow the electrical impulses to pass.

(THIS IS THE HORRIBLE WIFE PART)

After talking to the Dr they let me go back to recovery where they had just pulled the tubes out of his groin (hece the night before not "helping" recovery, and muscle soreness). Hubby who is very well known to tense up at everything was really having a rough time. They'd giving him a TON of medicine and he was fighting it tooth and nail, for some reason, and in alot of pain. After the nurses said he could go upstairs he asked to pee. He had to lay down flat on his back for 6 hours, and hence needed help. The nurse pointed to a urinal and told me I could help him and walked out. Um WHAT???? I don't know what the Hell to do with that thing, I mean when I was a hospital volunteer in high school I spilt water all over a patient and Hubby couldn't move for 6 hours. She looked at me like I lost my mind when I told her I didn't know what to do, while backing up as much as I could in the tiny cubicle, but she did then hold the bottle for hubby, and sure enough he almost over-flowed it, and I know he would have if I'd been holding it at that angle.

After our stay in recovery I accompanied a very uptight hubby up to his room. Let's just say Maternity wards have MUCH nicer accommodations. Especially the CHAIR. Hubby was tired, I was tired, and everything I said grated on his nerves so I put my head down on his bed and fell dozed off. This was actually a good thing because he calmed down enough to sleep. At this point I left, went back to the hotel, laid down for 20 minutes soaked in the hot tub, got supper and went back up.

When I got back he was awake and look a thousand times better, but that's when I met his nurse assistant, again over the pee question. He called her in to help him pee, and in she came, but she looked a me and said you can help him. To which I answered I don't want to help him, I don't know what to do. She said well sometimes men feel uncomfortable.....She obviously never had kids as she didn't understand my complete lack of sympathy in my answer of I've had how many people poking and prodding me in hospitals, he can have his NA hold a bottle under his thing. We almost ended up in a staring contest over who would do it. I "almost" said Hey chick this is "YOUR" job, not mine. I don't have a clue. Hubby did point out the next day it may have been that she's use to old geezer's on the heart floor not people close to her own age and that's why she was uncomfortable...Guess he had a point, but that's not what I was thinking at the moment. Besides it still is her job and hubby was so drugged he didn't care who was holding the thing. Actually I think he might have enjoyed it!

There's no much more to tell after that. They let him sit up and stand at 7:30, I went back to the hotel at 9, had another soak in the hot tub, finished my book (I had 10 pages left), and passed out by 11. Next morning hubby called and woke me at 9:45 saying they were ready to spring him. I tossed on clothes ran down to get my continental breakfast, packed up, picked up hubby, and we stopped for an early lunch at an Atlanta Bread Company. Hubby was moving very slowly so I had to help him walk in, and I did ask him to at least turn his chair inward if he was going to sit there looking like death warmed over, wearing a hospital bracelet, holding his crotch, instead of displaying the grabbing action to a table of middle - aged women across the aisle.

Hubby was sore and slept for a few days, but now seems to be back to fairly normal. My mom even tattled that he forgot and started to lift #1 a little today before remembering to put him down. So to me that means he's almost back to normal! And tomorrow we get another date in before the folks leave on Monday!

Oh and #2 did have a fever that spiked up to 103.6, plus the runs for grandma. I took him to the Dr on Wed to find it was a summer viruse and would go away in 4-5 days. Sure enough Thursday he was good and Friday just fine.