Hospital days

Rocket Boy is home from the hospital, was only there one night, so I should probably change the title. But these all feel like hospital days. I knew this wouldn't be a fun trip, and guess what, it isn't.

I thought I should write a blog post about the hospital experience, so I can remember it for posterity.

RB had to be at the hospital at 10 am Monday, for a 12 noon operation, so we planned to leave the house at 9 to give ourselves plenty of time. But at 9 he was still in the shower, doing his second antibacterial wash in preparation for surgery. I chose not to freak out -- we would probably still have plenty of time. And we did. He drove us to Barnes Jewish hospital -- I still hadn't driven his car since last summer -- and despite the entrance to the Euclid parking garage being blocked, we still got to the Surgery Center waiting room on the 4th floor just before 10 am. They took him in within minutes, and maybe half an hour later they let me go in to see him.

He was already in a hospital gown, hooked up to an IV and a monitor that kept beeping at him. Although he claimed to be nervous, his heart rate was a pleasant 51 or so the whole time. We waited a long time for something to happen, through multiple changes of nurses (I think they were taking lunch breaks). Finally, around 12:15 or so, the doctor came in (he had been called in to assist with another operation and so RB's operation was delayed) and told us what he would be doing, RB signed some paperwork, they drew all over his neck and leg and talked about what they planned to do, and I was sent back to the waiting room.

I spent a long time in that waiting room. First, though, I locked up RB's clothes and shoes in a locker and went down to the first floor to have lunch in the cafeteria. I was a little bit nauseated (from nerves? heat? humidity? not sleeping well?), so none of the hot food appealed. I found a chickpea and tabbouleh wrap, a bottle of milk, and two white chocolate macadamia cookies that seemed like I could get them down, so went with that. Afterwards I was glad I had to wear a mask, since the chickpeas and tabbouleh inserted themself in all possible sections of my braces.

Back to the waiting room. I read the newspaper, texted people, played computer solitaire, read Google News, texted people, waited. I had a book to read, but it possibly wasn't a good choice: Vertigo by W. G. Sebald, which is somewhat impenetrable. In some ways, an impenetrable text is a good choice for a hospital waiting room, but in some ways it isn't. For instance, I had to keep reading the same page over and over again, sometimes because I would forget what I'd just read and sometimes because I couldn't understand it. A translated text, which is apparently equally impenetrable in the original German... Well. It was a distraction, but it also made me sleepy.

The waiting room had an interesting beverage machine, free, that you could use to make coffee, tea, or hot chocolate. First I made myself some black tea, then later hot chocolate. Other people used it as well. Some were part of a group of people wearing t-shirts that said something like "In our family, we go through this together" and then pink ribbons, so I assumed they were there to support someone with breast cancer.

There were also two vending machines, but they weren't accepting credit cards. Fortunately, I had a lot of small bills and change. I used two dollar bills to buy peanut m&ms, and later a whole lot of nickels to buy Reese's peanut butter cups. It's always great when you find a way to use up nickels.

All of this consumption was just to pass the time and/or keep me awake. I wasn't actually hungry or thirsty.

In the picture of the hot beverage machine, you can also see the screen where they showed the progress of the operations. This was late in the day, past 5 pm, with only three people left on the screen. Rocket Boy is the middle number -- at this point he was in the recovery room. Only one person was still in surgery, a woman having a thyroid operation, and her husband was the only other person left in the waiting room, quietly losing his mind. He offered me some of his chips, but that wasn't my junk food of choice. I told him about my 14-year-old twins alone in an unfamiliar apartment, and he told me about his little girl (maybe 8?) and even littler boy (3?) who were home with his sister -- who had flown out to help him get through this. He said, "I don't know why it is taking so long, she's been in there since 12:45." I still wonder what happened there.

The surgeon had come to see me about an hour before, to tell me the surgery had gone well, although he was only able to reroute one lymphatic channel into a vein. The others were, I guess, just no longer functional enough to do that with. They also transplanted a packet of lymph nodes, with their own blood supply, from RB's neck into his leg.

Finally a nurse came and got me, and I waved goodbye to the worried husband, saying "Good luck." I don't know what I meant by that. Such a useless expression.

Rocket Boy was awake and about to be moved to his hospital room, which is why they came and got me. I carried his bags of clothes and shoes, his backpack, and my purse, and scurried along after the nurses pushing the bed. 

His hospital room, also on the 4th floor, was spacious -- because he didn't have a roommate. He had a nice view of other hospital buildings. 

His nurse was pleasant, but seemed sort of absent. She didn't get jokes, which was a problem, because both RB and I make a lot of jokes (often not very funny) as we talk. We had to speak very slowly and simply for her to understand us (and yes, she was a white American -- it wasn't a cultural issue). She kept calling Rocket Boy "Sir." "Sir, I would like you to take all these medications, but it is your choice, sir."

The cafeteria was about to close, so we ordered RB some vegetable broth, and the nurse also brought him some water and jello. She told me I could stay as long as I wanted, but I explained that I needed to get home to the twins. I was terrified at the thought of having to drive RB's car for the first time in a year, all the way from the hospital back to his apartment. I asked her how to get back to the garage and she looked perplexed, then gestured to me to follow her. We walked out of the room and around a corner. "See those elevators? Take one down to the 3rd floor and follow the signs." This turned out to be good advice and I had no trouble finding the garage and then the car.

I started the car easily, the Garmin GPS system took me straight home, no problem at all, and I parked successfully in front of the house and unlocked the front door successfully and climbed the terrible staircase with my tired legs.

The twins played it cool, pretending not to have been worried or concerned. I fixed them Trader Joe's chicken drumellas, which they could easily have fixed for themselves, but they wanted me to do it. We decided not to read a chapter from the bedtime book, since Dad wasn't there to hear it. I took a shower and washed my hair and slept well, despite being woken various times by tremendous claps of thunder.

Tuesday morning we woke late to learn that St. Louis had gotten more rain overnight than it had ever gotten in one day in recorded history. It was hard to process, since there was no flooding where we were (except in the field of the old high school across the street). The roads were fine, but I had no way of knowing what the roads would be like on the way to the hospital, so I used that as an excuse not to visit Rocket Boy. We talked on the phone a few times and I told him to find out when I was supposed to pick him up. Even though I had driven home successfully the night before, I was still terrified of going to pick him up. 

I spent most of the day in bed. I wanted to do FlyLady things, clean the house, declutter -- but I just couldn't. I texted and emailed people, read the flood news, tried to read Vertigo.

Finally, around 4pm, the call came -- Rocket Boy said they had taken out his IV and it was time for me to come. I asked where I should park and the nurse (a different nurse, now) got on the phone and said I should put "1 Parkview Place" into my GPS and she would bring him down in a wheelchair. But I was supposed to be bringing him a pair of shorts, because he couldn't put on his jeans over the wrapping on his entire right leg. Was he going to go down to the street in his underpants? "Oh," the nurse said, clearly no brighter than the one the night before. "Well, park in the Parkview garage, I guess."

I promptly forgot this advice, and also forgot the name "Parkview," though I knew the word "Park" was involved. I made the twins come with me and we drove to the hospital, but for some reason the GPS didn't take me the way it had taken Rocket Boy the day before. We ended up in the back of the hospital and I never saw anything with the word "Park" in it. I ended up parking in the Laclede garage and then we got hopelessly lost on our way to RB's room. The twins and I had to ask for directions three separate times and even then I don't know how we ever made it. Everything seemed different from the day before. 

We finally found his room and I delivered the shorts and even helped him put them on. But then I had to go get the car. I left Teen B with Rocket Boy and the nurse, and brought Teen A with me (he has a very good sense of direction). Still, we got lost again. I don't know whether Barnes Jewish needs to work on its signage or we're just stupid. I would be inclined to vote for stupid if it was just me, but Teen A is not stupid. 

We finally found our way back to the Laclede garage, located the car, got in, and I punched in "1 Parkview Place," and we drove there. It was the perfect place to be -- and it was right next to the entrance to the Euclid garage (I never saw any Parkview garage, if there is one), which would have been a good place to park. Oh well. We waited on the circle until I saw Teen B and a wheelchair, and then I pulled up to the front of the hospital and Rocket Boy and Teen B got in and I drove us home.

Now we have been home for two days. Time passes slowly. Rocket Boy would like to ignore medical advice and go out and about with us, but there is a problem: he has two drains hanging off of him, one from his neck, where they removed the lymph node packet, and one from his leg, where they put the packet in. The drain from the neck drains yellow and the drain from the leg drains red. They look like little juice containers, yellow juice and red juice. But they are not presentable and they are not hidable. If we were to go to a restaurant, other patrons would have to look at the yellow juice and the red juice. Thus, RB stays home.

Yesterday I took the twins to the "Minions" movie but today we stayed home (there was a flash flood warning and extremely heavy rain, with more flooding). (Incidentally, Boulder also had a flash flood last night, getting about an inch of rain in an hour.) Tomorrow (Friday) we'll try to do something again. I hate driving in St. Louis, but the twins are going crazy, sitting in the apartment. So I must "man up," "put on my big-girl panties," whatever stupid expression you want to use, and take us on an outing. It will be OK.