Goodness, it must be over six months since I’ve posted to this blog but I found the motivation to return to old faithful after dealing with the experience of my father’s surgery. I’ve been updating Facebook with short entries but that does not begin to address the breath and scope of the experience.
My father had to have surgery on his spine at the neck. I know, sounds horrible. But after much prodding and poking and MANY delays on his part, he finally agreed to the surgery. On Tuesday my step-mother and I drove him to the hospital for a surgery that was supposed to begin at 1pm but didn’t start until 5:30pm. OK, that is a pretty big delay but if you have ever had any type of major surgery you know they don’t let you eat prior to surgery which means by the time my dad finally got rolled into the O.R. he hadn’t had anything to eat for over 18 hours. And my dad NEVER misses a meal! He was getting very antsy and at one point wanted to reschedule. The surgeon finally came in and convinced him to stay.
Fast forward to the next day after the surgery when my step-mom and I arrived for a visit to find out he was in a lot of pain. There is nothing worse than seeing your loved one in pain. Come to find out that his pain was his own fault because he was instructed to push the morphine button if he felt any pain and he went through the night without pressing it once so it hit him all at once. The cure, juice him up with tons of morphine. Yeah, that’s the answer! He was loopier than fruit loops after a few pumps of the happy juice. He thought he was at home. He also kept trying to get out of bed. Something I wouldn’t recommend seeing as how he was hooked up to more equipment than Neo before he left the Matrix! At one point he actually ripped all the tubes out of him! Argh!
But nothing tops the 2AM call I got the other night. Some nurse (who I will hunt down like caribou!) helped him dial my number. Mind you, he is off morphine but it is still in his system along with plenty of other drugs! He was begging me to come get him and take him home. What?! I was like, “Go back to bed! We will talk about this in the morning!” Of course I can’t sleep now!
Yesterday was much better. The drugs had FINALLY worn off and he was getting back to his good old self, albeit still in pain but that is to be expected. He and I were trying to get some sleep in his room but I always forget how noisy hospitals are. It’s amazing that anyone gets any sleep in the place! At one point there must have been five nurses in the room (He was sharing the room with another person) all doing different things. That place is an example of controlled chaos! There was some debate if the doctors were going to keep him for another day but thank the gods they let him go yesterday! My step-mother and I drove him home, sat him in his lazzy boy and she and I had a tall beer! OK we had a couple of beers. If we weren’t so tired we would have had a couple of shots too! I’m just glad it is over. Phase 2 recovery. He was already told that he couldn’t drive for at least 6 weeks. Wonder who’s going to be chaufering him around? I wonder who that would be…….?
Change For A Nickel 