Entering the Hospital and Leaving Missing Some Parts

I went to the hospital with Wonder Boy and my parents. We didn’t have to wait long in the waiting room before my name was called. (While we were waiting, flowers were delivered to me, which was a cute accident because Wonder Boy intended them for me during recovery. I appreciated them more sans pain medication. Beautiful orchids.)

In the prep area I had all sorts of people asking me questions. I met so many hospital staff. I was scared but it all just presented itself as dead calm. Wonder Boy and my parents were briefly allowed to come back and sit with me before I went into surgery. We made silly conversation about nothing important. I was able to do that. How? How was I able to act cool and collected when inside I was so scared.

Prior to surgery I had sent Wonder Boy an email that was basically a last will and testament. That might be too grand. It was a list of the very few physical things that are important to me and where I wanted them to go. I trusted Wonder Boy for everything beyond that.

I was scared I wouldn’t wake up from surgery. That was based on watching too many medical dramas. I was scared they would find something else once they had cut me open. I kept asking Wonder Boy questions like, “How long will the surgery take?” “What happens if I wake up during the surgery?” “How much is it going to hurt?” “Do you feel it when they put in or take out the catheter?”

He did his best to answer the questions, referring back to his days as a working nurse.

All of those questions that had been playing on repeat went silent at the hospital. I got into my gown. I filled out forms. I smiled and said hello to everyone who introduced themselves. And then I was wheeled back to an operating room where I vaguely recognized my doctor behind her surgical mask.

The next thing I knew, I was on a medical bed saying, “Ow, ow, ow, ow.” Then I went back to sleep. This happened a few times over. I learned afterwards that it took me longer than expected to get moved out of recovery and into my hospital room because they were struggling to manage my pain.

Wonder Boy and my parents were so sweet in the hospital room. Helping me maneuver myself in the bed, getting me water, not acknowledging the fact that I kept passing out thanks to some delightful pain medication.

There were some weird things about my hospital stay I didn’t expect.

• I was in a labor and delivery unit for recovery so I kept hearing babies cry. I’m pretty solid on this no babies decision I made a long time ago, and I have no choice in the matter now, but even for me, hearing newborn babies’ cries was weird. If I had wanted to have children … I just can’t imagine how hard that would have been.
• I got to wear the weirdest fishnet underwear! I later learned that this is standard moms in some delivery units. In any other setting it would have been kinky.
• I didn’t know I would have to pee with someone watching. I tried multiple times in front of the nurses with no luck. But, I needed to pee in order to illustrate that everything was functioning properly. Finally, we got permission for Wonder Boy to take me to the bathroom instead of my nurse, where he propped a pillow behind my back, turned on the faucet and then stood outside the door. After a few tries, that worked.
• I knew it was going to hurt. I was cut open with a five-inch-long incision and body parts were removed. I didn’t know what to expect with the pain though. When the nurses asked me to get up and try moving, it felt like a gargantuan task. It got easier with each time but apparently my way of sitting up was too rushed. Too fast. “Take your time getting upright,” the nurse would say. But that hurt worse. Overall, the pain wasn’t as bad as I expected, but it wasn’t good.
• I was told to bring comfortable clothes to the hospital but I felt I should keep it classier than pajamas. Dumb. I brought one of my looser pairs of underwear, jeans that had been stretched out by many, many wears and a flannel shirt. The jeans were pretty stupid but doable. The shirt was fine. That underwear? Idiotic. On our way home, mere blocks from the hospital, I made Wonder Boy stop at a Meijer and asked him to buy the biggest underwear he could find. “If the size isn’t double digits, it’s not big enough. Buy many pairs.”

I was in the hospital overnight. I spent so much of it in a drug-induced haze and sleeping that it went by quickly for me. I’m sure it seemed like much longer for Wonder Boy. But for me, this thing I had fretted about for months and which was scheduled with only a week or twos notice, happened and was done pretty fast.

The recovery. That didn’t seem so fast.