A surgery story

Ben had knee surgery today, to repair a torn meniscus and clean up his ragged patella.

I took today and tomorrow off of work to tend to Ben's every need.

And by "tend", I mean begrudgingly throw a ham sandwich in front of him when he complains of being hungry.

Just kidding, I'm not quite that bad, but I'm admittedly not super high on the doting-wife scale. I'm somewhere between "here, let me clip your toenails for you" and "sure, I'll get you that bag of ice for your knee after I've finished this here glass of wine".

At any rate, surgery was scheduled for noon today. We had to be at the hospital at ten.

We got to the hospital, and they shuttled us back to the pre-op prep room pretty quickly. They told me I could stay with Ben until he left for surgery, and that if I left the hospital, to make sure to leave a contact number so they could reach me.

Ben and I had agreed that, since I wouldn't have time to work out on my normal schedule (which, on Tuesdays, is usually my lunch hour at work), that I would run to the gym during his surgery. But when we got there, we realized it would take me about 20 minutes each way to get back and forth across town, and his surgery was probably only going to last 30 minutes or so, and I really wouldn't be likely to get back before the end of surgery to be able to talk to his doctor unless I left right away.

So I did.

It's seems maybe a little heartless, now that I think about it, me leaving my husband alone in the hospital to go to the gym, but what can I say.... I'm really excited about my new workout routine and it's possible I'm getting a little obsessive.

My plan was to get back by 11:30, so I could catch Ben before he went in for his surgery.

On my way back, I was doing pretty good on time, so I stopped by CVS to pick up some crutches. We used to have some years ago, but they must have up and hobbled off by themselves somewhere, since we couldn't find them anywhere.

CVS?

Out of crutches.

So I went to the Wal-Greens (naturally, just across the street).

And they? were out of crutches.



I was not aware of the sudden crutch-shortage crisis in northern Indiana.

I didn't have time to shop any other drug stores, so I just gave up and went to the hospital.

Ben was hospital-gowned up and ready to go....but the doctor was running about an hour late. He finally got wheeled back for surgery and I went back out to the waiting room to check my e-mails and read books on the iPad with a bunch of elderly people who eyed me and my fancy "computer thingie" suspiciously while they rattled their newpapers in my general direction.

After the surgery, the doctor called me back to talk about how it went.

I walked into the room, still wearing my workout gear, including knee brace because I mistakenly didn't wear it when I ran intervals yesterday and paid for it all night last night, and the doctor looks at me, puts his clipboard down and says, "So what's wrong with YOUR knee?"


Seriously, doc? You're trying to recruit new knee surgery candidates in the hospital waiting room?

Maybe the economy is worse than I thought.


So, surgery went well, I was taken back to the recovery room to wait for Ben to show up.

He did, a few minutes later,  wheeled in on his gurney. I could tell he was still a little 'stupored' by the anesthesia. But don't tell him that. He will DENY it. Vehemently.

The nurse was asking him how he was doing.


" Hungry."


"Yes, you told me that already. We'll get you some food soon. What I meant was, are you having any pain?"


"..... Hunger pains."


They got him some muffins, and he was mostly appeased.

We got to leave shortly thereafter, and we drove to another CVS to get his script filled and pick up those crutches.

They had one set of crutches.

But they were out of Percocet.

They made me wait fifteen minutes to tell me they didn't have what I needed.

I'm getting a little tired of dejectedly stalking out of drug stores empty-handed.

Now we're at home, the kids and the dog did a remarkably good job of not jumping on Ben's leg for most of the night. Since leaving the hospital this afternoon, Ben has eaten a Chick-Fil-A meal, two slices of pizza,  a cheeseburger, and some pumpkin pie.

Yup. Totally back to normal.