DAY1:

7:30 AM:  I’m supposed to be at the hospital already to check in for my procedure, but due to the process of dragging the kids out of bed and over to the in-laws and the unexpected traffic volume 1 1/2 hours before rush hour, we are still in the car.  My wife, who perceives lateness as the penultimate sin, is verging on a conniption.  I, meanwhile, am secretly contemplating my own mortality and playing out the worst-case scenarios in my head.  I know better that the likelihood of any serious complications is between negligible and non-existent, but I can’t help but consider the possibility that the goodbyes I gave the kids that morning were the last they’d hear.  Knowing my wife’s anxiety-management capacity, I have managed not to let on an iota of this concern.  After all, I know better (or so I keep telling myself).

9:00 AM:  I’m now checked in and waiting in a bed in what is ironically one of the least comfortable hospital gowns I’ve ever experienced.  The irony is the fact that it is actually a very high-tech gown composed of various absorption pads and containing numerous ports to which a set of hoses can connect in order to perfectly aerate and temperature-regulate the wearer.  But without the hoses actually connected, the garb simply continuously reflected my body heat at me causing me to sweat heavily and stick to it.  It at least made for a semi-interesting conversation topic to have with my wife and my sister-in-law who were my pre-surgical company.  Once they come to cart me off to interventional radiology, I feel somewhat like I’m in one of those medical dramas with the camera angle at the patient’s perspective as they are wheeling him around (only if it where medical drama footage, it would be pretty boring footage).

9:30 AM:  I’m now lying on my stomach on an impressive piece of radiology equipment (seemingly a highly agile ultra-sound/x-ray machine), slowly drifting into conscious sedation while watching penguins on a 60-inch flat screen and listening to modern rock on internet radio broadcast in surround sound. As they prepared to start things up, I played name that tune with the cute, young  - I mean professional and capable P.A.s and technicians.  I was doing pretty well until they started stabbing me in the back – literally.  I didn’t precisely feel pain as they pushed a guide wire and then a wider tube through my back, between my ribs, avoiding my spleen, lung and large intestine to eventually end in my left kidney, but I felt a lot of pressure and discomfort that amounted in me nearly being sick.  I vaguely recall that they chose conscious sedation so that I could follow breathing instructions during certain steps of the procedure, but if I had it to do again, I’d say put me out and manage my breath for me if necessary.

10:?? AM:  After a difficult transition back to a gurney, I have to wait back in the first room for my Urologist to be ready in the OR to perform the surgery.  For that, they put me under …

?:?? PM:  I wake up in a recovery room waiting to be moved to the room I’ll be staying in for the night.  They tell me the procedure went exceptionally well, but I’m still a bit too groggy to fully take in the information.  A while later they wheel me to my room and my wife is there waiting.  They carefully transfer me into the bed – a task I am in no position to assist with – as my wife apologizes for not coming back to the first room between the radiology procedure and my surgery as they didn’t know I was back there.  I personally would barely have remembered if she did make it back in that stretch and was not really in any position to care about who was where.  She stayed with me through a few visits from the doctor, the nurse, and the patience technician as well as through my dinner of clear liquids before calling it a night and going home to attend to the rest of the family.  I attempt to watch some TV, but my head is not in it so I take a nap.

DAY 2:

6:00 AM:  After a fitful night’s sleep trying to move as little as possible while also trying not to be uncomfortable from not moving at all, I’m awoken in order to have things checked out.  I do my best to roll over so they can change the dressing and bed pad as well as listen to my breathing.  It is surprising how hard it can be to roll 75 degrees in a posable bed between the pain itself and the pain meds that kept me from being all that mobile.  After that I settled in until the doctor came by later in the morning to recheck my back, re-redress the wound, and sign off on removing the catheter some time that morning.  Once that was done, I went back to sleep for what time I had left to be comfortably still.

10:00 AM:  After some more clear liquids for breakfast, the nurse finally came by to remove my catheter.  It was a bittersweet moment – while I generally prefer nothing be inserted into said orifice if at all avoidable, it was already there and saving me the hassle of going anywhere to handle such needs.  But out it came and in its place I got a nifty urinal jug to fill as I saw fit.  Thus far I had gone through at least 2 bags of IV fluids and filled the two bags attached to me with nearly the same amount of fluid.  So with both the catheter out and the IV off and little to speak of coursing through my digestive system, I was doubtful I’d have much with which to fill the jug.

11:00 AM:  I finally manage to get myself out of bed – it seemed that getting in a sitting position was the worst of it.  Once I was upright, moving around was pretty manageable.  That said, I decided to camp out in the chair next to the bed and take another nap.

2:00 PM:  After a half-eaten solid lunch and several trips to the bathroom, I still haven’t produced anything for the jug.  The bag attached to the hole in my back, however, was filling up nicely.  So much for the direct route.  My wife had come back and was worried that there was something wrong and I’d have to get the catheter back in and stay longer (the latter I could live with, the former not so much).  Eventually they decided that my not peeing was just due to the limited production so far and the amount that went out the bag accounted for most of it.  So they let me go home (though my wife had serious hesitations about it).

10:00 PM:  After making it home and settling in with the family and managing not to get jumped on or tackled for the duration of the afternoon and evening, I called it a day myself.  In order to avoid potential of added injury, my daughter agreed to let me sleep in her bed as long as I needed to (we live in a twin and my bedroom is on the third floor up a windy, narrow staircase).  So I traded my smaller leg-strap kidney bag for a bigger bag to hang by the bed and turned in for the night (what better way to sleep).

[To be continued ...]

Now I have one on my arm just south of my elbow and given what my wife has been through, she is not going to sit be and let me rationalize my way through this one.  So she insisted that I go to the doctors office and they put me on antibiotics.  According to the doctor, she believes that there was only one MRSA related death in the past so-and-so years in the US, but she suggested that I should try to avoid becoming a modification to a statistic.  I cannot fault that logic.  I’m sure the meds are going to do a number on my digestive tract – they often don’t sit well anyway and this one is particularly rough.  But it is a small price to pay.

I am also in pain for other reasons as well.  For one, I have a strain injury in my hip from a couple years back that tends to flare up every once and a while (e.g., when I exercise my legs hard, when it is about to rain).  Secondly, I spent a good portion of my wife’s hospital stay being very busy at home and not only because of the kids.  Luckily I had plenty of help with the kids – the first few days my mother-in-law would give me breaks in the afternoons to get things done like disinfecting our house and maybe fitting in a visit to the hospital.  Then my mom drove up from NC to help out for the weekend.  The latter became the catalyst to a lot more work.

See, my family is a bunch of doers.  Every weekend there are projects to work on.  Every vacation there needs to be an action-packed itinerary.  I was always the black sheep.  I never really rebelled per se, but I have always been more prone to taking a more laid-back approach to life.  So it is not really an option for one of my parents to just hang out for the weekend – there need to be things to do (either in the form of activities or projects).  This weekend, it was a mix.  We took the kids a number of places, and in between and while they were sleeping we took on home improvement projects (e.g., install new lighting in the dining room, paint the kitchen and the hallway).  The end result is that the kids had a fun weekend and the house looked very nice for my wife’s return … and I’m tired and sore.  So now I will head up to bed to saw some logs next to my wife (sorry, honey).

She is still there and will likely be there until at least Monday.  She is being treated with mutliple antibiotics to clear up the infection and pain relievers to make her time more bearable (though it would go further to do so if the meds made the food taste good).  She is doing better and things are looking positive, so she seems to be in good care.  I, on the other hand, have been spending my time filling her shoes.  And I have to say that my children can be exhausting sometimes.

Mind you, I’m not one of these dads who just goes to work all day and has little understanding or appreciation for what happens at home while I’m gone.  I spent the first year of my daughter’s life as a stay-at-home dad, so I know what is involved.  And I spend independent time with my kids all the time, so I know what my wife goes through on a day-to-day basis.  But with kids, there are good days and there are bad days.  And today so far has not been turning out to be one of the good ones for my son.

He tends on the hyper side a lot of the time regardless of his mood.  He runs, he jumps, he climbs, he throws and kicks things.  I have no doubt that I have a future athlete on my hands.  But he is 2 and he is all about immediate gratification and has little tolerance for things not going according to his plan or schedule.  Today alone he has thrown 3 tantrums – one in a parking lot with cars driving around – and a few mini-spats and most of them have been over small and trivial things (e.g., I wouldn’t give him a pacifier or he wanted Grammy to hold his hand, not me).  I am currently enjoying a reprieve as I managed to get him to take a much needed nap.

His sister is a bit easier – she is 5 and her main issue is one of occasional whininess.  But generally I can tell her what we are doing or what is expected of her and she complies without complaint.  She will whine about the usual things (e.g., finishing her veggies, going to bed, putting on the socks I gave her – don’t get me started), but within reason and typically without severe escalation.

So my hands have been full.  Luckily my work has been very understanding in the matter and didn’t balk at my taking this time off.  Luckily I’ve had access to in-laws and now my own mother to give me occasional breaks (not to rest, mind you, but to get other work done like disinfecting our entire house).  And luckily my wife has been doing a good enough job with the kids that they understand the routines and don’t fight me on any of the big things.  All that said, I’ll be glad when my wife is home and back to normal … for many reasons.

For those interested in keeping up with my wife’s condition, I’ve been posting details on HER blog – http://www.dtemama.com.  So feel free to check there and wish her well via comments there (she doesn’t read my blog that often).