At the Hospital

The Friday I had my surgery I arrived at St. Luke's at around 4pm. Eventually, after I had signed in, and then wandered around the hospital trying to find the recovery room, I was lead to where I needed to be by a nurse. They brought me over to my gurney, I undressed and got under some preheated blankets, and another nurse fished around under my skin looking for a vein and trying to insert the IV.

In general, any time I have given blood for any reason the blood taker says, "oh my, you have such nice, big veins." And the first nurse said exactly that, but apparently the second nurse didn't see what the first nurse saw. She had a hard time, and I did too.

After I was all IVed, prepped, and ready to go, the anesthesiologist came in to explain the stuff he was about to give me. "This first thing is just to relax you." He said, injecting some stuff into my IV. "It'll be like having a couple of margaritas."

"Oh. Um, I don't drink."

"Ah, well, it'll be like having 6 or 7 margaritas then."

And I was off to the operating room. The anesthesiologist put a mask on me and said he was going to give me some oxygen. I remember thinking that the mask didn't fit very well because a lot of the gas was shooting over my right cheek. Then I was out.

When I woke up I was back in the recovery room, and after some odd hospital apple juice, they wheeled me up to my room.

All through the night attractive nurses came in to see what my pain level was. (Generally I said 3 or 4, which I guess is what one aims for on a 10-scale pain chart. 3 or 4 corresponds to the smiley face who looks like he just knocked over somebody's favorite lamp.) Then they'd ask to look at my incision and draw on the dressing with permanent marker, or in one case, with a ballpoint pen. (If you ever find yourself as a nurse in this situation, use the permanent marker. You don't have to press as hard.) I'm certainly not used to attractive women asking to look at my crotch.

I only spent the one night in the hospital, but it was a toughy. I had to stay on my back, and I don't sleep well, or at all, on my back. In addition, the nurse's station was right out my front door and there was a lot of noise from out there. Lastly, even though I was 10 floors up, I could still hear through my window things like screeching tires, sirens, and cops yelling "Stop! Police! Stop or I'll shoot!." Finally, the bit that was most responsible for keeping me awake was the fact that I'd had an IV in me since 4pm, and I had to pee roughly every half hour. And there were a number of things making peeing difficult:

1) Having to pee in a jug.
2) Having to pee in a jug while lying down, on my back, unable to roll over very far onto my side.
3) Trying to relax to pee into a jug while my mother slept mere inches away on a fold-out bed/chair on the floor.
4) Trying to fit in a pee between nurse visits.

Although I do have to give the pee jug people credit for the curved neck design. Kudos for reducing spillage.

In the morning I was up and hobbling around, and decided to sit in a chair for a while while a nurse came in to take my vitals. As she was doing so I was watching a bubble travel down my IV into my arm, and I asked her if that was ok. My understanding was that bubbles and blood vessels don't mix. She said she didn't know and would ask another nurse.

15 minutes or so passed and another nurse came in and checked my vitals. I asked her the same question and she said it was fine. This, of course, begs another, and possibly more serious question: Who was the first nurse? Does she even work there? Does she just go around checking people's vitals and not telling anyone?

Finally it was breakfast time and the real nurse told me she'd ask the nutritionist to organize some breakfast for me. I wasn't looking forward to a breakfast designed by a nutritionist, but I didn't have much choice. When breakfast arrived it consisted of pancakes with maple syrup, sausage links, coffee, cranberry juice, and milk. Basically a fatty version of the stuff that surrounds the cereal bowl in the fruit loops commercial. I could totally be a nutritionist.

After breakfast it was time to go home, so my mom helped me put on my underwear, socks, and pants. I was a little worried about the taxi ride to my apartment because the pharmacy had been closed so all my pain meds were still at Rite Aid waiting to be bought. I asked the nurse how much pain medication I was getting through my IV, and she said, "None. Do you want some?" Little did I know that I had just had right testicle removed the day before, and from the point of waking up to walking in my front door I had taken no pain medication at all. I'm not sure who should get the credit for that: The Surgeon? Me? But somebody should.

The last obstacle for the day was getting from the hospital to my apartment. I had contemplated asking a friend to pick me up, but it was early and I didn't want to explain that I had cancer, surgery, ask for a ride home, and apologize for waking them up all in the same phone call. So we called a cab.

You know how people are made up of something like 60% water? Well, this cab driver was someplace near 75% amphetamine. He was simultaneously adjusting the radio, asking where we wanted to go, asking for directions on how to get there, explaining his 6 months absence from driving, and assuring me that telling him to drive smoothly was a good move on my part. And he was doing all that and driving at warp speed. He was also breaking at warp speed.

When I got out of the cab the driver jumped out and offered me his arm. I decided I'd rather not take any help from Mr Jitters, so I took hold of the door instead.

"Oh man! I hope you feel better man!" He said, shuffling back and forth. "Maybe you should get a cane or something!"

And by Monday I was back at work.

Oh, and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my mattress for being awesome. I slept on my stomach that Saturday night. The 4" Eurotop was totally worth the extra money. You go Serta.