I've been blessed with the opportunity to spend a few days with my dad, even though we are in unpleasant circumstances. I mean it when I say it's a blessing.
Dad had back surgery today - he's been in terrible and increasing pain for months, deteriorating to the point of full-on cane dependence. He had back surgery a year ago too - a laminectomy. As soon as he felt better, he had the bright idea of riding a 4-wheeler and (surprise, surprise) he jacked up his back again.
Several months later, he went back to see Dr. Reid, the spine surgeon, who promptly booked him for today's spine fusion procedure. We checked in early this morning and finally he went under the knife at 11:15 a.m. My sister and I subsequently adjourned to the Family Waiting Area, a.k.a. "Top Ten Destination for Awesome People-Watching" as rated by Zagat's travel survey. Not really.
The Family Waiting Room truly is a societal microcosm where people who often have very little in common find themselves spending hours on end, desperate for mindless chit-chat to divert them from worrying about their loved one's guts being sliced open for this reason or that.
Today I was fortunate to find myself sitting with the mother, sister, daughter and boyfriend of a woman who came in today to have her breasts and lymph nodes removed along with the cancer that was recently diagnosed. What great people! We did spend the first couple of hours staring at the floor, the endless CNN repetition and other waiters just waiting; but eventually we worked our way into friendly conversation.
The common bond among all family waiters is the scary thrill of hearing the family name called out - is it over? Is there news? Is it good? When it finally came our turn at 5:15 p.m. - yes that was nearly SIX hours of surgery the poor guy endured - I practically tackled the surgeon to get all The Scoop.
The Scoop is where the surgeon explains to you, as simply as possible, what he has done to your loved one without going into too much gory detail. Hopefully he has the decency to not appear bloodied - we were fortunate in that regard today. I've had a converse experience before - talk about disconcerting.
Anyhoo, it's now going on 11 p.m. and I am going to spend the night here. It isn't that I don't trust the nurses; on the contrary, they have been wonderful thus far. But thanks to the screwy economy of running a hospital these days, there just arent enough of them to look after all of their patients and keep up with things like pillow adjustments, a sip of cold water, and a friendly smile in between morphine fogs.
I am so dang glad to be here, I can't really do it justice in words. Our history was not one that would lend itself to such a situation as we are in; we disappointed each other often over the years, but these days we are fast friends and I have the privilege to be here and be here for him.
And that, my friends, is a blessing straight from heaven.
No comments:
Post a Comment