Hospital Time.
Hospital time is outside of the normal time for us. It would be weird to work in a hospital, to be surrounded by all the people wandering through that “other time”. The pic above is irrelevant to this entry, it is merely the most wonderful daughter in front of a windmill blade. The entry regards the woman who’s seen fit to hang out with me fell off her bike at full speed. (SES) “Shattered elbow” is an understatement, though the surgeon’s seen much worse. So I’m catapulted into the role of her medical advocate and caregiver, which I’m relishing. The hard part is, however, the squeamishness. Every time she moves that bone-shard we have such similar reactions: all physiology stops. Breathing, heart, everything just stops. Hers takes much longer to resume than mine, and her tears are so heartbreaking. Yeah, I hate needles. April’s appendectomy taught me to endure them a bit better, my e-room visit where the nurse told me not to look as she cleaned up the mess from my IV installation worked wonders in getting me adjusted to pokings. But watching SES go through this is like the bad old days. Sure, it’s not my arm that giant fucking catheter is going into (Jeez man, it’s an IV, not a canula!)but I still squirm and clench. I swear my anus is about 3x stronger after the last 24 hours. Brief History: Thu, 18:50-SES meets pavement at +20mph. 19:30, I finally meet up with her in the E-room of the local University. The absolutely SHITTIEST hospital and patient care I’ve ever seen, including my suburban hospital where they sent me home with pain pills and muscle relaxants without imaging the enormously infected appendix. (The aforementioned disaster with the IV occurred at to me there.) 23:30, discharged after watching SES attempt to extend her elbow for the X-ray. Dear god in heaven, the pain displayed on her face was like I’d seen only once before, and hoped I’d never see again. 24:30. Attempt to sleep. Fri, 10a: at the Orthopedist’s office in a nearby suburb. Herein your correspondent and his heroine meet the X-ray tech from hell who melted when she saw “that face” I described above. On seeing that, said tech then proceeds to bust her ass to use angles that get the desired shot without SES moving too much. We also meet the delightful nurse J who reveals spontaneously that her fiancée died in a plane crash last week. This sounds so trite, dear reader, but it was not, and it TOTALLY and lovingly reminded us that yeah baby, it could be a lot worse. ca. 11am, the good doctor takes a closer look at the wounds, and we are suddenly catapulted to the “right now” school of surgical scheduling. Health care may indeed suck in the US gentle reader, but it can at least do some good when it wants to. 1:30pm Checking into the same hospital that yanked my appendix. 3pm, SES passes the gate “Recover hope all ye who enter here.” and proceeds to wait...for... 5:15pm, the last dose of “Vitamin F” (fentanol, pain killer) and the dry-mouth-drug are given, and I kiss her forehead as she’s taken off to be fixed. 19:30, Meet Il Doctore, and all is well. Turns out we were premature in performing this surgery, in the sense that it was NOT one of those fractures where the bone goes through the skin. But we couldn’t really tell until she was out and pain-blocked. 19:46, right now, I wait to see Her Grogginess and wait out the recovery before taking her home. Like I said, it’s not real time here in the hospital. it’s other-time. +8 weeks later: We’ve been through casts, and pain, and SES can now extend & fold about 90%. The pain is constant, typing’s a bitch, and her other elbow’s “Tennis Elbow” is exacting revenge. BUT...last night, for the first time, she awoke early and actually did some writing. Now recovery can begin. Post-script: 2009, after months, after the relationship’s ended: SES could—last time I saw her—pretty much do everything with that elbow. She had problems with biking a bit but tweaking her new-used Schwinn and she’s a rocket on 2 wheels. This old update, she still had the wire-loop to hold the broken pieces together: she had that removed due to the pain and irritation it caused. Duh, like the doctor thought THAT would be optional. Honestly, her recovery is so complete as to be amazing, due to her own diligence in stretching and working it, and overcoming. The woman with the strength of 10,000 men.