Exhaustion and the Macho Man

Image provided by
jazbeck @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/jazbeck/

I was going to write about where writing ideas come from. I was going to have it published by this last Tuesday. Obviously, neither one happened.

Why?

My husband had vertebra disk surgery done on his neck this last Thursday.

That doesn’t actually explain why I didn’t have anything published for Tuesday though. I probably could have written something for that slot but it probably would have had multiple errors in it. You see, I was kind of busy keeping Hubby as calm as possible. After all, anything to do with the spine is risky, and he was going a little bonkers on me.

Thursday morning at 12:30am — yes, right after midnight — the alarm went off on the clock. We had to get ready to go to the hospital that was two hours away. Hubby was a wound up ball of anxiety, yelling at me for anything he felt wasn’t going the way he thought it should be going. This is extremely unusual for him. I’m usually the one to lose my cool.

We really didn’t have to get up quite as early as we did but by doing so, Hubby was alert enough to drive the five miles safely to his brother’s house. Dear brother-in-law was the one driving the long distance and I am eternally grateful for that because if Hubby had driven, both of us would be dead now.

Brother-in-law isn’t pure angel though. Not by any means. Once we got to Nashville, we had a terrible time finding where we were supposed to be because there’s three different hospital within the same little neighborhood. Brother-in-law wouldn’t listen to anyone but his brother, my husband on what direction to take. Seeing that Hubby was far from thinking rational, we were going around in circles not even finding the correct hospital, always being one or two blocks away from it.

Both my mother-in-law and I keep on trying to tell brother-in-law to ask for directions. He just wouldn’t listen. He was in super macho mode. Macho men don’t need directions, right? It was getting to the point where our vehicle was making U-turns in the middle of major streets and it was fifteen minutes until check-in time for the surgery, 5am. If Hubby didn’t make it to the admission desk by then, the surgery would be rescheduled.

Finally, mother-in-law spotted a cop and insisted that her son pull alongside of him. Finally, we had decent directions to get us to the hospital. Hubby flew out of the car and into the building before brother-in-law had come to a full stop at the entrance. Hubby barely made it to the admissions desk in time.

The surgery was from 7:30 to 11am. The surgeon was pleased with how it went. While Hubby was asleep on the operating table, we were more or less forced to stay in the lobby where the admission desk was. People who had loved ones there for surgery received a pager and a password. Someone from the surgical team would page to tell the families what stage they were in with the surgery and how it was progressing. When we’d get a page about Hubby, one of us would have to go to the desk and pick up the phone and give the password to get information on Hubby.

I can see how this system would be helpful. It would alleviate family members from asking questions of people who couldn’t possibly know the answer and the surgeon wasn’t bother afterwards because information was given along the way.

It must have been a busy time for neurosurgery because Hubby was in the recovery room for four hours. (It was supposed to be two hours at the most.) They were waiting for a room to be vacant for him. We were so tired by this time, we were slap happy. I just wanted to see Hubby to make clear in my mind that he was okay, then boogie on home and take a nap.

On top of being exhausted, I caught a nasty cold at the hospital. It was bound to happen but I’m miserable right now. I should be in better form by the middle of this coming week.