I checked in to the hospital for abscess surgery on Tuesday at 2:30pm, I hadn’t eaten or drank anything since 9am that morning. Charles got to go into my room and hang out until I sent him home, I didn’t think both of us should suffer. I waited for my scheduled procedure. At about 4:30pm a nurse came in and told me it would be 2 more hours... After reading a bit of Charles’ latest book inspired by our first year with cancer “Slippery When Metastasized” available through Amazon or any other book retailer near you 😉 (shameless plug), I started aimlessly changing channels on the TV. No nurse checked in on me, in fact nobody checked in on me as I would settle on a channel for a minute before changing it. My room had no windows and the fluorescent light bugged my eyes, even set as low as I could get it. I tried really hard to watch the Republican National Convention but then would have to change the channel again, I landed on some ghost detective show that made my room and solitude even spookier, I imagined the lights flickering though they never did. Randomly I would hear footsteps passing by my room but no one stopped. Every food commercial made me want whatever was advertised, I would have killed for a DQ Blizzard and anything from Taco Bell.
The ghost show was too scary and instead of watching another episode I found the Discovery Channel and “Deadliest Catch” which I can always rest my eyes on and find some solace in, don’t ask me why, it isn’t like it’s not stressful but for some reason I find it soothing. My mouth was so dry, I finally hit the nurse button at the “3 hours past my surgery time”, an annoyed voice spoke through the speaker on my TV remote “Can I help you?” Feeling like I had been forgotten, tears close to spilling and feeling deeply sorry for myself and mildly worried that the girl from “The Ring” might crawl through the TV and kill me I asked “Can I get an ETA?” My voice croaked, throat dry and thirsty. Nobody ever gave me an ETA, at least not the voice from my remote.
A nurse finally came into my room around 8pm “I‘m your nurse until surgery, Michael is going home for the evening” she said exuberantly. ”I never met Michael” I said. “Let’s get your vitals dear...” She told me it wouldn’t be too much longer, maybe 45 minutes. “Anything I can do for you dear?” I asked for a sandwich and water, she promised me that I could have that after... I was so hungry and thirsty.
My surgeon breezed in at about 8:45pm “Thank you for waiting” he said, “Are you up for this? I mean it’s late, we can totally reschedule.” I said emphatically and I meant it, I can’t imagine working that late on people, and the people was going to be this people...Me! Okay, I might have been freaking myself out between the RNC and ghosts. “I will be fine and so will you” my surgeon said, he told me my anesthesiologist would be along soon, a Dr. Rickets, which he did “Hi, I’m Dr. Rickets” he introduced himself, “Rickets isn’t that a vitamin C deficiency?” I asked “No, Vitamin D..” I was confused “But sailors would lose their teeth...” He interrupted me “That’s scurvy.”
As I am writing this post right now you might have figured out that I survived my abscess surgery and you would be right. I checked out of the hospital at 1am and after eating the best salad in the world I passed out on my couch, Charles left me there to sleep with my dog, it was heavenly. I feel better now. The doctor put another drain in this new wound and unlike the last one in the previous wound which resembled a lamp cord with a pull on the end, this one looks like a straw, no joke, turn me upside down and I would look like a vanilla malt.
I am tired so I am going to end this here.
Until next time ❤️