Well, I got up bright and early this morning - 4:30 am. I was grumpy and in no mood to mess around. So, I turned the alarm off and lay in bed until 5:00. Today was cutting day.
We got out of the house at a decent time. It was terribly foggy, but we made it downtown without a hassle. We check in at the pre-op desk and they call him back to start the prep.
He goes with the nurse and I'm called to the desk. The woman starts talking about giving me a "pager". Now, this is not a pager in the typical sense, but a pager in the "you have to wait for a table at Olive Garden" sense. So I say to her "Will this work in
Finally, I can go hang with BD until they put him to sleep. I walk into the room and see a nurse, who I ask about whether or not I have to stay. I explain the pager fiasco and she says to just give the OR nurse my cell phone number and that'll take care of that. HA! Ms. Owens, take THAT! She leaves, and I snap a lively picture of BD, capturing how he's feeling at this exact moment with his wife being a wee bit bitchy.
Next, a guy comes in to start the IV. I recognize him immediately. This is one of the plus factors of working in this hospital. To remind you: I work with medical students in their third year doing their rotations in psychiatry. I remember ALL of their faces. So, I start badgering him and he finally realizes who I am. 15 minutes later, he is still struggling to get the IV in and I decide that maybe I should shut up and let him concentrate.
The whole time we're in there, there is noise, coming from behind a door in the room. Apparently, there is a bathroom there, and it's a shared bathroom with the next room, and whoever is in the next room is going in and out of it. ALOT. There was a small lull in our conversation, and what do you think happened during that moment? The sound - of farting. Loud and clear, the kind that sounds like you may have shit a little bit as you did it. And it echoed in that tiny shared bathroom. And that is when I started laughing. I couldn't contain myself. I'm sorry, but it was freakin' hilarious! BD started chuckling too, just as the anesthesia team came in the room.
The older of the two chicks was a med student of mine 4 years ago, the younger a med student of mine 4 months ago. Just BD's luck. I took over THAT conversation too. I caught the anesthesiologist resident saying something about people waking up during surgery or later remembering pieces of the surgery and I announced, whole heartedly, "That would be awesome!"
The surgeon, Dr. Young, popped in to check on his patient. He asked if I was staying, and I said no, "I'll call you when he's done. What's the number?" And I hesitated because he had nothing to write on. And I said the nurse had it. And he said he wanted it. So I gave it to him. And do you know where he wrote it? ON THE LEG OF HIS SCRUBS! This man is now my hero. I'm not sure how sanitary that is, but hey, he did it.
Eventually, the real anesthesia doc came in and apparently someone misplaced BD's chart. It took them about 10 minutes, but they finally found it and got ready to wheel him away. As I was leaning over to kiss BD, they turned on the first round of happy meds in the IV - the ones that make you not care about anything. BD says "Did you turn that medicine on already?" and smiles a big smile. I kiss him and follow him out of the room. As I'm exiting the door to the waiting area and he is wheeled toward the OR, I can hear him. "This is some groovy shit!" My god, I married a hippy!
I walked back up to Ms. Owens with the pager in my hand, smiled and handed it to her. "How do you think they're going to call you?" I smirked and said "Dr. Young wrote my number on his pants." and walked away happily. Ms. Owens was none too pleased. I don't give two shits!
Surgery went well, he's out and recovering. I'm going to go finish my lunch now and have a smoke until they call me and tell me I can see him. I hope Ms. Owens is there. I might bring her a cookie.
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