Another Day In The Life...

So, hubby's had the surgery to remove his tumour. The official term for it is a 'right hemi-colectomy'. It went very well and we find out in a few days whether or not chemo is needed.

But the day leading up to his surgery was a series of events better suited to a Three Stooges' skit.

He was supposed to go in for 7:30AM on Tuesday. Monday night, at around 10:30PM, we receive a phone call from the hospital. "Hi, I'm calling from the hospital's surgical services department. We're having trouble with some of our equipment, so you don't have to come in at 7:30 tomorrow morning. Stay home. We'll call you when we're ready for you."

Equipment? What equipment?! Hubby is now in a bit of a panic. If you don't already know it, he's absolutely terrified of anything involving doctors and/or needles. I'm talking mind-numbingly, strap-him-down-or-he'll-bolt kinda fear. So, when he heard the words 'equipment problems', his heart rate just about tripled - not a good thing when you're anemic and awaiting surgery. He had visions of anaesthetic equipment malfunctioning mid-operation and him waking up to find his innards on his bedside table.

Needless to say, it wasn't a very restful night for him. Nonetheless, he was in fairly good spirits the next morning, figuring he at least was getting a little reprieve before having to go under the knife. Nothing like a little imposed procrastination to brighten your outlook. It was short-lived, though. At exactly 7:30AM, we received a call from the hospital. They're ready for us, we need to come in right away.

We arrived at the admission desk, commenting on how it appeared to be a little warm in the hospital that day. We were greeted by a nurse with a clipboard and a handful of papers. She knew who we were right away and had us take a seat. "The doctor wants to speak with you."

Right on cue, in walks the surgeon. The 'equipment problem' was actually an air conditioning malfunction. The problem is that the sterilization room is heavily air conditioned. If there is no air conditioning, there is too much humidity in the air, and they can't sterilize anything. We now have a choice. We can either get hubby admitted - he already has a room and a bed waiting for him - they'll start him up on an IV and he can wait here until they get everything straightened out, or he can go home, remain on clear fluids all day, and they'll call us when everything is a go, most likely some time after supper today or tomorrow at the latest. Uh, gee, what were my choices again? We're out the door faster than you can say, "Please sign this consent form."

That was around 9:00AM. Hubby had enough time to get home, swallow another bowl of Jell-O and was in the middle of his extra-large glass of water, when the phone rang. "Have you had any fluids? Yes? Well, stop." But the doctor said... "Yes, but we think we'll be ready for you around 3:00 this afternoon."

It's now 11:30AM, so the rest of the family starts making plans for lunch while hubby watches longingly from the wings. Ring, ring! It's the hospital again. We're ready for you. Now. But you said...! Oh, never mind. So much for a reprieve. We say goodbye to the family - again - and off we go to the hospital, with poor hubby's nerves about as frayed as Daisy Duke's little shorts.

This time, they send us straight up to his room. They want him ready and down in OR for 3:00PM. Poor Nurse Cari has the pleasure of trying to introduce the IV to hubby's rapidly retreating veins. He's so tense that the muscles in his arms are actually clamping around the veins, effectively shutting them off from Cari's prying needle. After failed attempt number three, Cari wraps his arms in some soothing warm blankets and heads off in search of a smaller needle - or maybe a bottle of Jack Daniels, whichever comes to hand first.

On the fourth attempt, Nurse Cari manages to get a precarious IV going. She tapes the crap out of the thing in the hope that hubby's veins don't somehow manage to spit it right back out after she leaves. She tells us that the 'pain management nurse' will be in shortly to discuss hubby's options.

Nurse Kelly comes in and very cheerfully announces that the best option, the Cadillac of pain management, would be an epidural. I start to giggle involuntarily. Hubby loses what little colour he had left in his cheeks. You see, his only experience with an epidural was with my first pregnancy. After twenty hours of labour, they had to get one in me for an emergency c-section. Without going into great detail, suffice it to say that hubby was more traumatized by the experience than I was. There was a lot of moaning and crying out in pain on my part, it apparently took a few attempts before they were successful, and there was blood spurting across the room like a low-budget B-grade horror flick.

But we managed to convince him to go for the epidural because it apparently makes a world of difference in recovery. We explained to him that it would be a completely different experience from mine because a) he did not have a nine pound alien trying to escape from his body, and b) they would be giving him a light sedative beforehand, so even if it did hurt, he probably wouldn't remember it afterwards.

No such luck. He remembered every excruciating detail, including the facts that they had to try to get it in him twice and that it hurt like hell. But they finally got him all settled in and he apparently didn't even get the chance to start counting backwards from one hundred before he was out like a light.

As I said in the intro, the operation itself did go well. The surrounding organs were checked and nothing appeared to be infected. A couple of lymph nodes gave the surgeon some cause for concern, but we won't know anything for sure until the pathology report comes back in the next week or so. Meanwhile, hubby gets to spend a week in hospital, enjoying the luxury of having the TV to himself all day long, and trying to get back on his feet. I had half-jokingly said we were going to work his scar into a nice tattoo, but then I remembered that tattoos involved needles, so I don't think he'll be volunteering for one of those any time soon.

Technorati Tags: cancer ; Colo-rectal ; Colon ; Hemi-Colectomy ; Epidural ; Lymph Node