Back in the hallway I was informed that I wasn’t going back to my room. My next stop was the ICU. Cool I wouldn’t have to listen to those vents from hell all night or the occasional wail of a siren. As it turned out, that would have been an improvement over the night that was to come.
For the first four hours I was not allowed to move because they didn’t want anything to happen to the femoral artery where they had made the incision. I didn’t either. I’m not the kind of person who can sit still for any length of time, but possibly bleeding to death via a torn artery was the only other option. Lying motionless until 6:30 pm it would be. It was OK to move my head and arms, so I could see the TV and use the remote to adjust the channels. The hospital TV system didn’t offer many channels but at least they had USA so I settled in to watch reruns of NCIS, a decent alternative to the mind-numbing crap that passes for daytime entertainment.
Settling in lasted under a minute before what would become an incessant parade of nurses, aides, technicians, phlebotomists, and seemingly every employee on duty as they stopped by to poke, prod, test, check, and inspect.
They had to check the incision. It was covered by a three-inch diameter dressing stuck on with some kind of industrial adhesive tape. It wasn’t going anywhere. They had to check my blood pressure. They had to pull the blanket off my feet to check my pulse where the nurses had put the X’s the night before. If the pulse in the foot of the leg where the incision was didn’t beat as strong as the pulse in the other, we’d be going into surgery pronto because that meant there was bleeding from the artery. They had to check my oxygen sensor and draw blood. Basically, they didn’t leave me alone.
One nurse kept insisting I go pee. I told her I didn’t have to. It had been over twenty hours since food or drink had passed my lips. There was nothing there. Then she accused me of being embarrassed and holding it.
“For Chrissake,” I said, “if you want to look at it, help yourself. You can even touch it. I can’t stop you. Nothing’s gonna come out. It’s freakin’ empty.”
She left me alone after that. Maybe word of the Brazilian had spread through the facility and she just wanted to have a look.
On the plus side, the staff couldn’t have been nicer when I clamored for food. If I could move my hands, I could feed myself. One nurse scrounged up a can of pop and some cups of fruit and pudding. Another put together a turkey sandwich. Granted, it was sliced turkey on plain wheat bread but it tasted like warm, freshly-carved white meat straight from the breast. By the time the afternoon shift left for the night, my tray was covered with all kinds of goodies. I ate til I thought I’d explode and still there was more. I finished every morsel by morning. God bless those nurses.
Judy was there almost as soon as I arrived but couldn’t stay long. She had to go back to work because that bastard she works for wouldn’t give her a lot of time off. She came back after the store closed. In the meantime, the deacon from our church stopped by to offer some prayers. I never did get to see much of NCIS.
When Judy came back it was getting close to 6:30 and time to get off my back. The nurse kept me waiting until 6:34 by the time she came in and another few minutes to make sure everything was fine. I had been flat on my back for a more than six hours. Getting on my feet was liberation.
Colleen and Kristen brought Courtney, my only grandchild old enough to visit the hospital. She was having fun making the bed go up and down while I enjoyed the luxury of sitting in a chair. It gets loud when my wife and daughters are together and by 8 pm when visiting hours were over, I’d had it. I sent them packing in the hope of getting a good night’s sleep.
By now the visits to feel me up were coming regularly at the top of the odd hours, the next one due at 9 p.m. My plan was to get through that one and see what sleep I could get before the next one. Not much as it turned out. Ten p.m. brought a blood draw taken by a woman with a very thick accent.
“I have come for some bluuuhd.” The way she said it had me wide awake.
“Where are you from,” I asked.
“R-r-r-r-o-mah-nya. You have pr-r-roblem with someone from R-r-r-r-o-mah-nya ahsking for your-r-r bluuhd?”
“Let me see you smile.” When I didn’t see any fangs, I told her to proceed as if I had options. That left a bruise on my left hand.
If the night nurse made her first visit at eleven, I never knew it. Her one a.m. visit woke me up enough to feel her cold hands on my warm feet and see her checking the oxygen sensor on my index finger. I wish it had been on my middle finger because that red light would have really made a statement I so needed to make. No nurses woke me up at 2 a.m., not in my room anyway. In my foggy mind I heard the sound of a party at the nurse’s station. There were males and females yukking it up like they were in some seedy south side bar. One woman’s braying laugh made those sirens from the night before sound like a symphony. My curtain was drawn and I was attached to a monitor so I couldn’t get up to see who it was. The night nurse swore it wasn’t her at my 3 a.m. feeling up. She promised to keep everyone quiet and closed my door.
At five a.m. the bright room light coming on woke me up again. Coming around the curtain I saw a short woman with what appeared to be a black veil on her head, a white apron from her neck to her toes, and a black cloak over that. I thought it was a nun. When my vision cleared, I could see it was a dark-haired woman in a yellow hospital gown. She was there to take more blood and leave a nasty bruise in my right hand. I asked her to please not take it all. I needed for the trip home. If there was a five a.m. feeling up, I didn’t notice.
There was one last feeling up at 7 a.m. when the day shift came on. I thanked the night nurse for spending the night with me and that was it. The regular visits stopped and I was left alone with my thoughts until the doctor came to set me free.
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