Sometime on Sunday, January 27,
2013... I slowly become aware of many
bleeps and blurps and beeps and other sounds all around me. At first I am not opening my eyes. I must be dreaming. No one makes this much noise in a hospital
room, right? Damn I'm tired... Someone needs to make it a bit quieter in
here. Maybe someone left the door to my
room open. So I say, "Would someone
please close the door?" But no
sound comes out. Not even a hum. Nothing.
I try again. Nothing again. What the hell? I open my eyes slowly. It's very bright in here. All I see is white. Slowly my eyes start to adjust
and I can start to make out things. I'm
in a hospital bed. Ok, that makes
sense. I'm in the hospital after all. There are all kinds of boxes making most of
these noises on either side of my bed.
There are readouts and EKG strips and levers and knobs and blinking lights and
digital numbers on either side of me.
Looking up I see several IV pouches. With my eyes, since nothing else seems to want
to move just yet, I follow the IV tubes down and see at least three IVs in my
arms. Two in one arm and one in the
other that I can see anyway. Suddenly I feel the automated BP cuff start
to pump up. I look over and next to the
TV is a display with my BP and pulse and respiration and oxygen
saturation. I know all these because I
had three months to study them when my twin girls were born 16 weeks
prematurely. They were in Neonatal
Intensive Care for the first three months of their lives. A parent learns a LOT about things medical in
that time. In any case, I knew I was
getting BP taken, but my glasses were off and I could not see the numbers
well. No alarms were going off. A very good thing I thought.
I lay there for a few minutes
gathering my wits and allowing those parts of my brain to wake up enough to
make sense of at least some of what I am seeing and hearing. People are coming in and out, and I notice
that Lea Ann is there at the side of my bed looking down at me and smiling. She kisses my forehead and tells me that it's
all done and everything went well. I try
to talk and no sound yet again. I frown
and look around. She tells me not to try
to talk because I can't. I'm still on a respirator and there is a tube down my
throat helping me breathe. I frown again and try to talk again. I'm not liking this at all. I start looking from side to side trying to
maybe find an angle to be able to talk.
As you can imagine I am still groggy. Nothing I do allows me to talk. Ok, maybe I can move the tube to the
side. I reach up to move the
tube... Well, more precisely, I *try* to
reach up to move the tube. My arms will
move maybe a few inches at most. That's
all. What the hell is going on here? They have me tied to the damn railings of the
bed. Worse yet, both my hands are
completely wrapped in ace bandages looking like mittens with no thumb. I am now starting to get perturbed. I cannot stand being held down or tied
down. I get fidgety and try my best to
get out of it. I pull on the straps
around my wrists as hard as I can. So hard that I start twisting in the bed, which
gives me my first shot of pain in my chest and belly. Ok...
Bad idea. I look at Lea Ann and
see she is talking to me and trying to calm me down and explain. I just have not been listening. So I start.
She tells me the surgery went well, but took just shy of 12 hours. It is Sunday... Sunday?
What happened to Saturday? Maybe
I heard her wrong. I try to ask her
about that. Again, no sound. Dammit.
Already forgot about that. So I
keep listening. I am in ICU. I have an IV in the side of my neck, in the
inside of both elbows and on the left wrist.
I am on a respirator and that is why I cannot talk AND why I am tied
down. So I can't pull anything out while
sleeping or whatever. Ok, I can
understand that but I do not like it. At
all. I am catheterized, I have eight
(yes I said eight) tubes coming out of my chest. Four on each side. And I have a feeding tube,
called a J-Tube, in my belly to the left of my belly button, plus the obligatory EKG patches and leads where ever they could fit them. I have six hard plastic... things... over the incision in my chest and belly. They are
sutured in and are helping to keep the incision closed. I instinctively reach to feel them. The tie downs on my wrists reassert
themselves. Lea Ann is just looking down at me smiling.
A few tears too. Why is she
crying? I told her I'd see her in a
little while. I try to smile to let her
know I'm ok and everything is ok too.
Not sure if she can tell I am smiling or not. She says she will be right back and steps out
of the room. I guess I fell back to
sleep then because next time I woke up it was dark outside. Lea Ann was still there. So was my ICU nurse. She was a TINY little thing. I could eat her whole as a snack. If I could have at the time, I would have
laughed just then. She was checking me
over and reading all the readouts. Lea
Ann watched her and then they both stepped outside the door for a little bit.
Now that I am alone, I HAVE to
find a way out of this tie down crap. So
I start rotating my wrists and arms.
Pulling and pushing trying to see if I can hear if tear or give or
anything. Nothing... BUT...
These ace bandages wrapping my hands are getting looser. Hmmm. Maybe if I can get the aces to open up
enough to free my fingers I can find some way to get the straps off. So I start working my hands and fingers
around. Balling my fists opening them
up, spreading the fingers... and soon,
by god, I have BOTH hands completely free of the ace bandages. Ha HA!
Success! Now I can try to get
these straps untied. I try again. Nothing.
They are tied around my wrists, so I can't reach them even with my freed
hands. Dammit again. Have I mentioned how much I hate being tied
down? The ladies came back in about the
same time I got both hands free. I had
not noticed. They both explained again
why I was tied down. They went ahead and
took the mittens the rest of the way off.
No need for them, especially if I can get out of them. I look at Lea Ann to get her attention, then
point a finger at the nurse and then hold my index finger and thumb about an
inch apart. Lea Ann frowns, not
understanding. So I point at the nurse
again a couple of times, then make the little inch symbol on my hand
again. Understanding flashes in her eyes
and she smiles and starts to laugh. That
was the most welcome sound I have heard in my entire life. And the prettiest I have ever seen my
wife. Ever. The nurse looks up trying to figure us
out. Lea Ann explains that I just basically said that she was exceptionally small.
She chuckles and looks me in the eye and says that good things come in
small packages and she is damn good. She
laughs with Lea Ann and I laugh in my head...
I look at Lea Ann and squeeze her hand... Wait...
When did we start holding hands?
The nurse says everything looks good and asks if I have any pain. Not really, but I am not sure so I just shrug
a couple of times, then shake my head no.
She says ok, and says I probably need to get some more sleep. I shake my
head yes at her and look at Lea Ann. She
points to the little fold out chair bed she has been staying in the entire time
I've been in ICU. I swear I married an
angel. I nod to Lea Ann as well. At that point I got light headed again and
fell asleep pretty quickly. I think the
nurse slipped something into one of those IVs... ZZZzzzzz....
I'll do my best to get another post up in the next few days. This is kind of therapeutic to write about. It's rather fun to write it too. Hope to see you at the next posting! :)
