Visiting Hours: Chapter 20

At 6:00 a.m. the hospital woke up and so did I. Dr. Doogie showed up for my daily checkup. He asked me how I was feeling and we chatted as he checked my vital signs. I told him that I was feeling fine except that I was still having trouble breathing, he told me to keep using the breathing tube. Thanks!
Along with the other indignities I was put through, every few hours a nurse stopped by to empty my catheter bag and drains. What are drains-you ask? I will tell you. In surgery the doctor puts these draining tube things into your body where the surgery was. At the end of the tube is a plastic bulb. The bulb is squeezed to create a vacuum and the vacuum pulls the extra fluid through the tube and into the bulb. Every few hours a nurse empties the bulb and—you guessed it, measured the amount of fluid in the drain.
I had three drains in my body, one in my stomach, and two in my chest. They didn't hurt or anything, I just found them annoying. I was told that the drains would stay in until there was very little liquid going into the bulb. The same woman who showed me how to use the funny breathing tube also showed my how to empty and measure the drains. This was important because most women go home from the hospital with the drains still in their bodies, and need to know how to properly empty them and measure the drained fluid, an experience that I was not looking forward too.
When Nurse Patton came in to my room to check on me I started to whine about the drains.
"So, how did you guys torture your patients before some sadist invented the drain?" I whined sarcastically. Nurse Patton actually had an answer. “Remember those old westerns we all watched on TV years ago?” She asked.
“Yea” I said suspiciously. She continued, “The ones were the hero gets shot, and a woman tends to his wounds, changing his bloody bandages all day long?"
"Yea." I said, wondering where this conversation was leading.
"Well, that's because of the fluid coming out of a wound. The problem with that method was the constant changing of bandages was hell on a person’s skin." Then she smiled and said. "Some very caring person invented the drain to save people's skin.”
O.K. now I understood why I had the drains. And I also so understood that measuring the amount of liquid leaking from the location of the surgery was one of the indicators used to gage the rate of a patient's healing. I understand the need for the drains, but I still don't like them.
As visiting hours began Helen’s friends and family started appearing, I put on my head-set and started listing to “At Home at Mitford” again. The story follows a minister called Father Tim as he went about his day, at first it seemed that nothing really exciting was happening in the book, then you realize what a great minister Father Tim was. He visited this person here, and that person there, before you know it he had solved many little problems that had the potential to become big ones. He seemed to hanging out-not working, then the reader realizes that he was working all the time.
I started thinking about Mark, and the many hours he spent chatting with parishioners, a visit here, a phone call there, the counseling sessions held in the church office. I thought about all the time he and “the guys” spent in our garage hanging out and working on one of his cars. I wondered just how much counseling went on while the wrench was being passed around, and I also wondered if we could deduct any of the money he spent on his beloved old cars as “a business expense.”
I knew that Mark was well loved by the members of our church, they were always telling me how wonderful he was. The book showed me another side of him. It made me realize how hard he worked. I tended to think of him as my goofy husband and not and as other people's Pastor. After reading Ms. Karon's book, I started to look at my husband differently. When Mark came for breakfast, I told him about the book. I gave him a brief summery of the story, and said that I was impressed about all the "little" things that the minister did to improve the lives of the members of his church.
"That pretty much describes my job." He said, "I spend hours putting out little fires, before they became three alarmers.
When Mark needed someone to talk to about the pressures of his job he would call his father or sister who are also ministers. He rarely talked to me about church business, mostly because I didn't care. Now I was interested. Funny how this little piece of fiction could change our marriage, I had decided then that I would become more active in my husband's church, and never again give him a hard time about the long hours that he worked.
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Dr. Sullivan came by again and he brought me good news. The preliminary exam of the lymph nodes was negative; it looked like we caught the cancer in time. This was good news, but he reminded me that the results of the secondary test would take a few more weeks, so we would not be sure until then, but again he felt very optimistic. I was finally starting to feel that every thing was going to be ok.
Dr. Sullivan examined me and told me that I was doing well; I told him that Dr. Asgari wanted to release me from the hospital later that day and that I did not feel I was ready to go home yet. Dr. Sullivan told me that Dr. Asgari had the final say about when I would be released and that Dr. Asgari had a reputation of releasing his patients early. Dr. Sullivan agreed with me that I should stay an extra day. I wondered why a plastic surgeon and not the primary surgeon had the final say about my length of stay in the hospital.
“Tell him that you need to stay that extra day” he said.
“Just like that! Say I think that I am not ready to go home yet?” I asked?
“Just like that” he answered.
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I got tired of not being able to take a real breath. I sat up as straight as I can and coughed, pain, pain, pain. I coughed again, pain, pain, pain. And again, there were tears running down my face because I hurt so much. Then suddenly all kinds of disgusting stuff came out of my mouth, I didn’t know that the human body could hold that much mucus.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.” A real-clear-deep-breath. You know, breathing is underrated. I laid back in my bed and just enjoying breathing.
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Later, I sat up in my bed, breathing and reading. I switch to a Dean Koonz book called “Ice Bound” and did I mention breathing? I was really enjoying the book, Mr. Koonz and I have a hot and cold relationship, I never know when I start reading one of his books if I am going to like it or not. This one I liked, it was about a group of scientist who go to the arctic to conduct some experiments and get trapped. Nurse Patton came by and told me it is time to sit in the chair again. She helped me get out of my bed and into a chair. I was surprised to find that she was just as strong as Nurse Max. I sat for awhile switching from reading the arctic book to listing to the Mitford book, because reading still tired me out.
Later after I was brought back to my bed Dr. Asgari stopped by to check on me again, he then told me that I can go home later that day.
“No” I said.
“No?” he answered.
“I am not ready to home I can barely sit up, I can’t walk, I am in deep pain and I still had a catheter and all those stupid drains stuck in my body."
“I’ll tell the nurses to take out the catheter, but the drains stay, you don’t know it yet but you are healed enough to be checked out.”
“No”
“Fine." He said in an exasperated voice. "You can stay another day.” He said tersely. "I will see you tomorrow.” And he huffed out.
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Mark popped in just before lunch, we were both pleased when I was brought real food. Sure there was soup, but there was also a sandwich and dessert. Helen’s husband Henry is there too, so we open the curtain between our beds and the four of us have lunch together. Helen teased me about getting real food because she was still on the liquid diet.
Being tired of talking about operations and hospital stuff, I asked Henry what he did for a living; He told me that he was a flavotist.
“A whatist?” I ask.
“A flavorist” he answered. Actually he was a chemist who's company created the flavors that we the consumer enjoy so much when we eat processed food, or anything with a flavor. I love it when I meet people who have jobs in fields that I didn’t even know existed.
“Henry, can you answer a question about the flavors in children’s medicine? I asked.
“I’ll try” he answers.
“Why have all the children’s medicine switched from orange and cherry flavor to that awful grape? Not only that, but then they spends millions of dollars on advertising telling the public how much children love the grape flavor, my kids hate it!!! He laughed at the fact that my kids hated the grape flavoring, then he became very intense as he explained the change in flavors in children's medicine.
“It’s the American mother’s fault.” He said, his voice getting louder as he spoke “They demand 100% alcohol free in all children’s medicine. A little bit of alcohol can make a huge difference in the taste of a product. You see with a small percentage of alcohol we can use cherry or orange with no problem.” He was getting even louder now “But, the moms demand 100% alcohol free, and that tastes terrible, and the only flavor that is strong enough to cover the bad taste is grape.” Helen was giving him that wifely pat on the shoulder that meant ‘clam down.’ I obviously hit a nerve, opps.