Sunday, December 15, 2013

Playing Doctor - Nursie for Real - Update

For the gory details, see my previous post.  Meantime, here's the straight skinny on what really happened during the six hour delay.



Flopsy, Main Lady's oldest, went into the chop shop to have a large abdominal growth removed.  The deal was that the thing consisted of a four inch banana shaped anchor which turned out to be solid cancer, with a water balloon attached to it.  The balloon had about one and a half liters of fluid in it, so the sawbones decided to drain it before trying to remove it.  Sounds perfectly good, right?  Except, like a water balloon, the thing burst when they tried to tap it.  All the fluid leaked into the abdominal cavity.

So the washing process started.  As it turns out, your interior cavity can actually be washed out.  I suppose that makes a certain kind of sense as each organ is in its own little house.  But that's what they did, and it took six hours before quality control was satisfied with the result.

Flopsy also underwent a hysterectomy at the same time, which was not scheduled.  The women will get this one right away, but for the men reading this allow me to explain as best I can.  Say you went into the hospital for acute appendicitis.  You require an appendectomy, which is slang for getting your appendix out.  No sweat, right?  They've been doing this operation since Hector was a pup, and they've got it down cold.  When you wake up, you find the assistant surgeon smiling at you, shaking your hand and telling you that you did just fine (you were unconscious the entire time, right?  So what the hell is this all about?) and that the operation was a success (again, you're awake on the sunny side of the lawn, right?  So what the hell?), and that, by the way, they found a slight anomaly on your right testes so they thought it best to remove your testicles.  You know, for safety's sake.  Translation: They cut off your nuts while you were asleep.

Now then.  Since you've been stabbed in the belly several times, your first impulse will not succeed.  But if you're anything like any of the men I know, you'll double up on the physical therapy even if it mean recruiting R. Lee Emery as your very own personal physical therapist.  Then you'll pay the good sawbones a visit to confirm the wisdom of his decision.

What the hospital staff did in their infinite wisdom was have the news of the operation delivered to Flopsy by a bright, cheerful medical student while she was recovering.  I gather he just came in and told her what the outcome was without much empathy or preparation.

Ass.

Flopsy is going through her physical therapy, which isn't easy, or quick or fun.  Mopsy is helping her, and I kind of wonder just how that's going, given that Flopsy and Mopsy don't always get along together.  Mopsy, being a certified physical therapist, knows what she's doing.  Flopsy, being a delicate sort who is prone to overreact to everything, is not the type to just grin and bear it, and get the damned exercise done even if it hurts.

Main Lady is home taking a break and getting ready for Christmas.  Oh joy, oh snow storm, oh fuck.

So that's the latest.

2 comments:

CWMartin said...

So why not just tell someone in the frickin' first place? Sounds like this hospital has been down the legal road before and was being VERRRRY careful of what it said. Pretty punk job of doing it, too. Hope everything will heal fine and thank God they got it out.

Mad Jack said...

Thanks CW. Those were my thoughts as well. I'm glad I'm not the only one who found their performance slightly lacking.