Marc's Surgery-Part I

I am up at 4:38 a.m. starting the coffee that only I can have this morning. By 5:40 we are showered and ready to load Marc’s few meager possessions he will take to the hospital with him. I have the laptop, a book, and my MP3 player to keep me company while he will be in deep sleep in drug-induced la la land.

By 7:40 a.m. they shoo me from the room in which he has just gotten all prepped, save for the femoral nerve block which sinks deep into his groin and will provide blissful relief from the worst of the pain for about three days. The nerve block is an option they offer on this type of surgery but comes highly recommended. It has worked well in the past on both Marc’s shoulder and last knee replacement, but it is only recently that I read a report that an instant heart attack can occur if it is not administered properly. Great, one more thing to worry about! The anestheologist jokes around, but seems competent. He is tall and rail thin and I wonder if he is a runner who works off the stress of life and death out along the Deschutes River trails. I leave Marc with a quick kiss, and “good luck” and “I love you.”

Waiting rooms are always tedious, are they not? People come and go, some drag in and some scurry hurriedly; the TV blares in the corner ignored by most and the people occupying the chairs across from me frequently change as one by one, they are called off to surgery. I turn jazz up fairly high into my earplugs to drown out the commotion as one gal comments why was she so stupid as to not bring her laptop seeing me on mine?

I finally have high speed in which to get caught up on some of the travel blogs I follow—too picture laden to load properly on the poor connection we have on the AT&T air card so I spend the next two and a half hours doing that. It is good to catch up with Mark & Bobbie nearly wrestling grizzly bears and Mama & wannebe Papa moose in Glacier National Park (Artful Adventures) as I sink into the grandeur of Mark’s photography and then I skip over to see where world travelers Pat & Ali (bumfuzzle) are since they left Portland. Hmm, they just passed us like ships in the night; fueling up in Burns and on over the Steens Mountains. Too bad we missed meeting them (again); we have corresponded since they were on the sailboat somewhere off the eastern coast of Africa and have tried to meet on several occasions but the timing just never works. They’re now off seeing the world (again) via Volkswagen bus.

Time to unplug the music, have some coffee and wait for the doctor’s call which comes at 10:20: the surgery went well, nothing unexpected, and the knee, although bad, was a much easier surgery than the other one. Good. Marc should be out of recovery and hatin’ life by 1 p.m. when I will be free to go up to his room. He will spend the next week in pain hell and then things will get a lot better for him. (to be continued…)