Waiting to Pee

It started at 4 o’clock this morning when both of our alarms went off at almost the same second. That’s not a good time for me. When I was younger and just getting home at 4 a.m., I handled early hours much better. And it’s infinitely easier to go to bed at 4 in the morning after a night of doing things that I’m not going to talk about (I have a constitutional right to not incriminate myself) than it is to get up at that un-Godly hour after a boring and blissful evening sitting at home.

When we did get on the road, I remembered yet again why I don’t drive at night. Between the time the sun goes down and comes up again, I have little to no depth-perception. The road in front of me curves where there are no curves and narrows where it does not. The normal optical tricks of perspective multiply exponentially to the point that I can’t tell where the road goes until I get there.

Road signs might as well not exist. I can’t read them until it’s too late to take the right exit. Sometimes I can’t read them at all.

So I missed the exit to the hospital because the sign identifying the street was only 2 or 3 seconds away from the last chance to take it.

I took the next exit, made a left, then another into a McDonalds’ parking lot with the intent of cutting through back to the highway. Turns out the street I had landed on was one-way, going away from where I needed to get.

On the other side of the parking lot, the street was one-way going the direction I needed, but it was divided by a barrier. The part I could get on didn’t go where I was headed. I didn’t even realize it was one-way until I pulled out onto it going the wrong direction.

A quick right turn put me back on a two way street. So down the way, past the original one-way street that had landed me in traffic-planning hell to a funeral home parking lot where I could turn around and go back down the same two-way street to get on the one-way street that finally took me to the highway.

All of this in the dark at 6 a.m. on 4 ½ hours sleep with bad eyes.

We made it to the hospital on time, and even had enough leeway for one final cigarette (for Shannon at least) until we went in. (The only benefit of getting there so early in the morning is that I didn’t have to park four blocks away. I got what someone I know calls “rock-star parking”.)

After checking in at the out-patient surgery desk on time at 6:30, we waited. They had given us one of those buzzing-flashy coaster things that some restaurants use to tell you when you table is ready, and as people trickled in, everyone’s coaster went off but ours. When it went off we were supposed to go through the “authorized personnel only” doors to see what was next.

Kind of like a game show.

We waited 45 minutes, and finally got our chance to go through the magic doors.

Our coaster flashed and buzzed, so we went in to sign waivers that pretty much said that they were not responsible for anything. That was what was behind the magic door.

That done, they whisked Shannon away for pre-op, told me to wait until my coaster did its thing again, then go through first set of magic doors to a second glass door. “Follow the red line. Push the silver button on the wall, and the door will open. It’ll be 10-20 minutes. Just depends on him.”

2 hours and 15 minutes later, they finally summoned me. The hold up was that Shannon couldn’t pee. He’d been trying for 2 hours, but with no liquids since midnight, he didn’t have anything to contribute. The anesthesiologist wanted a tox screen before he put him under, just to be sure that Shannon hadn’t been out the night before snorting coke, smoking crack or shooting up heroin. I assured them that he had not.

So they gave up on the pee sample and took him on in for the main event. I asked the nurse how long would it be and did I have time to get something to eat. It was after 10, and I was starving.

She said they had him booked in the OR for an hour, so allow that, plus 30 minutes to one hour more. He was going to be taking a nap, and they can’t always predict how long it takes someone to wake up from one.

He got to take the nap that I desperately wanted, but I went in search of food, instead. And also ditched his clothes that they gave me in a plastic bag, his cane and coat in the car with rock-star parking so I wouldn’t have to tote them along with a tray when I finally found food.

The cafeteria at the VA’s hospital in Temple is okay, but nowhere as good as Seton’s in Austin, but much better than the Methodist Hospital in Memphis. Seton always has heart-healthy options, like baked chicken and fresh veggies. Methodist has over-cooked canned veggies, macaroni and cheese and fried whatever-you-want. The VA had a mixture: the option of a salad bar, sandwiches or fried chicken.

Being a dyed-in-the-wool Southern boy, I went for the fried chicken with fried potato wedges. (We call then Jo-Jo potatoes up north in the south. Not sure why, but the ones up there are better.) Not knowing when I’d have a chance to eat again, I went for the heartier meal.

(Rating hospital food must be a sign of aging, by the way. I've been around long enough to be able to do it.)

After eating, retrieving his clothes, cane and coat from the car, I went back upstairs to wait for my coaster to go off again. Wait and wait and wait.

2 hours later, the surgeon came out to tell me things went fine. Shannon was awake and alert. The doctor didn’t anticipate any problems. They would buzz and flash me back soon.

An hour later, the trusty coaster hailed me back behind the magic doors. He was fine, sitting up and eating a tuna fish sandwich. He was ready to go. As soon as he peed.

Three small sodas, three glasses of water and two containers of orange juice later, we were still waiting for his bladder to work. He doesn’t pee well on a good day, so having to pee behind a curtain with noise all around and someone waiting for it makes it almost impossible. But they wouldn’t let him go until he did.

I was ready to take the IV out myself, give him his clothes back and make a run for it.

Instead, I picked up his prescription from the pharmacy and got a big cup of iced-tea from the cafeteria. (He had fluids coming at him from everywhere, but I’d been sitting in a waiting room, parched and dry.)

In the end, we spent most of the day waiting for Shannon to pee.

We got back 11 hours after we got up.

All to get a small toe fixed.

Right now, there’s something that looks like a push-pin coming out of his second left one. The ice bag on his ankle (I don’t know why the ankle, but that’s where they said to put it) has to be taken off and put back on every 20 minutes. And he is to stay off his feet as much as possible.

Still, it was necessary. And I’ve come to expect that anything involving Shannon and hospitals will not be easy.

This time, I didn’t anticipate the source of the difficulty.

After all, who would have expected that it would take four hours for anybody to take a whiz?