Bloody Mess

My husband is a large, tough man. He once was bitten by a brown recluse, and the brown recluse was sorry. He sawed his finger lengthwise in a table saw and drove himself to the hospital in a truck with no power steering.

But, a small kidney stone knocked him on his butt. He has been in pain since July, but this week things got wack. He couldn't sleep, and he writhed in pain constantly. Then he had a very important meeting with some very important people. During the meeting he squirmed in his chair like a small child. A small child howling in pain. That is how we knew something must be done.

Yesterday we spent the entire day at the hospital preparing for surgery, having surgery, recovering from surgery. Preparing for surgery must be very important because that was the longest part of the day. They stuck the two of us in a room and told Mike to put on a pretty gown. Apparently they thought that would take about five hours because that is how long we sat in that room. When the nurse had to ask us to keep our laughter quiet, she decided that we really have fun together. Actually, we were just on the brink of insanity. We don't like small rooms.

The surgery went fine and we were instructed to let Mike sleep off the anesthesia as long as he wanted. He slept as if dead for 45 minutes and then stood suddenly shouting, "Let's go home!"

"Ok," I told him. "Let me go find the nurse so she can remove your IV."
"I will just pull it out myself."
"NO!" I said in a panic. "That is a VERY bad idea! I will get the nurse."

I walked away to get the nurse, but when I glanced back I saw Mike tugging at his IV.

"STOP!" I shouted as I ran back to him. "I will find the nurse."
"I just want to go home."
"I know. Just wait two minutes, and I will get the nurse."

Again I walked away to get the nurse. Again I glanced back to see Mike tugging at his IV.

"STOP STOP STOP!"

Apparently he must have thought I meant the complete opposite of stop, because what he did was to continue. I knew I was fighting a losing battle because my husband was a deadly mixture of very tough and drugged up. A bad combination. For a second I thought to myself that it would probably be fine if he just ripped it out himself because I had watched TV and the tough guys on there always rip their IV out and it all turns out just fine.

TV is a lying beast. As soon as he pulled the needle out of his skin, blood sprayed EVERYWHERE! Blood poured from the back of his hand down his arm and dripped from his elbow. The chair he was supposed to be sitting in was covered with blood. The floor was covered with blood. The table and the Kleenex box was covered with blood. It looked as if we had sacrificed a chicken.

Blood makes me all fainty.

The nurse didn't like us.