Hospitals are No Fun

...Unless you're with my mom and have got the giggles.

I spent twelve hours at Mount Sinai Hospital today. My mother went in for major surgery. It's routine, apparently, they do it all the time - but for the person going under the knife, it's fairly out of the freaking ordinary. She was in for abdominal surgery - One ovary with a cyst to come out for sure, and once they took a peek inside the ol' tummy, if things looked bad (i.e. cancerous) the whole uterus would be coming out. It was scary before it even started.

We get into her semi-private room after navigating past the bitchy check-in lady. Luckily the room's other occupant is out - in surgery already - so we can get settled our own way. Bed goes up, bed goes down. Bed goes up, bed goes down. We give each other tense raised-eyebrow looks when we hear painful moaning from down the hall.
"Great." Says my mother, "That's a good sign."
"We're right near Maternity," I suggest, "maybe someone's having a baby."
My mother maintains that she would rather give birth than go to the dentist, and thus declares that that was no baby labour, but some poor woman in "big-time pain."
She gets into her icky hospital gown, and tops it with a pretty floral kimono housecoat bought for the occasion. We are not ladies who go gently into the ugly and unfashionable night. I'm distracting her with pictures of my bridal shower on my laptop when a doctor in scrubs comes in. He asks a few questions about her impending surgery and medical history. Then he starts to pitch her on a medical trial they're doing at the hospital for post-op drugs that reduce nausea and vomiting from general anesthetic. I can tell she's a little confused and not really paying attention - like, you're not my doctor so why are you nattering at me? She cuts right to the chase: "You want me to be in a study?" We debate and finally decide to do it, in the hopes that the drugs really would reduce her discomfort on recovery. The doctor asks her some more questions:
"You're not by any chance pregnant?"
Raised eyebrows and look of disbelief. Gestures at me: "Uh, this is my daughter."
We're not sure he gets it. Maybe he believes she misunderstood the question. He soldiers on bravely:
"Are you breastfeeding?"
"Yeah. I'm breastfeeding."
"Really...Oh..." (looks flustered and disappointed)
"No - I'm not breastfeeding!!!!"
The man is humourless. Maybe he isn't used to patients making silly jokes.
Then he describes what will be required of her - it involves answering a little survey about how you're feeling every few hours on a Palm Pilot. My mom cuts him off:
"You're assuming I can use one of those things."
"Oh, it's very easy - if you can use computers" He gestures at my laptop.
"Oh, no no no," my mom laughs, "I can't even turn that thing on." NOW he thinks she's joking. I agree to help with the data entry. Lord knows I've got enough experience with that.
The real doctors arrive to get my mom ready to go, and Dr. Trials scurries away when they give him "what are you doing here?" looks.
Once they've loaded my mom onto the gurney we roll into the elevator, down to the operating floor and then they park her in what feels like a loading bay. "We've got Mrs. M in Dock 3." Ready for shipping. We giggle. Dr. Trials is hovering about, brandishing the Palm Pilot and reminding me to input data. The O.R. nurses shoo him away.
I watch too many hospital dramas, so while I am surprised that my mom doesn't start "crashing" right there in front of me, I am actually relieved when a very cute doctor comes up to talk to her about her surgery. If he's good looking she must be in good hands, right? Then a coldly efficient lady introduces herself as the intern that will be helping. Oooo...the cute friendly one and the icy but talented and ambitious one. I can hardly believe that he doesn't break through her facade with some witty banter and that they don't start making out right there.
Then they wheel my mom off through the doors.
I'm directionless.
I go out on to University Avenue and sit on a planter. I stare at the traffic. It will be at least 3 hours before anyone tells me anything.
I call my dad to let him know she's gone in. I call my mom's best friend and tell her my mom was in pretty good spirits. I call my husband and almost cry.
I'm torn - I don't want to sit in the Waiting Room all day, but I feel like I shouldn't leave the hospital. What if they need me for something? What if she needs me? I decide to run home, eat lunch and be back in a couple hours. It's a beautiful day out, and I'm shocked in the way that people going through personal drama tend to be at all the people out enjoying it. It's all hospitals on University Ave. and I feel like pointing out to strangers that mere feet away, inside those walls, all those walls, people are sick, people are very sick, people are having surgery! My mom is one of them!
When I get back to the hospital, card and fresh bouquet of flowers in hand, I check in with the Surgical Waiting Room. Under my mom's name they have written (daughter) and an extension I am to call. I am totally freaked out. It is too early for her to be out, isn't it? When I call the extension I reach the Paging service for the hospital. They have no idea why I'd have been given their number. Clearly the Waiting Room staff are morons and were supposed to page ME. Clearly something bad has happened. I rush up to my mom's room but she's not in it. I ask the Nurse's Station if they know anything. They say to ask the Surgical Waiting Room. I explain the moron theory, and the nurse agrees. She calls someone, somewhere, and I'm told that my mom is out of surgery recovery and on her way back up to the room. It's not nearly enough info but it's way better than "dead". I have just enough time to arrange the flowers before they bring her in.
It's all good news - they only removed the one ovary, it looks normal, and she's had a smooth recovery so far (no vomiting). She's on morphine (ah, morphine) at the moment but not on a pump. They didn't have to do anything awful like a catheter.
Dr. Trials sneaks in. ("Poor bugger..." my mom says to me in her morphine haze, genuinely concerned, "they wouldn't even let him in the recovery room.") I assure him that I'll do the survey for her, he says he'll be back to do blood tests. Icy Efficient Intern ("Oh, I didn't recognize you without your silly hat!") lets my mom know that surgery went well. My dad pops up from work to see how she's doing. The first thing he does after kissing her hello is slip her wedding band back on her hand. It must have been heavy there in his pocket for the past few hours.
Public Service Announcement: Do not wear perfume or scented products to hospitals. Especially post-op rooms. And when the husband of the woman in the next bed over mentions that it's making his wife feel nauseous, don't lie and say that you aren't wearing any. Even her daughter 15 feet away can smell the cheap spritzes that you've tried to use to hide the tobacco smoke stink, lady.
Surreal moment of the day: We think my mom might puke from the olfactory assault, my dad gets the nurse, who shoves the puke-pan in my hand and leaves. A new nurse comes in wheeling a crazy machine with all sorts of wires and starts attaching electrodes all over my mom. Mom doesn't puke but we try to fan the smell away from her. So there she is, all hooked up to Robbie the Robot, with me fanning her with a barf-bucket. Once the nausea passes, we giggle.
The next few hours are hospital-bland: she sleeps, we chat, she sleeps. Dr. Trials is back a few times ("Oh no, not you again!" exclaims my mom at one point, and tries to hide under her bedsheets). He tries to take blood samples ("That hurt worse than having my ovary out!"). He tells her that at the end of the study, she'll get a small financial reward, like $150. ("Fab!" she declares, "I can get my hair done!") We decide that the theme for the day is "Having Surgery for Fun and Profit".
She got to go home that night.
It was hard to go through it with my mom. I think what upset me the most was that it meant crossing a definite line - while I no longer need to be looked after by her in any significant way, I was not yet ready to switch into the role of caregiver. Yes, she'll recover, and yes, it's temporary, but it was still very hard to be the grown-up to my Number One Grown-Up. She's normally the one who is good in a crisis (except for that one time at the cottage where she cut her hand and she and my sister both just stood there screaming and staring at it bleed), and she's the one who gives good pep talks and acts as champion. I guess it's okay when I put it to good use since I get all of that from her.