Friday, March 11, 2011

A not so typical couple of Spaz days - now with tweet goodness!

The past couple of days have been a whirlwind of activity here in Spazland.

Yesterday was shopping day for eBay inventory. But first I ignored my 7 am alarm clock completely and didn't wake up until 10. What? Kids need to go to school?

Rather than come face to face with the death stare of Munchkin's punctilious 4th grade teacher (word of the day brought to you by Domestic Spaz and dictionary.com), I decided the little goblins could stay home and clean their rooms (I was delusional). I left them in the care of The Man, packed a fat wad of cash in the back pocket of my jeans, and ran off to shop.



(If you followed me on twitter you'd know all of this stuff already.)

After my super awesome score of goodies, I ran home to grab Munchkin for her girl scout meeting where we had an awesome meeting. All the girls took home blue light-bulbs to put on their front porches to light it up blue for Autism in honor of one of the sweetest girl scouts in the world who we're lucky enough to have in our troop.

After our meeting, I got to wash Bug in some crazy antiseptic antimicrobial soap that the hospital told me to buy. It smells all mediciney and Bug hated it but I'm fairly certain that any germs that came into contact with Bug after his bath exploded on impact.

Then I stayed up way too late tying up loose ends and packing for the hospital and making sure my family could function without me for a couple of days.

Early this morning I hopped out of bed, and by hopped I mean dragged myself with much groaning and whining, so I could package up a bunch of eBay stuff. I poured myself two cups of the strongest coffee I could make and got to work.

About a half hour was devoted to absorbing the horrible news about the earthquake in Japan and the following tsunami and freaking out that California was going to be under water within the morning. I composed myself and actually did my work and then at 7:30 I took the younger goobers to school.

Then it was home to wake up Bug and then off to the hospital.


Almost. First I had to stop at the elementary school and turn in the registration papers for Bug to start school after Spring Break and then I had to stop at the post office to drop off all those packages. And then we were off to the hospital.

Bug started to freak out about halfway through the 45 minute drive. Upon arrival at the hospital he was temporarily distracted by tsunami video on CNN which was playing in the waiting room. But the freak out happened all over again once they brought him back into the triage area where all the doctors came and talked to him.

He yelled very loudly that he was scared the surgeon was going to accidentally KILL HIM!!!

Teddy bears and crayons were offered, they did not help him to feel any better. So that's when the anesthesiologist came by and offered Bug a nice cherry drink. And since he was starving and dehydrated because he hadn't had anything to eat since my dad bought him a Big Mac (that's what grandparents are for, I hear) the night before, he gladly drank down the cherry drink.

Also known as a barbiturate.

In about a half hour, Bug thought everything was funny. His fingers were funny, the blanket was funny, the fact that he was only wearing socks, underwear, and a backless gown was hilarious. And I kicked myself for not bringing a video camera. It could have gone viral like this kid.

And then it was time to take him back to surgery. I said good bye to my little man, as he giggled at the scrub cap they put on his head, and watched him wheel away.

The nurse told me to wait in the waiting room and that it should only be an hour or so.

So I waited. And my cell phone battery died. And I realized I didn't bring the charger to it.

And then two women came into the waiting room and sat down. Woman #1 had a piece of birthday cake on a plate. Woman #2 had the rest of the birthday cake in a box from the grocery store. Woman #1 inhaled her piece in a ridiculously rapid fashion and then demanded that Woman #2 throw it in the trash can for her.

After #2 did #1's bidding, #2 sat down with her box of cake and started shoveling large clumps of white and pink frosted chocolate birthday cake into her mouth using a plastic butter knife.

I am not kidding.

I tried to look away, but frankly I was horrified.

And then I tried not to judge because I figured they must have a loved one in surgery and people do weird things like eat massive amounts of birthday cake when they're stressed. In the waiting room at a hospital, straight from the box, using a plastic butter knife as a utensil. That's normal, right?

After a little while, #2 exhaled really loudly and put the box of cake down. Then she left the waiting room. I'm just guessing, but I bet she went to the bathroom to upchuck. At least that's what I would have done had I found myself in her situation.

While #2 was gone, #1 fell asleep in her chair. She started snoring loudly. So loudly that she would periodically wake herself up, stretch, and then act like she hadn't been sleeping. And then she'd fall back asleep again.

After a little while, #2 returned, and then a guy came in and sat a few seats over from me. Guy sat down and immediately started doing one of those nervous foot shake things. You know the ones.

Since all the seats were connected, he was shaking the heck out of me and my Reader's Digest article that my mom gave me about a month ago to read and I promised her I would. (I was just waiting for the right time, Mom, and don't you agree I picked it?)

I contemplated asking him to stop, but thought I probably shouldn't judge... I mean... he, too, was waiting for a loved one in surgery and I can totally understand a little foot twitching.

Then I thought maybe I should just move to another row of seats... but then I thought that would seem rude. So I stayed and tried to hold my Reader's Digest still so the words didn't blur so much.

#2 got up and went to a little desk in the back of the room and proceeded to use the phone there to call all of her closest friends. She laughed and gabbed in the back, occasionally snorting with laughter. #1 slept through most of it.

All of this fun went on for a long time. Long enough for me to read the entire Reader's Digest from front to back, bad jokes and all. I even read the article about the guy who was attacked by a polar bear.

There was no clock in the waiting room and my cell phone was dead so the concept of time was completely lost on me. And then I remembered I had brought my Blackberry! My Blackberry which is not active as a cell phone but makes a great alarm clock for use when you are staying overnight at the hospital!

And that's when I realized it had been over 2 hours.

And then my mommy brain started to panic. No one had come to get me. It was only supposed to be an hour. SOMETHING MUST HAVE GONE WRONG!!!!!

I tried to control myself but that only lasted about 15 seconds before I was out of there and back in the original triage room demanding information.

Well, they calmly said, no one picked up the phone in the waiting room when we tried to call you to tell you that Bug was out of surgery.

There was so much wrong with that statement I don't even know where to start.

First of all, even if the phone in the waiting room had rung I wouldn't have picked it up. No one told me I was supposed to wait on a PHONE CALL. Why in the hell would I pick up a random phone in a hospital?

Second of all, of course no one picked it up. #2 spent the last who-knows-how-long gabbing to her friends on it!

And lastly, if no one picked up the damn phone, why didn't anyone take the thirty seconds it would have taken to WALK INTO THE WAITING ROOM and see if I was there?

I think I may have shot some laser beams out of my eyeballs at the nurse who uttered this sentence to me before she quickly smiled and told me she'd walk me to him.

And there I found my little Bug. Just waking up from anesthesia and super groggy and grumpy and sore. And doing just fine.

And now I can get some sleep.


2 comments:

Liz said...[Reply to comment]

Birthday cake? Plastic butter knife? Waaah?!

Unknown said...[Reply to comment]

I know. It was like I was temporarily living in some alternate reality where that was a completely normal thing to see in the waiting room of a hospital. So freaking weird.