Since I knew I would be spending a majority of the day in a hospital waiting room, I took Parker to my parent's house on Wednesday.
Thursday morning, before the sun showed it's bright shiny face, the Phillips' were up and out the door.
What is it about hospital waiting rooms that make time stand still. We got there at 6:30a.m. as we were told. Josh was taken back to pre-op around 7:30- why we needed to be there at 6:30a.m. is still a mystery. He was wheelede back to the OR at 8:00a.m. Right on schedule. Then I sat. And waited. In the end, I was there from 6:30a.m. until 5:00p.m.
Waiting.
It also does not matter if you showered and put on clean underwear immediately before walking the door on the way to the hospital waiting room. When you get to the there and sit in the waiting room for a few hours, you just feel stale. Like you have not showered in at least a week and your hair looks like something people only duplicate on Halloween when they are dressing up as an extra from the Thriller video. It is a feeling similar to how one feels after any sort of plane ride.
You are kind of hungry, some would say starving even, but the thought of eating anything from the hospital salad cart is an instant hunger blocker. You look around at the other Waiters and assess which ones are capable of time-passing conversation. Not, "tell me about your sordid childhood and how your life partner is in the hospital getting treated for ED after an unfortunate accident with Viagra."
I did find such a lady who was in with her mother-in-law who was having a hip replacement. I like to meet people, but I do not need to make fast friends with someone when I feel grimy. At one point in the my conversation with this woman, who's name I do not know, had to use the facilities she began gathering her things. I told her I would watch her stuff if she returned the favor. She did and I did.
Around 11a.m. I got a call in the waiting room from the OR. Josh forgot to wear his knee brace to surgery.
Who does that?
Well, Josh does that's who.
Since the doctor did not feel he could trust Josh to keep the knee immobile, he made it immobile by putting a FULL hard cast on his leg. I'm talking hip to toes- hard cast. Don't worry, I wrote JP n NP 4eva in a heart on the cast.
The surgery itself went well and if the scar tissue heals just so, he may not have to have a second surgery. TBD.
I had to teach that night- yes I still went to work. He was spending the night at the hospital and on painkillers. I'm not heartless. Stop judging me.
When I was about to leave I was trying to have a conversation with Josh and this is how it went:
Me: Josh, can I talk to you? Can you focus for a second?
Josh: WHatwhere'smytv? HaveyoumetMyNurSeAngiE? HEEEEr HussssSBANd playS LacRossEEEee.
(By this point I have had several conversations with Angie, in front of Josh. One of these conversations that took place in front of Josh was about Angie's lacrosse playing husband.)
Me: Please try to focus!
Josh: looking at me with half open eyes and a smile on his face that says "...Ummm...what?"
Me: Penny is going to pick you up tomorrow. She has a meeting at 8:30. What time do you want her to come get you?
Josh: Well, I'd like to stay for breakfast. (He says this like the hospital is a highly rated four star hotel with breakfast people travel from all over the world to enjoy.)
Me:...ok. Don't be annoying. Be nice to the nurses.
Josh:
Cue the Sanford and Son theme music. Nikki exit stage left.
Moving on.
When I came home from work on Friday around noon Josh was in the couch- physically. Mentally, he was high as a kite on painkillers.
The next day I picked Pman up and thus began the adventure that is taking care of a slightly severely injured husband and a 10 month old with allergies.
Josh tries to do as much as possible by himself. He even took out the trash and does the dishes, a chore that is usually his anyway. Thankfully, he can even bathe himself. Well I'm guessing he is bathing. He goes into the bathroom and shuts the door. There is a lot of bumping around and I can clearly hear that the faucet is running and when Josh emerges his hair is wet.
I don't think I really WANT to know what goes on in there.
The cast on his leg is set in such a way that his leg is bent. He does not take his crutches with him if he is say throwing trash away or letting Abby out onto the deck. Since his leg is bent and he does not use his crutches for these smallish things he ends up looking like he is doing the lambada across the living room. I keep expecting to hear Ricky Ricardo banging on his bongo drum while singing Babaloo.
He did manage to flush his tooth retainer down the toilet, which was something I thought only 12 year olds did, but whatever. So this meant I had to take him to the dentist to get fitted for his permanent bridge, something we were going to do once the leg was a bit more stabilized, but whatever. While Josh was at the dentist Pmonkey and I went to Mc'D's and got some nuggets from the dollar menu as it was his lunch time and he was getting pissy. This was the first time he had nuggets.
Success! He loves them!
Just to round out the week a pipe burst in our backyard. During a nice day Pfunk and I were going to enjoy our lunch on the deck. When we got out there though we were met by Old Faithful and since I knew we were not in Yellowstone- although I have been there and I have a very amusing story about it involving a gun shaped tree branch, soggy tents and a buffalo that I will share at a later date. Anyway, we were not there at this time, so I knew something was wrong. Turns out it is not a county problem. It is not a Town of North Beach problem. No, it is a Phillips family problem to which Josh says, "I will just get some duct tape and fix it." Feeling a bit, ok extremely nervous about this I said, "Josh Phillips and a role of duct tape is NOT the answer to this problem." Thankfully it was just a cracked pipe. Someone who told us he could fix it for $50, came into our backyard, dug up the cracked pipe, replaced it with an uncracked pipe. We gave him $60-cash- for good measure and we no longer have one of the 7 Natural Wonders erupting in our backyard.
Week one- down. ?? weeks to go!
