I’m sitting in the hospital, on a bed, waiting for Carter’s surgery to start. Yes, I said surgery. The saga continues. I guess I should be thankful that I’m only stressed about logistics and not his medical condition.
After Eid was over the hospital finally called us back and I talked to a doctor and a nurse who both said, “yes, we looked at the MRI, we can remove the cyst and just call us back when you decide if you want to proceed or not.” I’m not sure how I can be more clear: let’s get this taken care of ASAP because I have a move that I’m in the middle of and this must be done before we leave the country or I’ll have to start all over again with new referrals, paperwork and headaches.
When they finally understood that I wanted to schedule the surgery, the nurse said first he had to come in for a consult with the anesthesiologist. Wait, what? I thought this was going to be a few shots of a local and a quick removal. I guess that’s not how things are done here. So I made a separate appointment to meet with the anesthesiologist, who stood us up because of an emergency, but we were able to get Carter’s bloodwork taken care of at the lab (3 vials taken for who knows what) so the visit wasn’t a total waste. Then we went back to the hospital two days later only to tell the doc that he has no allergies and no health problems and to be quizzed on his medical history.
It was at that appointment that the doc told me that Carter would be admitted to the hospital and needed to fast from both food and water because he would be given sedation that she called “sleepy medicine” and in my head I’m thinking, “This is insane. All this for a simple cyst that I swear is getting smaller by the day.” Because of course as soon as I got partway through this process it started shrinking. Or flattening. Or doing something that made it almost invisible (though it could still be felt a bit under the skin). But I had to keep plowing ahead because the law of nature would have turned it into a golf ball sized tumor the moment we got on the plane to depart for Abu Dhabi if I didn’t get it taken care off.
So this morning we came to the hospital at the crack of 7:45 and completed the admission paperwork. They brought him up to his room and asked him to put on a gown, checked for a good vein for an IV and then as soon as he was ready they came in and asked him to put his clothes back on because they were going to move us downstairs because the doctor wanted him in a room where he could be admitted overnight if necessary. I have to stop being surprised by how thorough they are being. And I laughed when they showed us into the room that Calvin and I spent 3 days in back in May. Welcome home. We better not be here that long.
Carter regowned and we headed down to the operating room. I signed paperwork, the plastic surgeon came in and told me for the 3rd time how much easier this would be if he were going to remove it from the outside, but going from the inside complicates things — which is why I told him multiple times to do it from the outside because we don’t care if he has a little scar. But whatever. I had mentioned to the anesthesiologist that I would prefer that he not be sedated if he didn’t need it (because I think it makes for an easier recovery) and the surgeon did prefer that option as well. Thank God for that. So they rolled him away and I went check 3 more items off my moving list. No time to sit and wait.
90 minutes later I was back at the hospital and they had just brought him back to the room. He said it went well, he didn’t need the extra sedation and he was just annoyed that he had to wait another 2 hours to eat or drink. A bit of a puffy upper lip and a hep-lock are the only signs that anything was ever done.
