When Good Knees Go Bad

After months of delays and rough times for mrsedgarblythe, she had knee replacement surgery yesterday. We already knew the surgeon and staff, which assuaged much anxiety. I met with the doctor immediately after he came out of surgery and he pronounced it as perfect a job as can be done.

After all she has overcome to reach this point, she deserves all the glory. We arrived for a twelve thirty surgery start time. They advised us to arrive more like eleven. Since it was a cold rainy day and we came from Tomball, we actually left out at nine fifteen.

They finally took her into surgery at two. My daughter and I ate in the cafeteria. Just before that, I took my wife's belongings back to the truck to keep from lugging it with me.

We waited until four, when my daughter had to leave to pick up her son at the day care. Then I sat until around four thirty, which is the time the doc came out. After briefing me on how wonderful it all went, he sent me to a room he told me was hers. I informed the people on the floor what was going on and went into the room. Nice, roomy. I fetched her belongings and then used the restroom in there. Before I opened the bathroom door, the staff came in and proceeded to evict me. Wrong room. They sent me to the patients' lounge, where I sat seemingly forever. At seven the fire alarm sounded. I rushed out in the hallway to see how people were treating this. There was no one in sight.

I took the elevator down, despite all I had read about elevators during a fire. It became apparent after a few minutes that people were conducting their business as normal. So I went back and waited through forty minutes of fire alarm lights and sounds.

At eight PM, I called the number they provided and gave them the code. They said she would be in her room in fifteen minutes. So, at nearly eight thirty I got to see her. They were swarming her like bees around an especially savory blossom the rest of the night. During all my waiting, I missed dinner for myself and all they gave mrsedgarblythe after she skipped any food beginning the last midnight, was an unappetizing sandwich and a tiny bottle of juice.

I spent a miserable night in a chair that was much too small, getting awakened over and over.

There were so many tubes and monitors in use on my wife all night long that I eventually had no idea what much of it was for. When I came home this morning so that I could care for the dog and do a few chores, I saw that Rocky had not eaten a bit of the food left for him. Not until we both were in the food bowl's vicinity did he eat a morsel.