Just Call Me Florence...

...as in Nightingale.

Things are starting to get back to mostly normal here at home. It will be six weeks to the day this coming Monday since the Big B had his back sliced open and metal screws and plates grafted onto his spine.

He's fairly self-sufficient now, unless whatever he needs is below his knees. Doc's orders--no bending, twisting, or lifting more than five pounds, but I've caught him lifting one of our cats, and I'm pretty sure our humongous laptop weighs well over his restriction.

My man is extremely stubborn (only way he'd survive me!) and I've been both fascinated and horrified with the way I've turned into a mother hen since he was released back home from the hospital.

That first week after he returned home was insane. I had taken that entire week off and the following Monday & Tuesday with the caution that I may either be back sooner or need more time, depending on how things went.

It went both as I expected and not as I expected.

The surgery was Monday 2/28. The Big B got the all-clear to go home on Wednesday. While I was out of work for the time being, I still had classes to attend so I zipped over to the hospital after my lunchtime class and prepared to get him home.

The car ride just about killed him. If you don't have the pleasure of living in a climate that has a fairly drastic change in seasons, you may not understand imtimately how your driving experience is affected by potholes. Here in lovely Minnesota, springtime driving is hazardous to you, your car, and your pocketbook, if you are unfortunate enough to hit a nasty pothole that bites back.

The hospital where he had been staying for the past 3 days is in South Minneapolis, not the greatest of neighborhoods, and I swear, the roads over there are just one big crater. I tried to drive ever-so-carefully, knowing that every bump, twist, and turn was skewering him with pain.

Thankfully, the entrance to the (relatively) smoother freeway wasn't that far away, and we don't live too far outside Minneaplis proper so we were home in 15 short minutes. I did my best--I'm sure I've never shifted gears so smoothly in my entire life before. Nevertheless, by the time we got home he was pale and definitely hurting. It took us 20 minutes just to get him out of the car and into the house. I felt helpless--I couldn't really do much besides watch him struggle to move the tiniest bit.

The hospital staff told him the more he could move on his own, the less painful it would be. My role over the next few days became that of a mobile, walking, talking handrail support. Instead of me trying to lift him, I simply provided an arm or two that he could grab and use as leverage to move himself the smallest fractions left or right.

Great workout though. I could really feel it in my thighs and forearms, everytime I helped lower him to a sitting position or to stand up. We had some trial and error until we got a really good system worked out on how to get him around with minimum of pain on his part.

I was determined to be the best wife nursemaid in the history of wifey nursemaids. That first day home, after he was settled in the spare bedroom downstairs (no way was he making it up the stairs to our 2nd floor bedroom), cradled on every conceivable side with pillows, it was about 4:30pm. We had people coming over to play D&D (our bi-weekly group who plays pre-built modules). B had said D&D could go on despite his return, so I didn't cancel. He had fallen asleep and I started cooking, running in to check on him every 10 min or so in case he needed me since I can't hear anything from the rest of the house if I'm in the kitchen.

About 6:30 I realized I had already gotten off to a bad start as Most-Excellent-Nursemaid-Ever. The hospital had warned us to stay ahead of the pain with his medication. He was supposed to have gotten two pills at 5:00, but in my misguided helpfulness I thought he would need the sleep after his ordeal.

Wrong!

That was a bad night for the Big B. Eventually we got on a schedule (helped along by keeping a record of when each type of pill was taken and when). We didn't let the pain get ahead of the meds so severely again.

The next few days were a whirlwind. Every 2-3 hours we were awake, making sure he took his pills, did his breather exercise to ensure pneumonia hadn't set in, took his temp to check for signs of infection, and took a look at his incisions to make sure they weren't swelling or looking nastier than they should. A girlfriend of mine came over Friday after she got off work and I was still feeling very disheveled and whacked out. My friend K who came over that Friday laughed after visiting our bathroom and says, "Do you know that you have a box of Glad Press N Seal next to your bathroom sink?"

She laughed for several seconds straight when I told her it was for showering the Big B.

"When you said you had to put press and seal on him before he showered, I didn't realize you actually meant it!" she cries between tears of mirth.

Don't knock it--the doctor said cling wrap but I know that stuff doesn't work one bit. I love my Press N Seal and now you all know that if you need to keep a wound dry, that's the first place you should turn to.

This is pretty gross but it was a lot worse earlier.

Unfortunately (fortunately?) I didn't think to get a picture of what it looked like right after he got home. Take my word for it, they were gross. You can't tell from here, but his back has a huge bump right where the incisions are.

They seem so little for so much pain, and so much potential healing. Big things in small packages!

I tried very hard to remember what he could & couldn't do, so that I could make things as easy as possible for us both. One night however, I forgot to leave the toilet seat up for him. I had finally gone to bed upstairs and he told me later he felt so bad and knew how tired I was from not getting any solid sleep, that rather than call me to come down and lift the seat for him, he hunted around downstairs for the proper "seat-lifting implements". Finally he spotted a roll of Christmas wrapping paper and got very creative with it and was able to get the lids up so he could pee.

We left the roll in the bathroom, just in case.


One thing I worried about was how this would affect us, as a couple.

Would we break under the stress? or would we pull together and come out strong on the other side?

Turns out, we're pretty solid. Perhaps it was because we were both hyper-aware of what the other was going through. Me, knowing how painful this was for him and ready to make allowances for any crabbiness he showed. He, knowing how m uch I would have to do while he was laid up, making tremendous efforts not to snap and take the pain out on me.

Whatever the reason, I ended up having some of the best times of our marriage so far during that 2-week period I stayed home to care for my healing hubby.
 I know have at least some idea of what to expect once we have littles, but at least in that case there will be the two of us working together.

This is about 4 weeks after the surgery. Looking good!

Things are almost completely normalized now. His follow up appointment is just before tax day, and the pax Doll-house has ended and we're back to our usual bickering and heated discussions about whether he said it first or I did. I can leave the lid on the toilet down now, and he can shower himself except for his lower legs, at which point he calls me in and I go to work soaping his barely-there calves (his chicken legs are something I tease him often about, since my own calves are muscular and round-ish).

I'm going to miss playing Florence Nightingale to his wounded soldier. We tested our mettle and did not find our relationship wanting.

My confidence that we can survive anything, even kidlets, is now boundless.