Saturday marked my last day in ICU. I was happy and excited. The problem with happiness and excitement is: They fade, and sometimes as fast as a drop of water on a summer sidewalk in Phoenix Arizona.
I ate a good breakfast, and the guy came into take my lumbar drain out. Now this is also something they don't share in the vacation literature. The drain comes out, but they have to seal it up.
So they had me roll over on my side, and I felt the drain come out of my spine. That was a little uncomfortable, then the guy said, "OK, now I am going to staple you shut."
"What the...!!!"
I felt the first staple go in and I heard the ca-chunk. then the second staple. I could only imaging what it looked like. I was being sealed like a bag before being shipped on a FedEx truck. Ca-chunk! Ca-chunk!
It felt like he put in five staples, but the ICU nurse told my wife it was only two. Now I had to lay on my back for nine hours without moving, to make sure the patch worked. I did just that.
I was again disoriented, the pain in my lower back, now matched my head, neck and shoulders. I was not going to go through that again. So when the lady came in to take my blood, I told her she couldn't, because I thought she wanted me to sit up. My wife was in the room, and apparently I was not making any sense. After my wife explained why she was doing this, I let her. It's alright, she exacted her revenge. She took out one of the needles, and pressed hard enough to leave a bruise on my arm.
I ate laying down, and then the doctor came in, told me that I would be going home on the next day. Home, I wanted to go home, to get out of the hospital, and if I could go home on Sunday, than my wife would not have to take another day off work.
I still had not had a BM, but my wife and the nurses said for me not to worry.
That evening after my wife and children went home, about 7:30, I was sitting up in my chair, and a gargantuan pain came over my head, it felt like one of J.R.R Token's Orks was squishing my head between his hands, just to put my brain jelly on his toast. I bent forward to try to relieve the pain, and my nose started bleeding. The last time I had a bloody nose I was in the ninth grade, and even though I just had brain surgery, I did not know if this was important.
I rang the nurse. "Just one moment," she said.
Ten minutes past, my nose still bleeding, putting my head back, only cause my head to ache more, and my ears to ring, so I was kinda stuck.
I rang again. "I said just a moment,"
Which I retorted. "A moment is at most sixty seconds, I rang 10 minutes ago."
"We will be there as soon as we can."
So I started yelling into the hall, and a doctor (not mine) came into the room, helped me to my bed, and got my nurse. I was ready to go home. Even with my wife working away from home, I would understand 10 minutes to get to me.
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