Out of Surgery

Paco had a hard time sleeping last night--not, he claims, because I was snoring (though I know I was), but because he was anxious and had insomnia. At 1:00 a.m. or so, he went down to the couch for a change of scene (the guest room was inhabited by his mom who had the thankless job of getting Holly up at a less ungodly hour this morning for school). He slept for like an hour, I guess, and awoke at exactly 5:00 a.m. He's one of those freaky people who has an internal alarm clock. His surgery was scheduled for 7:30 a.m.; he was supposed to be at the hospital at 6:00 a.m.; we decided we'd leave the house at 5:40 a.m. and hoped to be late. The hospital doesn't even open its doors until 6:00 a.m. For god's sake.

We STILL got there at 6:00 a.m. Turns out there's no traffic at dawn. Who knew.

Paco got called back almost immediately to get prepped and they called me back to sit with him about 15 minutes later. We sat back there and chatted for quite some time, since we were there way too early (did I mention that?). Paco's nurse pissed me off right away by coming in and checking on him while I was sitting on the bed, and then hustling off while throwing, "It would be good if you didn't sit on the bed..." over her shoulder. Yeah, I'm crabby, but god. Why don't you just SAY, "Hey, I need you to move to a chair, thanks," instead of being all passive aggressive. Yeah, I'm starting to talk about me! Excuuuuuse me, but my ego's back hurts too! Fine!

Paco was very nervous and wanted them to give him some tranquilizers as soon as possible, but they wouldn't until his doctor showed up, and His Eminence didn't not walk through the door until 7:29 a.m. On the one hand, Paco was a little put out by the lack of happy drugs. On the other, he didn't want the doctor to have gotten up too early or anything. He might have needed to sleep off a hangover or sumpin.

Actually when the surgeon appeared, he didn't look like he does too much carousing. He looked like a cross between John Belushi and Kevin Pollack. Yeah, I'll wait for you to Google Kevin Pollack.

After his brief remarks, the nurse came in, finally, to give Paco Versed, the anti-anxiety nectar, and wouldn't you know--it doesn't seem to phase him. The man has the most weirdly drug-resistant body I've ever seen. Ibuprofen makes me drowsy, but his heart rate didn't even go down with a Versed bomb in his bloodstream. He was disappointed, but I was like, "Hang in there, they'll give you the ultimate anti-anxiety medication here in a minute," which made his heart rate go back up, heh.

They rolled him off and I went off to the waiting room to look up Lost recaps and conspiracy theories, and OMGOMGOMFG, don't even start with me on that finale, the best thing ever!!!!

A couple of hours later Kevin Belushi came out and told me all was well and it went exactly like they thought and tell him not to shower for two days (ew) and he'll be in recovery for a while and then he'll be in a room blah blah blah gotta go and surgeons are not exactly people persons are they?

So I sat there some more, and then finally I got up and asked the sullen desk worker who really needs to either FIND A NEW JOB or CHEER THE FUCK UP how I would know when Paco was out of recovery and in a room, and she mumbled that "Cortez" would call me and I said, "Cortez?" and she gave me a look like I'd insulted Cortez's mother for naming him that, when IN FACT, I was just wondering who the hell Cortez WAS, for chrissakes not everything a white person says is hate speech, LaVerne-on-Scrubs.

The point was moot, because my cell phone rang just then and it was Paco from his room, sounding perfectly normal. I acted wifely and he was all, "I'm fine," so the extent of my comforting behavior so far has been to giggle at his naked bits when he got up to walk around.

I was worried because when I first got to his room he said his leg felt exactly the same as it had before the surgery and the damn forums he reads say that if the surgery's going to work, you would immediately feel relief from the leg pain after the operation. But when he stood up a few minutes later, his face changed and he said his leg didn't hurt, and in fact, his other leg hurt a little (it didn't before) and I think that you can't make any judgment about the success/failure of this surgery until, oh, more than 1 hour after having it.

I am in his hospital room right now (free wireless!) and he has eaten a big hamburger and walked around the room quite a bit and says if nothing changes he's going to go home this afternoon instead of staying overnight. He feels much better standing and sitting than he does lying down. They gave him some morphine (again, enough to have made me act like a blithering idiot, but he is totally lucid) and so I think he should wait for that to wear off before he makes rash decisions like getting into a car with me.

All in all, he would like everyone who is interested in the back surgery that this was about what he expected it to be, except he tried not to get his hopes up.

He feared having trouble with anesthesia, but he didn't. He says the back pain is different than he thought, more of an ache, and it hurts in his hips, not his back.

That's all. He's bitching at me to hurry up and post this, and also that I need to eat something, and also hurry up and post this. GAH.