It's Not Date Night

In the beginning, I wanted to keep my surgery on the down low, so I didn't tell a lot of people.  I don't know how to explain the many reasons why.  I just didn't know what to expect and I didn't want a ton of attention drawn to me as I explored this new, uncharted territory.  Mostly, I just wanted to hurry and get it over with and finish healing before the Christmas/New Year's break was over and then get on with my life.

The Doctor said it would take 6-8 weeks to fully heal.  But, who has time like that on their hands?  He said I would be completely out of commission for at least two weeks.  But, secretly, in my mind, I knew I could get lots of work done on the computer and catch up on my "how to be a better parent" book reading during those two weeks in bed.  Ha!  What did he know?

Well, it turns out that you can't read books or write coherent articles for the newspaper when you are taking narcotics around the clock.  They are fun (the meds), but make the brain kind of fuzzy and hard to concentrate or string words together in understandable sentences.  It turns out the Doctor was right and I couldn't do pretty much anything (including showering or putting on clothes without assistance for the first 9 days - what the heck?).

Well, now that I am a little more than 2 weeks out from the surgery and still wearing my pajamas every day and walking like an old lady (no offense to old ladies - but my sympathies), my surgery that was suppose to come and go like a blip on the radar is becoming more and more common place knowledge.  Plus, I started blogging about it (not that many people read this blog, but still - I guess I don't really know who reads this blog?).

And, now I have one more little side note of a story (before getting to the point of this post) to tell you something amazing!

I like to make homemade hummus, and Brian loves to eat my homemade hummus.  It is really simple to make, but every time I make it, I pull out the recipe and double check, just to make sure I don't overlook any of the ingredients.

Well, on day 1 or day 2 of my surgery (it's all fuzzy to me now), Brian wanted to make some hummus and apparently I said all of the ingredients and directions to him (in the right order) from my bed.  And, the next day, I couldn't even remember doing it!  And, the hummus turned out great.  So, I guess now I know I do have that recipe memorized.  A-mazing.

I know this has taken awhile, but I am getting to the point of this post - it's a little piece of advice about surgery not being a vacation or even an excuse for a date night.

I had my surgery early on a Wedensday morning and on Friday afternoon, the Doctor wanted me to come in so he could have a look and see how I was doing (it was his first time meeting me that I was NOT smiling, not to mention not wearing make-up and my hair was a fuzzy mess since I couldn't stand up long enough to even blow dry it after my "assisted" shower and having Brian put my support hose on - we will be such cute old people together, now I know).  Anyways, I was not smiling or feeling good at all, but they said I seemed pretty much the way I should be for post-op day 2. 

Then, we left the Doctor's office and the narcotics that were affecting my brain dissolved all reason and made me think, "Hey, my mom has the kids for the night, this is kind of like a date.  Just me and my husband driving in a car on a Friday night."  And, again, I have almost no memory of this at all, but apparently I suggested that he call Cafe Rio and order two salads to go so that we could go home and have like a "stay in" date night.  I don't recall him running in to get the salads or anything, but I do remember sitting at the table at home eating this delicious salad and thinking what a great idea I had until I got halfway through and said, "I think I am going to throw up."  And, people - regrettably, that is what I did.  And, if crying is a bad idea when you've just had major abdominal surgery, throwing up is horrible.

And, the worst part was that I had just taken my pain meds less than 10 minutes before I threw up.  So, I didn't know if I should take more pain meds.  Because if I took double, that could be a dangerous overdose.  But, if I had none in my system that could also be a recipe for disaster.  So, I called the Doctor after hours and asked him what to do and he said, "Did you see the pills in the, well, you know . . ."  And, of course I had no idea and Brian had no idea because it was all so fuzzy and confusing.  Then, he said, "Well, try to gauge your pain level and if it feels like you are in more pain then take another pain pill."

Well, Doc, here is the thing, I just heaved my guts out a mere 48-hour after having my abdomen cut open and all of the muscles stitched tightly back together to close up a hernia, so my pain level is pretty high right now, but it's kind of hard to tell which is the cause - that or the fact that the pain pill came up, you know?

So, I gave up that conversation because it was not helpful.

Anyways, it was kind of an ugly scene and I am telling you this in case you ever have surgery and you have young kids at home and you so rarely get a night without them that you start thinking you are on a date night.  Well.  You're not.

And, this kind of reminds me of the time about nine years ago when I was feeling a little burned out taking care of my little 1 and 2.5 year old babies and I was scheduled to have oral surgery.  I was so in need of a break that I said in the back of my mind, "Hmmm, being sedated and lying in a chair for a few hours sounds quite like a vacation right now."  But, there were some complications (they were working on a front top tooth) and the next day I looked like I had been punched in the mouth - which made me feel self conscious like people might see me and think I had been in a fist fight with someone.  After it was all over, I said to myself, "That was NOT a vacation."

I guess I never learn.

My Knight on a White Horse

I usually can't really relate when I read statements by wives who say their husbands are their "Knights in Shining Armor."  I mean, really?  Are other peoples' lives like that?  Are they just being dramatic?  My life doesn't often feel like a fairy tale where we are riding off in the sunset.  It's a lot of hard work.  So, things like that don't really resonate with me. 

But, now I have my own story to share and it goes like this:

On the day after Christmas, I had surgery and Brian was in charge of taking care of me for the first few days.  I was a little nervous, because, if you know Brian, you know he is a fun-loving guy and I was a little afraid that he would be too busy making wise cracks to get all the notes straight when the nurse explained the medication schedule in which I had to be given a strong narcotic every three hours.  But, if they got mixed up and I took them in the wrong order, I could stop breathing.

He drove me home from the surgery, and I was in quite a painful state, all hunched over like a little old lady, wearing my support hose to stop blood clots or something.  All the time driving home and all the time walking up to the front door, all I could think about was getting into my nice cozy bed and getting back to my sideways, acid tripping, narcotic induced dreamland.

I couldn't lay flat.  I had to have my upper body at an incline and my legs propped up.  So, Brian went about arranging the pillows.  But, when I laid down that first time, I wasn't comfortable and I was in way too much pain to be adjusting the pillows and getting them just right.  Poor Brian felt helpless and didn't know what to do.  And, I didn't know what to tell him to do.  My brain was in no state to be reasonable so I started to cry, and let me tell you right now, that crying is not a good idea after major surgery so, foggy brain or no, I had to find a way to stop that in its tracks.

Finally, the pillows were acceptable and I drifted off to sleep.

For the next several days, here is what happened:

That crazy, funny husband of mine set alarms in his new iphone 5 (Christmas gift from yours truly) and he gave me every narcotic right on time never missing a beat.  He even woke up in the night to give me my meds and he kept me virtually pain free (and in a colorful dreamland).  And, the best part?  After the first pillow fiasco, he figured out the exact right way to arrange the pillows to make me more comfortable than I could have ever thought possible. 

Truly, I would get out of bed and then back in and try to arrange the pillows myself and I was just a mess.  Then, he would appear out of nowhere and magically make it all just right.  Then, he would tuck the covers up around my chin and I have never felt so like I was married to prince charming in all my life. 

Really.  I even get a little teary now when I try to tell him thank you for doing it.  And, I know that now I sound dramatic and silly like all the other ladies writing about their husbands being their "knights" or their "princes."

But, that is just the way it is.

Christmas Symphony With Ian

Some wonderful neighbors offered us two tickets to see the Utah Symphony the week before Christmas.  I was very excited since Brian and I love the symphony, but as luck would have it, Brian had a work assignment he could not get out of the night of the performance.  I got on the phone to call around and see if I could find someone else to go with me and my musical son Ian overheard and piped up saying that he would like to go.  Well, of course I was thrilled that my 10-year-old son was asking to come to the symphony with me so - it was a date.

The performance was so, so lovely.  There was a choir and two professional singers who just blew us to the backs of our seats with their voices.  The songs were all delightful, mostly a medley of favorite Christmas tunes.  When I glanced down at the program, I noticed that "O Holy Night" was near the end.  That is one of my all time favorite Christmas songs and here is a story of why:

In the fall of 1997, I got to attend a semester abroad at BYU Jerusalem.  It was one of the most blessed and wonder filled times in my life.  The Jerusalem center was like living in a palace.  I'm not just saying all of this in glossed over retrospect, I really felt that way even when I lived there.  It is a true architectural wonder.  I had a balcony and my own personal rose garden just off of my bedroom with a magnificent view of the city and the most amazing professors ever.  It was a magical time in my life.

Each Sunday, we attended sacrament meeting on the upper floor of the center which had stadium style seating facing a two-story solid glass window that overlooked the city from the Mount of Olives.  Can you imagine how blessed to get to attend sacrament meeting under such circumstances every Sunday?

Toward the end of our stay (we went back home just before Christmas) we had an evening talent show in the upper room and one of my roommates sang the song "O Holy Night."  To this day, I have to say, it was the most beautiful rendition I have ever heard.  I would hear her on the upper floor practicing for weeks before the performance and the workers would stop their duties and tell her she should travel the world as a performer, so beautiful was her voice.

After I came home from my time in Jerusalem, each Christmas when I would hear that song I would be instantly transported back to that beautiful room with the magnificent view and I would hear my roommate's unforgettable voice in my mind.  It often brought a tear to my eye thinking back to that very sacred time in my life.

As the years went on, I went through some rough patches in life, and one year at Christmas I heard the song and the tears came, but after awhile, I realized that they weren't happy tears of joyful memories, they were bitter tears because my life in that moment was so much the opposite of the blessed life I had experienced back in my castle in Jerusalem.  And the years went on like that.  Sometimes, the song took me back to a happy spot and other times the contrast was too great and a bit of sadness set in.

When I saw the song on the program, I wondered if it would transform me back in time the way it had so many times before.  But, when it came, something different happened.  Instead of seeing that wondrous, beautiful setting of old and instead of hearing the gorgeous voice in my head of my roommate, I felt a sudden clarity that we are sometimes blessed to feel in life.  A clarity of being completely present right there in that moment.  I felt so blessed to be sitting in those center row balcony seats enjoying such an inspiring performance.  I felt so grateful for the thoughtful neighbors who had given us this gift.  And, most of all, I felt like the luckiest person ever to be sitting next to the most awesome 10-year-old boy I have ever known and to get to be his mom.

I didn't need to be transported back to that blessed moment in my life because the moment I was in happened to be just perfect.