For those of you who weren’t up-to-date, Tom has had a bump on his wrist for some time now (I think it appeared after he broke his wrist) and it has recently become painful. He went to get it checked out (at my urging, of course, since he doesn’t like to admit to pain) and they said it was a ganglion cyst and should be removed.
So yesterday was the surgery. We had to drive to Wilmington (an hour away) so I had to take the day off. (I was actually looking forward to the waiting time, since I had postponed starting the new Harry Potter book for this occasion.) It was a loooong day for him—he had duty the night before, so he came home at 8 and we left by 8:30. He didn’t have to be there until 10:30, but I wasn’t taking any chances of being late since you never know about traffic or weather (it’s been stormy here lately). So we got there about 10 and after he was prepped for surgery I got called back to sit with him…for an hour and a half (12:30). Such a waste of time, the waiting. There was no need for it. (I guess we were there early in case the doc was ready earlier?) The doctor was’t sure whether the cyst was attached to the bone or nerve (I think) so depending on which it was, they may have had to scope the rest of the wrist. Anyway, he got out of surgery at 2, and I sat with him while he woke up. I never got to talk to the doctor again, so I have no idea what actually happened—where the cyst was connected and/or if they had to scope the wrist. So, either the doctor came out and just talked to Tom (which I doubt) or he forgot to come talk to us at all. And I was too into making sure he ate his crackers and drank his Coke…and forgot all about asking for the doctor!
At one point shortly after, the nurse came over and asked him “So, how’s the pain?” and he said “Not bad.” She asked, on a scale of 1 (no pain) to 10 (extreme pain) what level it was and he said, “Oh….7.” She laughed and said “Seven? Not bad is seven?” I said “He’s a marine.” 🙂 He felt really groggy and sick (said it felt like the worst hangover ever) and easily took the pain meds offered. We tried to leave about 3:30 but he wasn’t too steady on his feet and he turned green (or so they told me—I had gone to get the car) so they hooked him up to get more fluids and I got to read more Harry Potter!
We ended up leaving about 4 and we were both starving (I hadn’t eaten since 7:30 and he hadn’t eaten since midnight the night before) so I asked if he felt okay enough to go sit down and eat somewhere (he was still quite drowsy from the drugs). He said he was, so we stopped at Macaroni Grill. He looked and felt much better after eating a good meal. So good, in fact, that he suggested going to World Market (in the same plaza) to see if they had any islands for our kitchen…and they did, so we ended up buying it. (It’s not the perfect size, but it was close enough and we were able to see it in person, which was what Tom really wanted. We had found a bunch online that we liked, but he was afraid the quality wouldn’t be good.) So he slept on the way home and didn’t want to take any drugs when we got home. He said he didn’t like taking drugs and didn’t want to be foggy…but come this morning, he was taking the pills!
So he’s home from work for (I think) ten days or two weeks. If I remember right, they wanted him to take off some insane amount like 30 days to recoup but he can’t do that. For the next week, he just can’t lift anything heavier than a can of pop, but it hasn’t stopped him from doing stuff around the house already! He put together the island (he assured me he only used one arm to get it into the house) and he’s unpacking boxes!
What a trouper!