Thursday, July 19, 2012

Day 3: Waiting during surgery...

The nurses wheeled Kevin away this morning a little before 9:00am today. It's been a kind of a weird, distorted last 12 or so hours for me. 

It's probably not helping that I haven't been sleeping well, nothing other than cat naps in Kevin's hospital bed while he was out doing tests during the last two days. The nurses let me stay this last night in Kevin's hospital room but in retrospect I probably should have gone back to my dorm and slept, but I wanted to be near Kevin. In the end, they gave him a super strong sleeping pill that knocked him the fuck out, and I ended up awake the entire night. The really didn't design this hospital for overnight guests (hard chairs, tiny hospital beds) and I spent twelve hours trying not to disturb Kevin while at the same time trying not go crazy. At one point I tried to leave to go back to my dorm but they'd locked down the entire hospital. In my sleep deprived state, I seriously considered opening up the windows and shimmying down the rain pipes. Then I realized what a terrible, terribly stupid idea that was and instead, played FFIII on my iPad and finished Kristin Casshore's Fire. Ironically I received a call from a Square Enix recruiter at around 2:30am. I thought it was Kevin's dad so I picked up, then realized I was talking on the phone in a hospital corridor at 2:30 am and had to hang up in a hurry. I wrote the recruiter lady, who sounded kind of miffed, a nice email and then opened back up my Square Enix game :)

When Kevin woke up, I'm sorry to say I was one cranky beast, rawr. Poor guy, but we got in a good snuggle before the nurses came and took him. I panicked a bit, the two "ward-sisters" as they call them barely spoke English and didn't tell us we wouldn't be coming back to this particular hospital room, so I was stressed at trying to throw all our stuff into manageable bundles to be stored by the nurses or carted back to my dorm, especially Kevin's electronics.

Then I had my second freak out when they told me to kiss Kevin good-bye as we were waiting in the hallway. I tried to ask them where they were taking him, what was happening, where I should wait, but that was beyond their English and they kindly shooed me away and I probably wandered the hallways looking like my dog got shot. All the nurses had mysteriously disappeared (probably doing morning rounds) and when I found one, I pounced on her but she spoke absolutely no English and just kept pointing in a vague direction and unleashing a flood of German. I am so, so, so determined to learn German when we get back. I can pick out some written German now and can speak some basic phrases, but I can't understand anything, especially at native speed. I know it must be annoying for the nurses to have this annoying foreigner hovering, but I can't help it, it's my Kevinz. I went back to the dorm and grabbed my phrase book (and got a little pissed) and came back determined to get some answers, come hell or high water. Ironically, at this point the doctor's secretary had come in at this point (she speaks decent English) and I had my answers. Hah. You should have seen me huffing and puffing back up the hospital path, ready to do whatever it took to find out where Kevin was and when I'd see him again.

So now I'm waiting. I went back to my dorm and conked out for three hours. I feel a little more human and less like a harpy. I checked with the secretary at 1:00pm, Kevin is still in surgery though the main procedure is over, they are closing up his chest and doing other stuff, so she told me to come back at 3:00pm. I am now a ball of anxiety and I feel remorse for being such a grumpy gus this morning. I need to see my husband and see that he's ok, and tell him how much I love him and how grateful I am that he puts up with my bitchy, bitchy ways. 

36 more minutes...  


5 comments:

  1. He loves you and will totally understand. We all go to a "special" place when it comes to the care of our loved ones and the added language barrier gives you even more room for anxiety and frustration. You guys are doing awesome and you are almost done with this first hurdle, just hang on and you will be reunited very soon.

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  2. Thanks for the update! Hope Kevin's surgery went great. Sending some E-hugs your way Connie, you are seriously awesome.

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  3. Thanks for keeping us updated Connie, hope you are both well and resting by now.

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  4. Never mind being "bitchy" Connie! No matter what, you are there for each other, and him having you there is probably the most comforting factor in all this.

    I know you have the internet at your fingertips, but I've been trying to re-familiarize myself with French that I took in high school. I found a fun little app called MindSnacks and they have a German version too. It just teaches words, pronunciations and phrases, but it might be something to when you have time to yourself in the dorm room.
    xoxo to you both!

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  5. Re: learning German....

    You and Kev should meet and hang out with Chris Deutsch, our kick-ass graphic designer on Battle.net who's a stupendously awesome guy and a badass photographer. (With a last name like that, guess where he's from). Him and Emy are teaching their toddler German (and French) and you could practice throwing random German words and phrases at him.

    Btw, get onto duolingo.com which has German in their repertoire. I'm using it for Spanish and it's great so far. The guy behind it invented CAPTCHA, so he's got some street cred for web apps.

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