A Boom Boom Boom

A Boom Boom Boom,
A Boom Boom Boom,
All night long

We got a late start on a Sunday so you would have thought traffic would be light for the trip up to Cleveland, but no, it was a slow, stop and go filled ride. Construction and breakdowns and accidents brought three lanes of highway down to one too many times to count. We pulled into the hotel after 11:00 P.M. so that nice restaurant dinner we had planned was replaced with pretzels and beer cheese, two things you should never travel without. We got a room on the front side of the hotel close to the elevators and turned in. Our sleep was disturbed by the booming bass of the nightclub across the street. Their patrons then decided to spill into the street about 3:00 A.M. and have a brawl. I watched the cops break it up from the bedroom window. They quickly disbursed at the site of the taser. No arrests and even better no cops hurt. Good for them but for us not a good start to the visit.

I complained today about the noise from across the street and the front desk assured me that the nightclub does not operate during the week. We’ll see. They tried to find another room on the other side of the hotel but none were available so they comped last night’s stay. It pays to complain.

Renee had a list of places for pre-op appointments. We started at 8:30 A.M. in the basement of the H Building in Radiology. Her only clue to what they had in store was the word procedure. She got a real how-do-you-do-good-morning when informed “procedure” means Water Soluble Enema with X-Ray. The technician said, “at least we’re using the pediatric tip.” Hoo-ah! There’s nothing like the smell of enema in the morning. This test was done to check for seepage in the piping structure that was built during the last surgery. They filled her posterior canal with water and took a bunch of pictures, kind of the inverse method to checking an inner tube for leaks. We got to carry the x-rays of this over to her next appointment with the surgeon. I’ll be posting them later.

The surgeon, after reviewing Renee’s history file of her post-op troubles, regaled us with stories about how common dehydration in J-Pouch* build patients is. Merrily we played along. Renee was also a victim and it landed her back in the hospital for another week after the last surgery. Why the heck didn’t he tell us these stories before when we really needed this information? If it is so common how about preparing us to deal with it rather than skipping that part and have your patient end up in renal failure? I wanted to slug the lug but I figured I shouldn’t damage the doc a day before surgery.

(*J-Pouch – a refresher, this is the internal pouch built from the small intestine which will serve as the replacement to the large intestine which was removed last December.)

The rest of the morning was filled with routine blood tests and surveys and consultations and CYA paperwork for the hospital. We left the compound and headed for lunch. Renee was given until noon for her last meal but the nurse who gave her the instruction advised us to be flexible with that timing since she knew Renee would not get out of the pre-op maze until well after. We sat down at the lunch table about 2:30 P.M.

Renee’s now on a fluid only diet. We report to the surgery center at 11:30 A.M. which means they won’t start the operation until mid-afternoon. We’re going to try and do a little better on sleep tonight. If I hear one peep out of that nightclub I’m going to go boom, boom, boom …..