My Husband the Patient.....or.....How I Lost My Patience

I've never claimed to have any decent nursing skills. In fact I've often said I'd have made a lousy nurse. The sight of blood does me in, as do other bodily revulsions like mucus and vomit. Still from time to time in my life as a wife and mother I've been called upon to serve as nurse. Usually I rise to the occasion. There are other times, however, when I've profoundly failed.

Take for instance my husband's recent hernia surgery. It took place the Monday after Christmas. He was supposed to have had it done three years ago. To say he procrastinates is an obvious undertstatement. To say I failed to react with a high degree of compassion may be one as well.

I'd been after him for the three years since the doctor recommended the surgery to "get'er done!" My insistance was to no avail.

"I can't be gone from work," was the favorite excuse.

My husband is a machinist and owns and operates his own business. No work means no pay. But bad health results in the same.....doesn't it?

Yes, it most certainly does, but I didn't say, "I told you so," when he came home from work one night before Christmas and asked if I was headed out for a little Christmas shopping. I was.

"Pick me up an athletic supporter," he said.

Isn't that a jock strap?

It is.

Subsequent questioning allowed me to determine that I had, indeed, been correct to insist on the surgery....way back when the doctor initially suggested in. Now a portion of my husband's intestine had actually poked through, and was causing a rather large painful bulge in a rather precarious location.

The "athletic supporter" was of no use. The bulge grew and the pain increased. A visit to the doctor the next day resulted in scheduling his surgery for the Monday after Christmas, with instructions not to lift a "God blessed thing" in the meantime.

We survived the holiday with little drama aside from the description from my husband of his bulging protrusion. It didn't matter to whom he was speaking. They heard way more than they wanted.

"He told the bank tellers," my fifteen-year old son mentioned the day before Christmas Eve.

"In graphic detail," he added.

I fully expected him to take out the phone book that afternoon and start dialing anonymously.

"I have a hernia......and you should see my bulge....."

Oh, the rest would not be pretty.

By the time the day of the surgery arrived, we were all able to perfectly impersonate my husband lowering himself onto the living room couch.

"Ahhhhh, oooooooooo, %$#@*!"

We understood he was definitely in some pain, but it was funny how the noise wasn't nearly as audible when no one was watching!

All went well in the operating room, and by early the same afternoon I brought the patient home. That's when the real nursing began.

"I need a pillow."

"Come take that pillow away."

"I'm thirsty."

"Do we have a portable urinal?"

The requests and denials went on for hours that first day and well into the next. He refused to take his pain meds.

"I don't like to take unnecessary medicine."

Do you like to be in unnecessary pain? That one really floored me.

By New Year's Eve he was downright surly. The visitors stopped. The kids avoided him. Even the dog stopped sleeping on the floor on his side of the bed.

On New Year's Day a miracle occurred. He got up....for longer than it took to use the bathroom. He took a shower. (We were all quite grateful.) And the next day.....he left the house.

Oh, the doctor had said he could drive within a day or two, and now it had been five. My patience was non-existant and he was completely oblivious. He slowly waddled to his shop and got some paperwork and brought it home. Upon finishing said paperwork he lit on the couch for an afternoon of Lifetime movies and phone calls. I surmised that friends were asking about his entire ordeal....from bulge to recovery. And his reply?

"Piece of cake!"

Sure it was. But not for me!