No that's not a typo, or at least not mine. It may have started that way. The logo is a blue bear silhouette with a smaller white bear cut-out, the young one getting a hug from the older.
Steve is home now recovering from his surgery. Our alarms were set for 3 AM. We were told be be there by 5:30, and there was a lot of prep ahead of time, including two showers with special soap to kill germs on the skin prior to the procedure. I got to rub it in all over his back, since that's where they operated, and he - like most of us - can't truly wash his own back. Since surgery was at the U of M hospital system in Minneapolis, and it was raining, dark, and the route contained road construction, the alarm time seemed sensible.
What they "forgot" to tell us was that the building was locked until 5:30. We had the best luck on all parts of our route, arrived half an hour early, and had the rare privilege of standing around in a cold breeze in the dark waiting to the doors to unlock. Of course we were both cold. So were the other five people who hadn't gotten the useful version of arrival time requirements. But following this is where Steve lucked out and I didn't.
Unless you've not been to get surgery you know the silly paper gowns they hand out for .... modesty? They certainly don't do much else. Modest can even be iffy. But you come in a bit chilled, the operating theater and your room are a bit cold, and most times the best you can hope for is a thoughtful nurse who will pile several heated but thin blankets on you.
They never quite do the job, cooling down quickly. Nurses stay busy with many tasks and blankets are not the top of their list, even if they are yours.
Steve got no extra blankets, just a paper gown, and a pair of socks to keep him from slipping and falling while walking on the floor. There was a pillow in a weird place, designed to keep a sore back in the most awkward, painful position available. His bed was more slanted chair than bed, so the pillow was unable to be pushed aside, and the footrest was set at an angle where he had to keep squirming to keep from sliding off to the floor. There was also this odd little inset in his gown. When he held it up to show me, neither of us could figure why they'd put a cup holder in a paper hospital gown in a surgical unit where beverages had been banned for hours. How cruel can you get?
Knowing he'd be much more comfortable with his feet up, but unable to figure out how it worked, I wandered down to the nurses' station to request a bit of help. As soon as she fixed his footrest she reached over to the wall and pulled a flexible hose off the Bair Hugger. It plugged into that weird "cup holder" which of course wasn't a cup holder, and a flick of a switch turned on a lovely stream of warm air that piled out of the Bair Hugger and floated around inside his gown across the skin, bring welcomed heat to every inch he could get under that gown, lasting until he was wheeled away to surgery. AHAH! Hence the "air" instead of "ear" or even"are". 3M came up with a good name for this gizmo.
Suddenly he was warm and snug, and I was a wee bit jealous. Then again, I didn't have to go through surgery while they didn't quite put one under so they can still talk to him about the placements of the electrodes they were implanting. Of course, in the event, he got stubborn and refused to wake up enough to respond to them, giving them what I'm sure was a polite version of "Go *** yourselves." Or if not, they didn't bother me with details while chuckling over the story. After all, everybody knows you can't be legally responsible for whatever happens under the influence of anesthesia. It's why you can't sign documents, or drive, or ... whatever.
He goes back in a week to get the planted electrodes charged up from the new battery. This is much more sophisticated than the one that needed to be removed. The electrodes each have sensors which tell some other part how much current is going through them and whether it's right in the Goldilocks zone, too much (like the shocks from the first one), or too little and effectively useless. In the meantime he's getting lots of sleep today, and has a handful of good pain pills to last him till the gizmo gets officially turned on. They hand out antibiotics as well to prevent infections, and order him to basically not move his back. No twisting, bending, or lifting. If it drops to the floor it stays there until - guess who? - gets to go pick it up. If it's off to the side, guess who fetches it? If it's heavy... well, it just might stay wherever it is till next year!
Meanwhile we're both catching up on sleep. Or he is anyway. I'm getting a lot of phone calls, and surprisingly they're not all about how he's doing. The last one was about the solar panels on the house we sold. And no, if anyone else cares to know too, the bird guards around them didn't do much good. Pigeons are pretty smart critters as well as messy. By now eggs should be rolling off the roof and breaking all over the ground again. Apparently nest building under solar panels just isn't a pigeon's strong point!
Not my problem any more.
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