Everyone has that moment when you are just about the fall asleep and then something or someone wakes you up. This was the case the next morning when my mother decided to come early the next morning before work. There the light came through and her voice like so many mornings as a kid. I listened to stories about who knows what I can't remember, didn't matter because there are times when we all need our mommy and this day I did.
The sun was coming out and in walked two women. One smiled and the other one stared. The smiley nurse was Nofie and I have no idea what the other nurses name was because she was not nice, just stared. They seemed to have worked together for a while and were in-sync. Nofie spoke broken English, she gave me my breakfast while the starer marked her chart and stared. Eating breakfast the day after my surgery was not a good idea. My doctors said I could eat a full meal, so I thought well if they said I probably can! Not so! I had french toast, sausage, oatmeal, juice and coffee. Surprisingly nothing stayed down, the doctors were wrong. So then tears began to role down my face, my mommy left, so I called Nofie. Nofie cleaned me up and then said a prayer with me. I am not a religious person, yet I believe in God, but I appreciated all the prayers I could get.
I had a few more visitors, then I called my husband. No answer, I leave a message. I called 20 minutes later, no answer. This went on for a few hours and I was being released at Noon. I began to cry again and dialed my husband, no answer. I then called my father-in-law who thankfully lives nearby and he offered to go over to the house and check on my husband. No answer still by phone. I agreed to call my father-in-law again in 20 minutes, when I reached him he said no one came to the door. Kept calling and calling. I then began to cry more, how could this happen? What if he was in an accident? One starts to panic you know. I then had every person I knew at the Clinic calling my husband at this point we were synchronizing the rings!!
Nofie came in and gave me lunch, she said 'you min well sit, relax, we find husband'. I trusted Nofie at this point she cleaned me up after all and gave me gum to freshen my breath. I have no idea to this day what her accent was, think a cross between Chinese/Spanish/Jamaican. Calling and calling continued for another hour. I began watching reruns of Home Improvement, the hospital had 3 channels news and Home Improvement. I ate my lunch what I could, hospital food is never good regardless of how it smells, it's all a trick to get you to think your eating good food. I kept calling. Then suddenly, the door flew open and my husband said 'I'm the world's worse husband, I can't believe I fell asleep'. I assured him it was ok, but that I would certainly remind him of this later on! Just kidding!
Nurse Starer came in and Nofie followed behind. I introduced Nofie to my husband and I still to this day have no idea what Nurse Starers name was or is. Nofie had home instructions for us, but before I could do anything, she wanted to me to walk around the floor to be sure I was not dizzy and that I could pee. Taking the catheter out by now, I walked around, went over to the bathroom and I peed. Yes victory is mine! We went over on how to change the bandages and drain the drains. I had drains, I failed to mention? Well drains on either side of me, they are clear water bags that are inserted on the side of the breasts so that all the gunk drains out and your responsible for dumping and keeping track of how much came out. Charts and more charts. I had not seen charts since I was in marching band in high school! Then came how to put baceytraycine and the zeloform on my nupples. On my what?
Nofie begins by showing me all the stuff I was going to need and use in a neat little mini-lunch bag. I had the bacitracine which is how it's spelled but how she pronounced it was baceytraycine and putting zeloform (zeroform) on my nupples. I looked at my husband and lipped 'nupple?'. Thinking in my head, oh, nipples, ok made sense. So I took my baceytraycine, zeloform, bandages, charts and cups for my nupples and was released on my way.
Tomorrow: Recovering at Home
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