Although not surprisingly, some medical staff members don’t consider that a sufficient response to the question, “Do you know why you’re in here today?”
The current worse parts of the day: relatively mild discomfort in said noggin and keeping a little oxygen sensor over the tip of my right ring finger, making the process of typing blog entries a lesson in patience and a reminder of what might happen if I lost that finger and could only count up to 19 using my fingers and toes for the rest of my life.
Some of the current best parts of the day (a very incomplete list): brain surgery is finally in the past rather than looming in the near future; Teresa has been keeping me company all day (with the exception of in the OR during the surgical procedure… at least that’s what I’ve been told…); I have my laptop, which allows me to provide people with an update about how me, my noggin, and my new doohickey are getting along together, and I’m easy to take care of.
That last statement is according to the nurse who was getting me prepped before surgery. I had no problem answering her questions, aced the cognitive test (I’m exceptionally good at providing my name, birthday, squeezing people’s fingers, etc.), and was pretty relaxed when going through each step of the process.
“You’re pretty easy to take care of… that’s a compliment.”
“I figured. ‘You’re pretty easy to take care of and it sucks!“
But I had nowhere else to go this morning and Lord knows being a nurse in a hospital can be a gigantic bundle of nerves, irritation, frustration, whispering quietly to yourself that they’d never find the body… why make things worse?
So overall, it’s been an exceptionally unusual and not terrible awful day—the first of many, many more to come.