You gotta love anesthesia

Kevin had surgery on his knee yesterday. They replaced his ACL with a cadaver ACL (could have gone without knowing that) and then repaired another cartilage that was torn. Thankfully, his meniscus was not torn like originally thought. Surgery went well. It went by pretty fast because I was entertained the whole time by my preacher and youth minister. I must confess that I learned more about both of them in those 3 hours than I ever thought I would know. We talked about everything from church, to flag football, to a football player kicking his prosthetic leg off to make a play, to Adam's ability to multi-task (inside joke). I am truly grateful to these men for their time spent with me and their true concern in Kevin's well-being.
Now, on to post-op. They get him moved to a room, and the first thing I notice when I walk in is a bandage on his hand. That wasn't there before....well, apparently Mohammed Ali does not react well to anesthesia. They said he woke up swinging and cut his hand on something. Nice....
And then it took all of 13 seconds for me to realize the nurse tech assigned to our room was not the brightest bulb in the pack. Precious and sweet, but not real nurse savvy, if I'm being completely honest. And a talker....she and Kevin (on anesthesia) hit it off!!! I sat there in amazement listening to them chat back and forth, and I am almost certain my eyes were glazed over in a matter of minutes. She finally decided to leave and find someone who could help her with the vitals machine....this after spending a good 10 minutes trying to open up one of those sterile thermometer covers. It was all I could do not to take it out of her hand and open it myself. Enough about Ms. Sunshine...

Disclaimer: There is a choice word or two that follows, so you may want to skip this part where you won't be offended.
You never know how someone will react to anesthesia, and I must say I was not disappointed this time. Kevin was slurring his speech, talking to himself (seriously) and just making random statements about whatever. Well, he decided he needed to pee. Sunshine is back in the room at this time, and she gives us one of those plastic urinals. She leaves, so Kevin and I proceed as to what is the best way to go about making this happen. He decides to sit up on the side of bed and try it. So here he is, sitting in a most awkward decision because he can't get his leg completely straightened out, trying to pee into this urinal. And there I am, just standing there staring. Why, I don't know. I guess I expected something exciting to happen. But after about 3 minutes of no action, Kevin tells me, in his best slurred speech, that I have got to go on and quit looking. So I move to the other side of the room. Another 3 minutes later....nothing. "Kevin, are you sure you gotta go". "Well, I think my pecker is scared of this thing". I just dropped into the chair....I was laughing so hard because he was so serious and that anesthesia was really working on him. It just makes me realize that I can only imagine what he told those nurses in the OR. God love their hearts.... And then the talk of peeing led right into the "other". He said "If I have to go, you're probably gonna have to wipe my a$$". Yea, that's not gonna happen. That little red button is for the nurse. Use it.

I went home for a little while and then came back to stay with Kevin overnight. He was getting lots of fluid, so that meant he was needing to pee a lot. The first 4 times he woke me in the middle of the night, I was pleasant and got the urinal for him and then took it back to the bathroom for measuring. But by the 5th or 6th time, I was ready to do one of two things....cut it off or get him a lifetime supply of Depends. But the loving wife side of me crawled out of the so-called "bed", which was more like a torture chamber table, and repeated the "peeing process" again. I honestly can't tell you how happy I am that we no longer have a plastic urinal that we must use.

I love my husband dearly. And I have and will take care of him. But I do have to laugh at some of it to make it more manageable! :)