Seven

RWT’s hand surgery last Wednesday went very well, but our day ended up being much longer than expected. We arrived at the Ambulatory Procedure Unit (APU) at the requested time of 11:30 a.m. and his surgery was scheduled for 1:30. At 1:10, they came in to tell us that his surgery would be delayed for two hours. Okay. More waiting. It turns out the operating rooms were very busy that day with numerous procedures taking hours longer than anticipated and multiple emergency surgeries.

We considered ourselves lucky that RWT had the surgery at all on Wednesday and the only reason he was fit in was because of the obstinate insistence by his doctor. His surgery finally got started at ~6:20 p.m. and finished at 9:45. At that point there was a question if RWT would be able to go home that night or not. I’d already made arrangements for friends to come by to feed the dog her dinner and let her outside for a bit, but there was no way she could wait until morning. Also, RWT really wanted to go home and sleep in his own bed. Unfortunately, he was still a little too drugged up to figure out what he needed to do to get released…

In the post-op recovery room the nurse asked him what his pain level was on a scale of 1 to 10. His reply: “Seven, seven to eight”. Okay. That was expected. He eventually came out of the sedative enough that they were able to send him back to the APU where the nurse there inquired as to RWT’s pain level and his reply: “Seven.” Once again, not a surprise since he still had not taken any additional pain meds. So after finally ingesting some ginger ale and soda crackers, RWT took some medication to relieve the pan about 12:45 a.m.. While waiting for that to kick in, I went about running around the deserted hospital getting leave papers stamped and picking up his prescriptions.

Upon my return to the APU, RWT tells me that his hand is feeling much better and the meds have really started to help. About 1:45 a.m., with everything set for RWT’s departure, the APU nurse asks the last criteria that needs to be met for his release – what is your pain level? “Seven.” Aaack!!! I’m sure I had a totally peeved expression on my face and even the nurse looked surprised. Well, without any decrease in his pain (upon further questioning RWT said it was more of a 6/7 than the previous 7/8, but that was not good enough), he would have to spend the night.

After joking with RWT that he should have lied about his pain level (apparently some readers were confused by my original post and thought I was actually serious about wanting him to lie), I went home to take care of the dog, lie down for 45 minutes, change my clothes, wash my face and then drive the 30 minute return trip to the hospital. I arrived back at the hospital at 5:30 a.m. (where the first thing the APU said to me was “he really should have gone home last night”), the on-call doctor saw RWT at 5:50, we were out of there by 6:30 and home at 7:00. On the drive home, RWT said he had decided that they did not let him leave earlier because of how he answered the pain level question. Hmmm, really?

The moral of the story: If someone asks you your pain level and you really want to go home, say something less than “five” and under no account answer “seven”.