Surgery

We got to the hospital about fifteen minutes late today, which did not seem like a big problem because for the knee operation we were about five minutes early and he still didn't get to surgery until about three hours later.  Obviously foot doctors are much more punctual than knee doctors because as soon as we walked in a mob of middle-aged, blue-eye-shadowed, nurses-who-could-just-have-easily-been-waitresses descended upon Justin with clipboards and needles and arm bands and everything else.

"That cow just wanted to keep on going," the curly-haired one said as she slammed one of their Computers On Wheels into the foot of Justin's bed.

Which prompted a whole conversation between the two about how one of the anesthesiologists was going to purchase some fake cow manure to put under the COWs because that would be funny, I guess.

"He is such a jokester!" the short one laughed.

"Jokester," that's an adjective I like to hear before "anesthesiologist." A jack of all trades.  The comic relief of the operating room.

After bumbling around the tiny hospital room and teasing Justin about not being able to get his wedding ring off because his fingers are so big for about half an hour, a younger, more capable-looking nurse came in to take him to surgery.

At a loss as to what one says to ones spouse as they're wheeled off to be heavily drugged and cut open I settled on "well, don't die," which is clearly not the script that the other spouses are following judging from the nurses response which could have been startled amusement or horror.

"He shouldn't feel anything, we're going to numb it," she said.  And then she left.

They'll numb it?  Well, yeah, like, he'll be ASLEEP right?  Turns out they had planned on just using local anesthesia, just kind of doping him like they do for a c-section.  

He said he didn't realize that until he got in there and they were explaining the operation to him.  He turned to the anesthesiologist and asked if he could just put him completely out.

Jokester that he is he went ahead and got that doctor good.  He knocked Justin out cold.

The knee surgery took all day so I was prepared with my book and my snacks and my computer and crossword puzzle and I had just started on my snack when the doctor came in and said he was done and everything went well.

Justin's foot is all wrapped up so we can't see his toes or the rods sticking out and Justin's been instructed not to remove the bandages himself (the knee doctor must have blabbed about Justin taking out his own staples).  I'm not sure what it looks like but he seems to be doing fine. So far tonight he's hung two mirrors, tried to wire a dimmer switch to the hall light (unsuccessfully), and is now re-re-organizing this mountain of little tiny tools and tool attachments which I expect will keep him busy until morning.  All is well.