A Day to Ponder a while....
Posted Sep 11, 2010 12:26am
Friday, September 10, 2010
Rather speechless tonight. Sometimes you see things that you really cannot wrap your brain around until you replay them in your head a few hundred times. I waited all day to face what I have viewed as the Last Great Unknown…taking off the bandages to finally SEE the answer to that nagging unanswered question, “What exactly did you DO to my son?”
I wish I had had the presence of mind to film it. Sounds awful, I know, but nothing we would have regretted. Phil was a trooper, sitting up for the first time with this amazing array of tin on the inside, holding his spine ram-rod straight. Next came the removal of all the tape…no small feat, I tell you, and just like removing the ventilator tube, the tape was the worst part. Not to mention that Phil is a rather hairy bear, so factor fear, open wounds, and getting waxed all at the same time and that should give you the rough idea of what he endured. Phil has officially made it to the Big Boys Club. And here’s a public admonition to his older brothers, if I EVER hear you call him a wimp again, we’re gonna have a little show and tell of scars, and we’ll talk about who’s the wimp!
So, with the tape finally off, I take a glance at what’s to see. Very happy to see, instead of the Frankenstein-esque sutures of old, a straight, rather thin line, running from the base of his neck to his tailbone. This is the time you have to run this little filter in your head to see just a nice suture job – not the fact that at one time he was split wide open and assaulted with metal rods and screws and hooks. You get to think that later.
Then there were the drains; which was the primary reason for the bandage change. The one needed to be removed. Say it with me: Removing a drain. Sounds simple enough. But so does “She had a baby”. For those of you, who like myself, have not yet SEEN a surgical drain, let me inform you that it is really just a teeny-tiny little soaker hose that they leave in the wound to sop up the body fluids that aren’t sure where they were evicted from or where to return to. It runs approximately the length of the wound and exits out the skin (on Phil’s shoulder in this case). The hose leads to a little plastic ball, that serves as a gentle suction. In the midst of all the tape removal, in one swift move the nurse pulled the entire length of tube from within his back. It kinda reminded me of sword swallowing in reverse. The wound was examined and found to be in good shape, he was rebandaged, and with much shoulder patting and praise, he was laid back down to rest.
Phil fell asleep, asking me to sit in the chair next to me and “yarn” (adj. meaning to crochet…lol), which I did for the next few hours, awaiting his brothers’ visit this evening. And I just sat, and pretended that this was all just another day, like any other. Feeling a bit like Scarlett O’Hara…”I’ll think about that tomorrow…”
Rather speechless tonight. Sometimes you see things that you really cannot wrap your brain around until you replay them in your head a few hundred times. I waited all day to face what I have viewed as the Last Great Unknown…taking off the bandages to finally SEE the answer to that nagging unanswered question, “What exactly did you DO to my son?”
I wish I had had the presence of mind to film it. Sounds awful, I know, but nothing we would have regretted. Phil was a trooper, sitting up for the first time with this amazing array of tin on the inside, holding his spine ram-rod straight. Next came the removal of all the tape…no small feat, I tell you, and just like removing the ventilator tube, the tape was the worst part. Not to mention that Phil is a rather hairy bear, so factor fear, open wounds, and getting waxed all at the same time and that should give you the rough idea of what he endured. Phil has officially made it to the Big Boys Club. And here’s a public admonition to his older brothers, if I EVER hear you call him a wimp again, we’re gonna have a little show and tell of scars, and we’ll talk about who’s the wimp!
So, with the tape finally off, I take a glance at what’s to see. Very happy to see, instead of the Frankenstein-esque sutures of old, a straight, rather thin line, running from the base of his neck to his tailbone. This is the time you have to run this little filter in your head to see just a nice suture job – not the fact that at one time he was split wide open and assaulted with metal rods and screws and hooks. You get to think that later.
Then there were the drains; which was the primary reason for the bandage change. The one needed to be removed. Say it with me: Removing a drain. Sounds simple enough. But so does “She had a baby”. For those of you, who like myself, have not yet SEEN a surgical drain, let me inform you that it is really just a teeny-tiny little soaker hose that they leave in the wound to sop up the body fluids that aren’t sure where they were evicted from or where to return to. It runs approximately the length of the wound and exits out the skin (on Phil’s shoulder in this case). The hose leads to a little plastic ball, that serves as a gentle suction. In the midst of all the tape removal, in one swift move the nurse pulled the entire length of tube from within his back. It kinda reminded me of sword swallowing in reverse. The wound was examined and found to be in good shape, he was rebandaged, and with much shoulder patting and praise, he was laid back down to rest.
Phil fell asleep, asking me to sit in the chair next to me and “yarn” (adj. meaning to crochet…lol), which I did for the next few hours, awaiting his brothers’ visit this evening. And I just sat, and pretended that this was all just another day, like any other. Feeling a bit like Scarlett O’Hara…”I’ll think about that tomorrow…”
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