(posted by Linda)
Eric and I dried our tears and went to play Pack-Up. After only three days in that room, it’s amazing the crap that had accumulated: Boxer shorts, shaving items, hair spray, deodorant, toothbrushes, games, cards, videos, the video player, flowers, plus the brain cancer book I was reading, my big bulky sweater, and things I had brought to keep me occupied in the case of hours and hours at the hospital with nothing to do but wait. After we carted it all to the parking garage, we headed over to the cafeteria for a late breakfast/early lunch.
And then Eric left. I don’t know why. But suddenly there I was, at the hospital alone.
Or so I thought. Later on it turned out that Barbara had come by about seven AM, not knowing that Bob’s surgery had been pushed back, to sit with me and wait for news. When I never showed up in the waiting area, she finally inquired and found out it had been postponed, and had to leave for work.
Fortunately, I had things saved up to get done. My first stop was the financial aid office. Apparently someone from there had been by the hospital room on Friday while I was at work, and Bob, loaded up on dex and with his private eye’s reluctance to divulge any personal information, had been somewhat rude. I needed to make sure the necessary papers had, indeed, been filed.
Next I stopped at the Cullather Brain Tumor Quality of Life Center, where I poured out the whole ugly story to understanding ears, and probably sounded like a lunatic utterly deprived of sleep—which I guess by that time, I was.
Finally there was nothing left to do, though, but wander down to the surgery waiting area, which I had kept walking past for days while having no idea what it was. An inquiry at the information desk soon set me straight.
The first thing I noticed was the little dark room, not much bigger than a closet, with a comfortable couch, a chair, one lamp on an end table, and a prominently placed box of tissues. A sign on the door read, “Doctor Consultation Room”. It reminded me of the “Kiss-and-Cry” area in figure skating. When they called me into that dark little cubbyhole to wait for Dr. Alexander, I sure hoped I wouldn’t need the tissues.
The surgery waiting area at St. Mary’s is right next to the chapel. Other than that, and the big volunteer desk staffed by little old ladies, it looks like a cozy coffee shop. Over the desk, a huge TV screen lists patients by number. Numbers appearing in white boxes haven’t entered the system yet. Numbers in red boxes are emergency additions to the schedule. Yellow boxes are patients in pre-op, green boxes are patients in the operating room, and light blue means the patient is out of surgery and in post-op. It is about five PM. Bob is Number 113060: green.
Our friend Cathy from writer’s group arrives after work to wait with me. She is on her way from work to the group, in fact, which meets just down Broad from here at 7:15. Last week we thought we’d be there today, which just goes to show how crazy life can get in no time at all. Why can’t life ever get crazy in a good way?
Cathy and I have dinner together and then return to the modified coffee shop to wait for news. At six PM the phone at the desk rings and one of the little old ladies calls my name. I take the phone.
It is an operating room nurse. She tells me that things have gone smoothly, with no complications, and the surgeon is getting ready to close.
Only a few more minutes before the bad news. Only a few more minutes to hang onto that slim thread of hope—that maybe it was an abscess or a lower-grade tumor, that maybe I’m not about to hear that my husband has the worst malignant brain cancer you can have. If I had known then what’s generally involved in “closing up” your average brain surgery, I would not have expected news so quickly.
Cathy promises to let everyone at writer’s group know, and I promise to call her there when Bob is out of surgery. I thank her for coming and she leaves, and I sit there trying blearily to focus on a magazine while keeping one eye on the Big Board.
The trouble with light green and light blue is that they are closely related colors, and they can look the same to tired eyes at a casual glance. The next hour went something like this:
6:30 PM: Four pre-ops, Bob in surgery, five in PACU (helpfully described in the brochure as the Post-Anesthesia Care Unit).
6:50 PM: Two pre-ops. Five in PACU. Three still in surgery.
7:00 PM: Woo-hoo!! Aw, fuck. I look up and no longer see “113060” inside one of the green boxes. I search the board. Oh—there it is. Inexplicably it’s dropped all the way to the bottom of the board. It’s still green.
7:03 PM: The phone rings at the desk and a little old lady beckons me over. Oh, no. Why would they be calling me now when they already said they were almost done and everything had gone well? I pad to the front desk, hoping if I sneak up on it quietly enough, bad news won’t know I’m there yet. It is Barbara, calling to ask how things are going. I fill her in, then sit back down on the couch. How can they take an hour to close up? How long can this waiting go on?
7:05 PM: I look up at 113060 and think it has gone blue. I blink and my eyes adjust. It’s still green. I start reading my magazine again.
A rush of air stirs beside me and the couch beside me goes “poof!” Someone’s weight settles next to me, making the cushion give in that direction. I look up to find Dr. Alexander, still clad in his surgical greens, seated on the couch. I open my mouth and not a sound comes out. Only one thought surfaces: I have not been called to the Kiss-and-Cry area. This can only be good. I glance at my watch: 7:15. On the screen, 113060 is still green.
“Everything went well,” Dr. Alexander tells me. “We didn’t have any complications during surgery. The tumor was very vascular and necrotic in the middle.” I am already nodding my head as he says the next words; there is only one thing that could mean. “I could tell looking at it, it’s a glioblastoma.”
Shit. But I already knew what I was going to hear at this moment. I’ve known it for four days. There was no point in hoping for anything different. I already knew that. I ask him if he had to leave any tumor in.
“There are no obvious pieces left,” he says, and proceeds to tell me that brain cells are very long and thin, sending tiny fingers of cancer all throughout the surrounding tissue. There is no way to get margins that might eliminate all the slender fingers of these diseased cells without causing massive brain damage. I am still nodding. I know all this, too. He reiterates to me that all brain surgery patients remain tubed and under general anesthesia for a day after surgery, that there is still a chance of seizures, blood pressure spikes, and bleeding into the brain. Bob will be sedated probably through tomorrow. He will call and let me know when he plans to wake Bob up.
I ask him what I feel is the most important question for Bob: Will he be able to speak and write again? Dr. Alexander tells me he doesn’t know. He hopes so, but no guarantees.
We sit in silence. Back in the days when I did surgery, I remember that a whole morning or afternoon like that would wear me out. “You must be tired,” I say, “after five and a half hours. That’s a long surgery.”
He shrugs. “I’m not tired. Five hours, it’s not bad.” Figures. These surgery types can do the most harrowing stuff, and not even turn a hair. I do not have that temperament. I am a fraidy-cat. Surgery freaks me out, and that’s why I don’t do it anymore. I thank Dr. Alexander for what he’s done. “I have a lot of respect for anyone who can do surgery. I can’t do it at all.” Considering that until recently, veterinarians who didn’t do surgery were hard pressed to find steady employment, my handicap has not been good for my career. Exhausted, overwhelmed, and trying not to start crying, I add, stupidly, “Hats off to you, dude.”
Dr. Alexander turns his head with a choked-off snort of laughter. Whatever. Bob has made it through surgery, and I am still coherent…sort of. In a day or so, we’ll see what kind of life he will be left with.
It is 7:38 PM. Number 113060 has just turned blue.