Hospital wanderings

Yesterday my husband was the lucky and privileged one and got to 'enjoy' a colonoscopy. We had several discussions in the previous days about the 17,000 foot camera (see Dave Barry's thoughts on this fun procedure to learn more).I got stuck wandering the halls of the hospital waiting for him.

Well we did have a plan. He was told to check in at 7:15 am which was actually a good time because he couldn't eat or drink anything before and that makes him crabby. So Mr-I-Can-Never-Be-Late got us there at 6:55 am. He checked in and we took a seat. They got him at 7:40 am and told me to call in an hour and a half. I followed our plan by going to have breakfast in the cafeteria and getting him a snack for the drive home - parmesan bagel and bottle of water. My breakfast was egg beater omelet with cheddar cheese - which begs the question if you eat egg beaters but then fill them up with cheese is it worth the effort or should you just have regular eggs with no cheese? But it was a hospital with portion control so it only had a tiny bit of cheese and I felt virtuous.

I went back up to the waiting area and at the end of the Ellen Show opening, I called the recovery area and was told he was still in the procedure room and to call again in half an hour. Then I started to worry - why should this take so long? Last year's colonoscopy had BAD (read 'malignant') results which ended in surgery, blah, blah, blah. I didn't want to just sit there, even though it would mean missing parts of the Ellen Show, so I went off to the blood lab and got next month's blood tests done early. The blood lab,or should I say 'Phlebotomy' is very efficient as they use the deli system - check in and get a number - so I was done in 10 minutes.

I went back up stairs and started walking around. I skipped the inpatient areas but looked at the different waiting areas on the floor and played the game - can I remember the name of the doctor I had in that department? Some of them I could. Finally I made myself go back and sit down for five more minutes before calling again - caught a little more of the Ellen show. Good news - he would be out in 5 minutes. It turned out the nurse who brought him out is the niece of a good friend of mine. She recognized me and we chatted. How was his test???? Fine. It took so long because his check in was changed to 8:15 am and we never got that message.

We were out of there with the directions - take it easy, no significant decisions, no alcohol - and away we went. Next year he gets to have a sigmoidoscopy instead of a full colonoscopy - and repeat annually for a few more years before another colonoscopy.