Kid Rock tour ends abruptly

Well, people, kid rock has been jettisoned. Not by the power of my bladder, but by the tools of a hot chick urologist who went spelunking in my urinary tract yesterday and surgically removed it. Yeah, cats, after nearly two months it became clear that I was not passing ol' kid of my own accord.

We got up at the crack of dawn, 5 a.m. (which is approximately 9 minutes earlier than our rooster daughter alerts us to the new day on a regular morning). We rolled up at the hospital and were promptly directed to the wrong surgery area, where I was informed I was not on the schedule and proceeded to freak out just a wee bit for a few minutes. My husband took time to snag a cup of coffee in the waiting area and pronounce it free and say it was worth the walk. I informed him that it was not free...it was indirectly paid for by our health insurance. He assured me that if his employer paid him an extra grand per month, he would not spend it on insurance. No, he said, he would spend it on candy. This made me laugh like a hyena and scare all the old people in the waiting room.

Anyhow, after finding the correct location, things went smoothly in terms of being hung up on a meat scale and weighed for anesthetic calculation purposes. I was then x-rayed and hauled to the pre-op area, where my nurse, a very kind lady named Verne, proceeded to miss my veins on 4 separate occasions and dig around in each for about 10 minutes in the hopes of securing an IV line. After her 4th attempt, she asked an anesthesiologist in the room to start my IV, which he did successfully with a smaller needle. Woof. I then caught sight of the neurosurgeon who did my back surgery a few years back, as he was going to be removing a brain tumor for the patient in the pre-op bay next to me, and the flames of my sweet love for him were briefly reignited as our eyes met. I was then pumped full of "relaxation" meds, which put me in a raging pre-coma. I have vague recollections of being wheeled into the operating room and told to breath deeply from a face mask, but the next thing I knew I was talking to a recovery room nurse about, of all things, canning. I probably told her I can raccoon, given my level of consciousness, which could be called incomplete at best.

I was then wheeled into my own room where Big K informed me that kid rock had been removed without incident in one piece. (This is preferably to having it blasted into a million pieces, because then I'd still be pissing on my hand and straining my urine.) So kid is in an undisclosed lab right now being analyzed. I then ordered a ginger ale from the food service people at the hospital and passed out for several more hours.

The staff who helped me was all very kind and professional, until I got Nurse Crazy at shift change. I don't know what I do to attract nutters, but this woman was out of it. In the context of my joy over taking a nap, I mentioned having a 9-month-old child, and she, like many other people, said, "Oh, you never sleep the same again after you become a parent. No matter how old they get." This is a common sentiment that has been expressed to me several times, and I thought I was talking to someone sane. However, she then began to tell me horror stories about the things she endured with her children as they grew up. It started with still-normal things like teenage boys and cars, but it progressed to her telling me that she instructed her daughters' doctor to put them on birth control at age 14, and her husband almost divorced her over it. It then proceeded on to her finding out about the abortions her children had during their teen years and the abortions her sons' girlfriends had, so it turned out her first grandchild was technically her 4th grandchild. I'm in a post-anesthetic haze here, people, but I wouldn't have known what to say had I been fully cogent. And she told me the grand stories of how these horrors were unveiled to her as well. And many other great tales of parenting in the trenches. I'm just like, "Um, yeah, I sure like ginger ale. My 9-month-old is cute." Dude. Isn't there some nursing code of ethics that binds nurses to conduct themselves professionally with patients that excludes the sharing of this kind of personal information? There has to be. Woof. It was crazy weird. I got the fuck out of there.

Now, Nurse Crazy had instructed me to start with some dry toast and progress to other foods if that stayed down. Since I had been fasting since midnight and it was now after 2 p.m., I took her instructions quite seriously, and then promptly ignored them. Big K and I went straight to one of these "gourmet burger" chains and I housed a Blue Ribbon burger (burger, blue cheese, other fixings, etc.) and fries. Halfway home in the town where I had to pick up my prescriptions, we got ice cream. My stomach didn't stammer, stutter, or otherwise protest...just as I predicted. It was mighty tasty.

We got home and I passed out some more, and then the Grandparents J brought ol' Phook over for bed, as they'd watched her for the day. Not to toot my own horn, but that kid was SO happy to see me. She saw me and she stuck her tongue out between her lips and blew these excited, juicy bubbles of joy. She then powered around the living room floor with glee for an hour past her bedtime and before cashing out. It was nice, and made me glad I had survived the anesthesia.

And here we have the too much information paragraph, which you should skip if you don't want to read anything gross:

Now, the crappy thing about this whole procedure is that they left a stent in my kidney to relieve pressure in the ureter or whatever, since ureters tend to get pissed after they have been violated by surgical instruments and they can swell up and fuck up your shit. So I have a string that is attached to this stent dangling out of my person via my pee-er. It is rather disgusting. The whole bit is rather uncomfortable. Pottying feels like that special burn of a bladder infection. And the stent jabs and jousts and makes me feel bloated and crappy. And I am pissing 98% blood. And my discharge instructions say "no bending or lifting." Oh, hilarity. And I'm in a post-anesthetic state of narcolepsy. So, yeah, I officially feel like certified dogshit until this thing gets pulled out of me on Friday morning.

Big K was home most of today and my mother-in-law is coming over to chase Phook for part of the day tomorrow. Thursday I have to go in for a root canal in the afternoon, so at least I'll be lying down for part of that day as well. (How disturbing is it that a root canal seems vaguely appealing in these conditions?) So I should make it until Friday morning, although not without some discomfort. Poop. I hate to say it, but I am really missing my walks. I don't think it would be a good idea go to kid rockin' up and down the block dangling stent, but it's not out of the question.

So, there you have it.