It's Been a Day

It's 1:15 in the morning and I've finished one of the two papers due tomorrow.  I didn't know if I was going to ever get to this point.  Today was quite a day!

The morning started out great.  I got up, got going, got my morning started and decided to head into town for some groceries and a few office supplies (need to get my organization on!).  I called Max about 9 am, thinking it would be a normal morning conversation.  It was anything but.  He was at the doctor's office having blood and urine tested.  His flu symptoms weren't getting better, they were getting worse.  I told him to call me when he knew something ... figuring this would be no big deal and I would have plenty of time to get my school work done.

I took off at 10:30 for town and my phone rang.  It was Max.  The doctor had called him back and told him that his white count was elevated - he needed to go to the hospital, they would do a CT scan and run more tests.  Holy mackerel, that changed everything!  I turned around, went back to the cabin and madly tried to think of all that I needed to take home so that I could continue working, as well as my clothing and laundry.  I needed to ensure that everything was closed up, turned off and shut down.  This is stuff that I do at my leisure when I usually go home, but my mind was all over the place trying to figure out what might be wrong with him and how I was going to hurry home and get everything else taken care of.  Fortunately, the brain kept spinning and I kept moving.

When I got to the hospital this afternoon, they had yet to get him down for the CT scan and he had no new information.  If you are someone who doesn't ask questions of doctors and specialists, please kick yourself in the butt for me.  I started asking questions and though there was not yet enough information, at least I was starting to clue in. Things weren't great.

I came home, let the dog out, sat down for a few minutes, talked to some friends, got my head together, did a little school work and then went back to the hospital.  Fortunately it's only a short drive.  Five minutes before I left the house I realized that the handwritten notes I had taken for one of my papers were still in a drawer at the cabin.  Cursing and swearing ensued.

Back to the hospital - shift change - new nurse.  I asked Max if he'd had anything to eat or drink.  "No."  I asked if he knew why?  "No."  (Sigh)  The new nurse came in, he asked, she came back to tell him that he couldn't until he'd talked to a surgeon. 

Alright, at this point, I did my best to stay in my seat.  What?  Surgeon?  What?  She pulled up the chart as she realized that absolutely no one had talked to Max about the scan.  She said that she assumed we were dealing with the diverticulitis.  My response was, "Well, no ... since this is the first we've heard of it."  The scan showed a great deal of diverticulitis and a mass in the lower abdomen.  At panicked looks from both of us, she went on to say that no one believed it was anything but something associated with the diverticulosis. However, the surgeon would probably want to remove the mass. 

Crap.  Abdominal Surgery.  Ok ... whatever we have to deal with, we will deal with.

I left the hospital to come home and work, called friends and tried not to think about it.

Forty-five minutes later, I had a strange number show up on my cell phone.  It was the nurse from Methodist.  That actually scared me - ok, I admit it, I thought something terrible had happened in that short period of time.  But, she was calling to let me know that the surgeon had looked at the information and was not intending to do surgery, but felt the mass could be treated with intravenous antibiotics and while Max would have to stay in the hospital for awhile to make this work, surgery was no longer the primary option.

Well, wow ... that was great news!  Recovery from a bout of diverticulitis is going to be easier than recovery from abdominal surgery.  I may just hug her - she knew that we would both sleep better with that news.

So, we'll see what tomorrow brings.  I still have a lot of work to do to get my assignments completed.  That just plain stresses me out.  Fortunately, that's all that is stressing me out right now. 

It's been a day.