Five Days at the UW Medical Center or "Here's Your Hat, What's Your Hurry?"

My first distinct memory after waking up was being moved from the gurney into my hospital bed.  All beds and patient support devices have wheels so the reasons for moving people from one device to another are not clear to me.  I suppose that beds are better than gurneys for longer term stays.

The hospital room had a builtin patient crane on the ceiling.  Dangling from a cross member was a funny looking (Art Deco) mobile, which turned out to come apart and provide individual support for the body and the various limbs so they could lift me up and set me down gently in the bed.  Every day I would see that mobile hanging in the corner of the room and wonder about it until I would remember.  The patient handling system had similarities to the material handling systems used on the Boeing assembly lines to move around airplane parts (and entire fuselages).

I discovered that my grip on reality had become more fragile.  Sometimes when I woke up during the night there would be Maya glyphs covering the ceiling in a regular grid pattern.  Sometimes there would be fish scale patterns overlaying patches in my field of vision.  When my imagination created faces or figures from features in the wall plaster I would sometimes discover that I could anticipate their movements, their transformations, the changes in the expressions on the faces.  I would not be surprised to learn that this was a symptom of the pain killers. I also had optical migraines without the headaches (blind spots) every few hours.  Waking up became more of a process as I sorted out the dreams from what was somewhat visible around me.


The staff had their processes well estaablished.  I was handed a list of five goals they needed me to accomplish in order to be discharged.  Their goal was to have me out of there in five days, or seven at the most.  During daylight hours there was a stream of professionals coming through with information, training sessions, equipment for me to take home, or else asking me to get out of bed and walk around the floor.  I think that I had a right to be tired before they even got to work on me.

It was worrisome that that first night Barb took over an hour trying to drive to a hotel that is five minutes from the hospital.  We should have practiced that trip ahead of time because, like many urban areas around hospitals, the streets are a maze - trying to accommodate both the needs of a major university and the needs of a major hospital.  In desperation she finally called me but fortunately, perhaps at random, she was just arriving down the street where the hotel was located at that moment.  Barb was very fond of that hotel room.  It was her refuge.

They got me out of bed the the next day, the first morning.  An occupational therapist came to visit me.  There was also a physical therapist, asking questions about the height of our bed at home.  When I told her it was "hip high" she sighed with relief because she was not going to have to give me pointers for lowering myself into bed.

There was a pair of MD pain experts who visited every morning to see how my epidural was working.  I thought of them as a comedy team.  One of the goals was to get me off of direct pain medicine administration (epidural or IV) and get me to be eating opioids instead.  Those two guys were quite disturbed and puzzled when my epidural came out after only a few days.  They were also the ones to try and solve the problem of my (dry heaves) nausea that started getting to be a problem after a couple of days.  They added a rainbow assortment of anti-nausea meds to what was available to me.

There was also a small group of Urology residents that came around every morning.  I came to think of them as a flock (a murder?) of crows.  Their chief was very goal oriented.  She was mostly interested in assessing my overall status.  I could see her mentally checking off each goal as it was (even marginally) achieved.  I was not well.  Something serious had happened to me and I was adjusting to a new state of being.  (I still am adjusting.)  There was not much sympathy from her.

My own urologist/surgeon, Dr. Dash, showed up a few times - usually after hours.  Once he fit me in after visiting his mother.  I like Dr. Dash.  I want to make things as easy as possible for him.  At the same time I sometimes have questions for him.  The second time he showed up he mentioned that the pathology results were back on the organ that had been removed.  The pathologist reported that he found no sign of living cancer in my bladder, only some scar tissue.  So my odds of a cure suddenly went way up.

After that, later, Barb said that for the first time in a long time she was waking up without a panic attack.  It would seem that she likes having me around.

I liked the nurses.  The daytime nurses were hard workers with agendas.  They were sympathetic yet relentless.  I noticed that there was a fairly high level of morale at the UW Medical Center.  People seemed to be happy.  That helped my own morale.

The night of January 5th/6th a powerful windstorm hit western Washington.  I was awakened by the sound of the winds slamming into the side of the building.  I might have supposed that a large truck on the street below my window was revving its engine on high for several minutes.  Then it would stop.  Then it would start again.  During the night the house in Maple Valley lost power.  Power did not return until Thursday the 10th.

So then the welfare worker came around offering funds to put us up in some dump for one night upon discharge from the hospital.  There were no funds for more than that and Puget Power email notifications were making it clear that would not be enough.  The welfare hotel definitely would be the wrong hotel.

Meanwhile, there was this brand new little opening in my belly that I had to learn how to tend.  I am sorry for all those people who live alone after the surgeons have done their work.  If Barb had not been there I doubt that I would have been able to get through the three lessons we received from the UW ostomy nurses.  My eyesight was not good during the time I was in the hospital.  There is fine detail that has to be seen in tending a urostomy.  So we had three one hour test runs before being on our own.

I did not sense that I was getting much better.  I was now making the circuit of the floor without a walker but it was extremely tiring.  After five nights in the hospital I was told that I would be discharged that day.  We still had two nights reserved in the hotel where Barb was staying so that is where we went.  The nurses brought in more supplies to take home.  I was offered a walker but the idea of having that thing sitting around the house was too much to contemplate.  I received a box of 28 shots with instructions to inject myself in the belly with one of them each day.  With great effort I pried myself into my clothes and them lay exhausted on the bed with my hat on.  One of the aids loaded me in a wheelchair and took me down with Barb to the Forester in the parking garage.

Barb and I sneaked/trudged into the hotel through the lobby, with me carrying my urine bag in one hand but otherwise bundled up against the chill.  She must have carried up all the stuff the nurses gave us.  In spite of my misgivings I was much happier to be out of the hospital.  Barb had stocked the mini refrigerator with some sandwiches.  It was not until later, after Barb started one of her nausea bouts that I sneaked out of bed and stuffed my face, kneeling in front of the mini frig, hiding from her so that her nausea would not be worse.  It was far more than I had eaten in the hospital.  My own nausea was gone for the time being.  It returned a week or so later, but that is another story that I probably will never tell.

Barb was sick for two days in the hotel while we waited for power to return to our house in Maple Valley.  She recovered in time to take me home, driving slowly on the freeway,  the two of us consulting about directions.  In retrospect, I am reminded of various older couples where the romance is no longer really physical but all about shared goals, shared memories, and shared expertise.  I know such a couple in their nineties, not that I think both of us will live that long.