Fact or Fiction

Saturday was a good day of recovery for my wife - Ms NFMC (thanks for the alias, May!). But on the heels of one good day of recovery at home, she had a night of restlessness and nausea and vomiting. She was unable to keep down any food, any liquid, any of her medications.

And it was green. Like pea soup green.

So we looked on our list of "Call the doctor if any of these are present". This list had been kindly provided by the hospital when we left on Friday. There were about ten things on the list. She had three. Extreme nausea. Vomiting. Green vomit.

So the call was made. And guess what they told us to do???

You guessed it - return the emergency room - the place where it all began last Wednesday morning. The triage wait was very short. Nothing else on Sunday was short. We were in that tiny room in the ER for eight hours.

Eight is a very big number when you are bored out of your freaking mind! There is NOTHING to do in ER. Not one single magazine. No Sports Illustrated. No National Geographic. Hell, I would have been happy with Women's Day! But nope, nothing to read.

And no food or beverage. We left home about 8AM on Sunday morning. No coffee. No breakfast. And they would not let me bring in a soda or a snack. Nothing. Oh sure, I could go to the cafeteria and eat. But I could easily return to find my wife gone to some test with no idea what really happened to her. So I stuck around.

But I did eventually entertain myself. For example, when I took my wife's heart monitor off - that little thing they clip on your finger to monitor your pulse (heck, she was sleeping by then, she didn't know), I found out that my pulse was about two beats per minute faster than her pulse. And that little gizmo also monitors the level of oxygen in the blood. Don't ask me how, some sort of medical techno magic. But however it works, my rate was again about two higher than her rate. But we were both in the upper 90's - which apparently is good. But what was a little concerning about their magic technology was that the sheet had an oxygen content of about 60. Really? Hmmmm.

Oh, and those little stretchy things they wrap around your arm tourniquet-style to make the vein pop up for an IV...well those little suckers will really fly across the room if you pull back on them really good.

But enough about me and my fun. This is about my wife, huh? Cause she was the one laying on the bed. And since she went in reporting massive vomiting, they immediately gave her an anti-nausea medication. It stopped the urge almost immediately. And then, since she had been awake all night, she fell asleep and slept for most of the eight hours we were there.

And if they solved the problem right away, why did we stay so long? Well it wasn't cause the food was good! Apparently they wanted to figure out why she was throwing up. Picky, picky. So she slept...and periodically had someone take an x-ray or do an ultrasound or take a blood sample.

And the result of all that? They don't know! Their guess (gee, isn't it nice when the doctor only has a theory?!?!) is that she had a reaction to one of the anti-surgery medications they gave her. But did they change any of those? Nope. Just gave her some anti-nausea medication to take at home and sent us on our way.

After eight hours. I did say it took eight hours, right?

And today? She seems just fine. No throwing up. No pain from the surgery. Still sleepy from the medications. But basically it seems like the recovery is back on track.

Now...which parts of this story are fact and which are fiction?

Sadly, all of it is fact.