The aftermath...

So, Water Boy had surgery on Friday....just a simple out patient thing to remove a cyst on his lower back....which turned out to be three and a crater hole that the surgeon refers to as his 'shark bite'. Yeah...it's huge and nasty....and NOT what I was expecting at all.

So we get home around 2:30 and he is feeling pretty good for surgery and all...the recover nurse suggests we start him off on something light, like chicken noodle soup and crackers...just in case the anesthesia messes with him....so five minutes after we leave the hospital, we pull into McDonalds cause he is jonesing for a double cheese burger and fries.....okay...we may not be the best ones to follow the rules...but I really did try....honest....but actually he pretty much had me hooked with the fries.....so....we get home and he settles into my computer desk to play on line for a while and I start up laundry and making a shopping list for the big Aldi's/Walmart run and he starts calling for me in this weird voice and so I walk back into my computer room to see what's up....and he's in the bathroom....I can tell he's in the bathroom cause there's a trail of blood from the computer to the bathroom....he was sitting on two big bed pillows and both of them are soaked clear thru with blood and it's on the chair....which he is apologizing to me for, but I can't hear him, cause my eyes are glued to all the blood from my baby boy all over this room.....OH MY GOD!!!!!! He's BLEEDING TO DEATH OH HELP ME JESUS LORD, LOOK AT ALL THIS BLOOD!!!!!!!!
(followed by hysterical screaming....)

Now...that's what I said...loudly....in my head.....no body else heard it...cause I can do that when I get really scared and freak out....I can just stand there with this dazed look on my face...but inside I am going off like a black woman at a family funeral...loud...hystercial...spare no dramatics. And I turn to my son...who is sitting over the toilet....still in my flannel pants and all the bandages from surgery and you can hear the blood dropping drop my drop into the toilet water every second....sounded like a second hand grandfather clock ticking....and I am grasping for a sane thought....like oh I don't know...WHERE'S MY FUCKING PHONE!!!!!!!

Soooo I call the surgeon's office...and I get a nurse...who patronizingly tells me there is to be some drainage...that's normal....and I calmly inform her that there is blood dripping everywhere and this is a little more than drainage and I'd like to get it stopped ASAP preferable before my son bleeds to death...what would she suggest...... Now in my mind, I'm plotting the fastest drive back to Lawrence Memorial and how I am gonna get my baby to the van and loaded in comfortably and how many blankets, pillows and plastic trash bags to keep the blood off my car seat that I'm going to need and this crazy calm bitch on the other end of the line starts talking about just apply pressure to the incision. Well dear...there isn't an INCISION...it's a big ass fucking hole here...so she tells me to go ahead and put pressure over the hole and see if I can stop the bleeding. And then suggests I call back in 15 if I haven't slowed the bleeding any. Oh you idiot from hell, do you have any idea who you are talking too????? At this point in the game, the room's tempature has gone up 25 degrees...I want to start peeling clothes it's just way to hot in here....my ears are plugged and all I can clearly hear is my own heart beat....all the colors in the room have faded to black and white and off shades of gray....I can't breathe...OMG look at all this blood!!!!!!!

Some how....I'm voting it was the grace of God, I grab hold of my son and we make it to the livingroom and he lays down on the futon...fuck the plastic...I'd never make it back to him...and I put some pressure on his back over all the blood soaked gauze and close my eyes and try to breathe....Now Water Boy...he's a little shaken, but he takes one look back at me and starts laughing...MOM...you are white as a sheet...are you okay??? SURE...SURE I AM...I always look like this on Friday afternoons....But he reaches back and puts his hand over mine and says "I got this mom...go sit down somewhere and have a smoke and relax....it will be okay" SO....I do, I leave my bleeding child to hold his own wound and grab a smoke and take a step outside til I am cool and I no longer hear the my heart beat in my ears...and I think...how pathetic of you sister, get your ass back in there and take care of your boy...sooooo I do. I go back in and apply some more pressure, but we still have blood flowing and I am to the point I may not be able to hold some foul words and screaming back....but just as I reach for my cell phone...with blood stained hands, mind you, it starts ringing...it's the surgeon's office calling...this time it's a nurse who has talked to the surgeon...and has undeserved blessings tend to show up at just the right time in my life, it's a woman I know from school...her daughter graduated with my bleeding son, no less...so she tells me exactly what to do and how to do it and for how long and together we get the bleeding to stop.....then she tells me she will swing over on Saturday and have a look if I'd like and she gives me her cell phone number so I can call her if we have any more problems that night...BLESS HER HEART!!!!

SO HALLELUJAH...we get the bleeding to stop....we get all the blood soaked outer gauze replaced with dry clean stuff and he is laying down quietly and in no pain...THANK YOU LORD, and I smoke one more cigarette and start in on clean up....pillows and towels and sheets and blankets....everything off the futon and the rugs in the bathroom.....I have to mop blood off of floors and off the toilet seat and down the hall to the living room.....looks like we had a murder in the house....but I get it all thru the laundry and cleaned up and keep a dreadful close eye on him. If he moved it bled. If he had to get up to pee, it bled. If he rolled over to take pills or eat, it bled. The only time it seemed to stay quiet is when he laid on his stomach...and then he got cramps in his back after a while and he'd have to roll, get up, go pee...something...and it would start up again......two rolls of paper towels later......and a couple more blanket changes off the futon...we had made it thru the night and into the next day....when Pam came over and changed out all the outer layers of gauze and brought a huge supply with her for me to continue using. Saturday was better, Sunday was better than that...today we went in to the surgeon's office and he changed out the inner packing to this huge gaping hole and showed me how to do it...which I will have to do twice a day for the next week. I did not pass out during this demonstration...but the room did start getting way to hot for a little bit.

So....I HAVE to do this...and I will. This is my son, he has to have this packing changed twice everyday to heal right...and there is no one else that is around to do it for him...so I'm gonna do this, and I will do it right and I'll make it thru, cause I have to....for him.....but in the mean time, any suggestions on how to get this elephant off my chest? It's two days later and I am still a nervous wreck inside...oh I can function beautifully....almost got all my Monday work done even being gone the last half of the day, but inside....I can still hear that black woman carrying on and on and on. Something about blood that I just can't handle. Well, I'm a pro at scrapped knees and the like....I can handle a bloody nose or your average cut...but you get it flowing out of person or animal and I start loosing it. Why is that?!!! I can't even watch somebody getting stuck with a needle!!!!! You can puke all over me or my house...no biggy. I can clean up the worst diaper ever known to mankind...not a problem. But bleed profusely and I may very well be going down. I HATE THAT!!! It's absoluetly shameful, but that's how it is. And I am gonna be way out of my comfort zone pulling gauze out of and stuffing it back in a huge hole in my son's back. But I'm gonna get it done....and scream for all I'm worth inside. Oh yes, and carry this damn elephant around on my chest....breathing...it's SOOO over rated!!!!
And that's pretty much the dill pickle about my weekend.