The Manipulation of the Knees

“Dammit.” Said Dad yesterday morning. Fearing some calamity on the day we were to have Mom’s knees pushed and pulled to tear scar tissue, I opened my eyes and listened. He soon opened the door to the toy room where Mom sleeps with all of Little One’s books and toys and assorted items.

“You can’t throw Kleenex boxes in the little garbage can!” He complained bitterly. “It makes it fall over!”

That statement led to a less than charitable series of thoughts where I wondered what kind of ass decides to make life even more miserable on a trying day. And over something so trivial and stupid! I maligned his character (silently, of course) while I brushed my teeth and wandered to the living room. He soon started on more problems with the house - “It’s a good thing she doesn’t stay home all the time,” he said, shaking his head at the mildly cluttered living room. “She sure doesn’t clean while she’s here.”

“I’m going to another room.” I told him snippily, not at all sympathetic to complaints of my dear mother who would soon be admitted to our downtown healthcare facility.

Now I would never be so foolish - after a lesson such as that one - to begin to list the number of things that irritated/offended/made me swear at the hospital over the last two days. I will say there were many.

I will say that Mom did beautifully. She stays confused as she recovers from the anesthesia, but she’s very sweet and obedient throughout. She learns people’s names and rarely asks for anything. A wonderful woman, my mother. I adore her. So I would pop up from my pallet on the floor each time anyone came to talk to her, repeating their requests or advice until she understood and acquiesced. She would offer kisses and tell me she loved me as I would hold the non-IV-bearing hand until she soon drifted off to a drugged sleep again.

Her knees are now able to go straighter and bend more, the surgeon assuring me the scar tissue rent with a loud sound. “Everyone in the room heard it.” He said, sounding quite satisfied with himself. “It was one of the easier procedures I’ve done and I think it went very well.”

This is the time where I become hypocritical because I do not think it went very well. It was only as I was drifting off to sleep when Brother came to pick me up this morning (Apparently going over 24 hours without sleep is enough to steal any remnant of youth I have left and turn me into a shaky, doddering old woman who is queasy, achy and crampy. It was awful. So Dad returned to the hospital and Brother came to fetch me, then dropped me off at home to cuddle and nap with my puppy.) that I realized I had mimicked Dad. I had lists of arguably small complaints that had consumed much of my attention while waiting. While I did pray some, I am ashamed to admit I noticed and tsked over hospital flaws a great deal more.

I was going to detail my problems with the waiting (8 hours before the procedure) and rude staff (several people were incompetent or stupid or blatantly mean) or lack of information (if there's a color-coded surgery board, someone should change the colors when new things happen! Otherwise, it's just pretty and useless). But it’s better to remember the nurse coming in sometime around 2 and Mom blinking her eyes open and lifting her hand to rub at the oxygen tube they insisted stay on her nose. The nurse asked how she was and Mom nodded and smiled sweetly.

“I’m fine.” She said softly, already drifting back to sleep. “How are you?”

As I seem to continue to crave sleep, though I wander down the hall to peek in on Mom who is also resting comfortably, I’ll just say we appear to be fine. And I hope you’re all doing well too.