a.m. Stress, p.m. Relief

We won’t have the results of Jeff’s kidney biopsy for several days and yet we both feel a little less stressed being on this side of it.  As usual, Jeff’s levity helped make it fun to spend time with him – even in the hospital.

Nurses prepped Jeff for the procedure and then we waited.  Jeff passed the time by eavesdropping on the nurses’ conversations.  Evidently, there was a problem with one of the patients and things were backing up while the issue was addressed.  Unsure what to do about the logjam, one nurse said, “We just need to get someone out of here.” 

“I’ll go,” Jeff hollered. 

They weren’t having it.  Eventually, Transport wheeled Jeff into CT/Radiology and I was asked to come along.  As he was positioned between privacy curtains and I took a seat, he asked me, "Are you nervous?" 

"Who, me?” I laughed at his misguided concern.  (He later told me that I looked scared.) 

I recognized Nurse Jennifer, the mother of one of Keith’s classmates.  She glanced at the monitor and did a double take.  “Are you feeling okay?” she asked. 

“Yes,” he said. 

His pulse was “in the 40s”.  Speaking raised his pulse to 50 and since he wasn’t feeling faint, she said all was okay.  As she attached EKG stickers, we talked about our kids.  Then she carefully explained everything that would happen.  Jeff would be anesthetized into a “twilight” state and they would tell him everything they were doing as they did it.  He would lay on his belly on the CT table the whole time and they would put him in the CT doughnut periodically to take pictures and check the positioning of the biopsy shaft and needle.  Jeff is usually a just-do-it-and-please-don’t-talk-about-it kind of patient so I didn’t think a blow-by-blow was a good idea.  It turns out he remembers telling the nurse that he would try to smile for the “pictures” - and nothing else.  In fact, he slept before, during and after the procedure. 

It took about an hour.  Jeff was asleep when they wheeled him into the holding area.  I touched him and he woke up.  A privacy curtain separated us from a loquacious man in the next bay.  Mr. Mumble would be a good name for the man.  Jeff has great difficulty in understanding anyone who speaks with an accent and yet he was responding to Mr. Mumble’s incoherent questions and commentary.  I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone.  (What did he say?)  Jeff kept answering “Yes” and “Hmmm” in a sleepy voice.  At one point Mr. Mumble said very clearly, “I’m tripping.”  Later, “This is really creepy.”  Mostly, though, I understood none of what he said. 

Nurse Jennifer was amused at the man’s “tripping."  I leaned in to Jeff and said, “They gave him better juice than they gave you.” 

Nurse Jennifer replied, “He hasn’t been given anything yet."

Jeff had to stay in recovery for three hours.  I noticed his pulse was 39 at one point as he slept –mouth agape - but when the menu arrived, he studied it for quite awhile and his pulse roared up to 52.  It was funny to watch the relationship between his activity (or inactivity) and his heart rate.  Eating raised his pulse to 139. 

Discharge instructions included not to worry about bloody urine in the first day or two, no driving until tomorrow.  Jeff was surprised by how high up his kidneys are.  He’d imagined they were just above the beltline.  When he showers, the bandage can come off.  Thereafter, BandAids will do.  He should be back to normal after a couple of days of light activity. 

Now we wait.