Ruptured Memories

Posted by Dave -- at least this part


Two years ago TODAY, I was playing soccer when I tore my Achilles tendon. It was the worst pain I've ever experienced, unless you count the 12.5 hours of Hypnobirthing classes we took last summer.


4 weeks to the day from our wedding.


Just as we'd always dreamed it would be.


All our wedding plans were suddenly filleted like my leg itself -- but Jess, as you see below, shrugged it off and was in her fine humorous form as she chronicled my surgery in both prose and picture on my old blog. I thought I'd post it here, 2 years and a baby later, for your reading pleasure, so you can appreciate my lovely wife at her best, even when circumstances were at their (almost) worst.


LOVE YOU HON!


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Dave was jazzed for his surgery!

But he was sad he had to wear a girly gown.

But then he tried it on,

and liked how he looked

because of his purple bows.

Then he asked me, "If I'm totally out of it, what if I accidentally pee during surgery?"

I said he shouldn't worry about it. But he was worried.
 

"I didn't bring an extra change of clothes!" he insisted. So he made the nurse let him take a last-minute pit stop.

Once he came back, relieved in more ways than one, he was ready to have his temp taken,

get painfully poked

and get hooked up to his new best buddy, the IV.

The hospital wanted to be very sure that the correct leg got operated on, so they asked Dave 25 times if it was the left one (which it was) and finally wrote a big 'YES' on the front and backside of the calf to be sure. Apparently you can't be too careful. Maybe telling us this was meant to make us feel better that the correct leg would indeed receive the operation. Instead, we had to wonder about a surgeon who couldn't be trusted with his knowledge of lefts and rights.

They wheeled him away

and then he was gone.

As soon as the surgery was over, his doctor came out and pronounced the tendon 'shredded'. He was quite impressed. He said he'd fixed it up though, and everything had gone perfectly.



When I was allowed to see Dave, about an hour and half later, he was groggy and woozy. He was peering around with his eyes squinched almost shut, wagging his head from side to side.


"Hi!" I said. "How are you feeling?" A swirly-eyed stare came instead of an answer. He didn't seem to recognize language, but I continued politely.


"The doctor said everything went really well," I told him.


"Is that a question... or an answer?" he belted drunkenly, in a thickly-slurred voice, much too loud for the room.


"Ha ha," I laughed nervously.


His voice was hoarse and raspy when he told me that right before he fell asleep he became very worried that only the word "Yes" was written on his leg.


"I mean WHAT IF," he bellowed sloppily, "they knew it was the right leg but didn't know what to do to it? They should have written 'Yes. Please fix the Achilles tendon.' "


"Yes, yes, of course they should have," I cooed comfortingly.


The nurse came over to ask Dave how he was feeling and generally chat a lot about the book I was reading, the church he goes to, his wife, his favorite author, the ENTIRE plot of three books by that author, and other things I've since forgotten. Every time he paused for a breath, Dave would bellow, "Gotcha!" Dave 'gotcha'ed him about 17 times in 5 minutes. Most of those times, 'gotcha' was not a response that fit the conversation. The nurse didn't seem to mind though and seemed intent, instead, on sharing as much of his life story as possible before I could get away. I felt a tad alone, on Planet Crazy.


On our way home, we needed to stop at the drug store to pick up the prescriptions. A large Rite Aid loomed on our right.


"Turn left!" Dave slobbered, pointing to his right.


At least, we learned today, he wasn't alone in that confusion.