Surgery, Take 1

Although my surgeon had an opening within the next week, I decided to wait a few weeks to go under the knife.  My husband is a Recruit Division Commander at Naval Station Great Lakes so he works with divisions of naval recruits.  He works practically 17 hours a day 7 days a week for about 8 weeks.  Every now and then he gets a few hours off but it definitely takes a toll on him as well as me.  We don't have any family or many friends here so we needed to wait until his first division graduated so he was able to take some time off to be home with me.  Also, because he has been so stressed out, we decided to take a little mini vacay!  

Originally we wanted to rent a cabin in the Black Hills (South Dakota), but since it was Memorial Day weekend everything was either booked already or out of our price range so we decided upon Pigeon Forge, TN.  We were a little disappointed by how touristy and overpriced the city was but we did get out of the cabin long enough to go on a wine tour, visit Gatlinburg, and even sample some real moonshine!  Personally, I enjoyed the sassafras flavor (tasted like root beer) but Jon liked the Tennessee mud.  Ultimately, I won and we bought a jar of the sassafras.  Needless to say, it did not sit in our fridge very long. ;)

So my surgery was scheduled for May 27th at 12:30pm.  My husband and I arrived at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center (whew, what a name!) at 10:30 as requested.  I was brought back to my room within 15 minutes where they instructed me on how to put on my super sexy hospital outfit, gave me a cup for a urine sample, and told me they would be back to start my IV.

I have never noticed my veins.  I have always been told that I have good veins for donating blood, the ones that are in my "elbow pit" are always easy to spot, however, apparently the ones in my hands are not.  After 2 failed attempts the HM sent in a professional.  

Sidebar:  For those of you that are not familiar with what an HM is, it is a Hospital Corpsman.  Although they go to school and receive training for whatever department they end up working in, they are not an actual Registered Nurse or anything like that so (I'm just assuming) that they do not have as much experience as the adorable old Filipino man that came and got my IV started immediately.  

Anyway, then the doctor came in and drew some super pretty pictures on my knee and answered a couple of random questions I had thought of. Then they brought my husband back to my room where we sat and watched Identity Thief on the tube.  Hours passed.  Finally, around 2:30 or 3:00 the doctor came in and said that we would have to reschedule my procedure due to an emergency.  Luckily he had an opening that Thursday so I would not have to wait long.