The Myth of Pink Carnations

So it turns out the plastic surgeon wants to keep my partner in the hospital until the vacuum dressing on top of the graft site is removed on Monday or Tuesday. The skin graft is in an extremely awkward position on the right side of her back, with the tail of the graft in the axillary crease itself. This means she's not allowed to move her right arm at all; it is strapped down with a shoulder immobilizer. 

We weren't prepared for her to stay in the hospital so long, but I can sympathize with the surgeon's desire to keep her in a controlled environment where she can't slip up and compromise the graft. However, I'm not the one stuck in the hospital. My partner is. And she's going crazy.

Here's why:

• Her right arm is completely immobilized to protect the graft site.
• Her left arm has a heplocked IV in it.
• Half her head is shaved because the surgeon took the donor skin from the scalp.
• She's vegetarian and the cafeteria sent her chicken for lunch.
• Dinner was vegetarian but she can't really cut up a baked potato with only one hand.
• The hospital has double rooms and is running at capacity, so the staff is harried.
• Her roommate is an elderly, demented woman who keeps trying to get out of bed by herself and objects to the TV being on. So far, all she's said to us is "Mind your own business!"

Hospitalists, take note: this is an example of why people go ape-shit crazy in the hospital. What's the remedy? Maybe a whiff of Risperdal? A stat order to Round Table Pizza? Earplugs? A nice bouquet of pink carnations from the volunteer's gift shop?

We made do with some intensive color swatch discussion (newsbreak: we're going with English manor-house library green walls in the master bedroom) and an emergency run to Blockbuster for movies to watch on a portable DVD player. Her choices:

• Day of the Dead
• Hellboy II
• Hancock
• Batman: The Dark Knight
• Wanted

Obviously she's in a dark mood. I'm not buying green paint yet; maybe after she gets home, she'll change her mind and want the room to be yellow. Or carnation pink.

Comments

[dragonfly]

Hope tomorrow is better. *Hugs*.

[rlbates]

These situations are so frustrating. Wish life was smoother. Take care.

[CancerDoc]

Ahhh, I can empathize. When I had my thyroid removed (it was a little cancerous), there were no rooms on the oncology floor so I was placed on ob-gyn ....in a room with a mother who had a 7 day old but had some sort of infection. Loud, happy family, occasional baby, and I had just lost my thyroid.....Thankfully, I was discharged far sooner than predicted. Then, when I had my I-131 ablation, I specifically told the nurse no scrambled eggs. Eggs were delivered, anyway. This was back in the days when one was kept in isolation after the ablative dose. Anything that came into my room didn't leave. Do I need to tell you what eggs do over time? (I had thrown them in the trash....in retrospect, I guess i could have flushed them.)

I hope your partner heals fast! I would hold off on buying paint, though.