Vas and I are sitting in the waiting room at the Lions Gate Hospital at 15th off Lonsdale. It is a good place to just sit and catch our breath: quiet. Mom is in the recovery room, hopefully sleeping, after her pace-maker surgery.
“You know how I can listen to my heart beat in my ears?” she says. “Well, it’s sure a lot faster now!”
I am not sure she is too pleased about the racket, but she looks good. I checked the machine: her pulse is 68 and blood pressure 158/60. Not bad. Her pulse was 34 and refused to go higher when she was admitted: hence the need for a pacemaker.
She’s bright and chipper and was ready to visit when I dropped in, but I’ve only been allowed in to see that she’s ok: which she is. Mom’s supposed to be resting.
Wonder what that looks like.
The recovery room is lined with narrow hospital beds, all on wheels and equipped with side rails, full of patients recently back from surgery. It is quiet. Mom has one of those little Dixie cups with a straw in it on the little white portable table by her bed.
“Is that all they gave you?” I ask.
I know she was starving when she went into surgery, it has been 20 hours since she last had anything: must be tough. Mom is diabetic and that probably doesn’t help much either.
“We will get you something from the cafeteria when they let you out.” I reassure her. She doesn’t look pleased, or reassured.
“Could we go for Chinese?”
Yup..she’ll be fine.
I always thought getting a pace maker was a big deal. But mom and dad make big deals, like strokes and pace makers, just stuff you have to deal with. No point in making a fuss about things you can’t change.
And really, getting a little computer placed under the skin by your collar bone, with connecting electrical wires forced into floating down a vein into your heart, isn’t such a big deal.
They didn’t even put her to sleep.
She says she heard them talking during the surgery. I guess one of the wires wasn’t working properly. But they checked it, and fixed it, before they floated it down through her blood stream. Bless their hearts.
No big deal: to them maybe: I suspect it is to mom, although you will never hear that from her.
I called Jackie when my mother got out of surgery: she listened barely long enough to hear mom was fine before dad hollered and she had to run. He probably just wanted to know who was on the phone.
I called John and he is ordering Chinese food for 7.
Vas is asleep, softly snoring on the couch here in the waiting room now: he’s worn out from Cuba and still has to finish the trip back to Oz tomorrow.
It has been good though and I am so appreciative that he is actually glad to be here: with me and my mom, where his presence is supportive and comforting.
I am so thankful for his presence, both here and at Travis’s wedding. I am thankful for so many very sweet moments in my life.
And I am really looking forward to Chinese!
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