“You’re still married,” my mom told me rubbing my arm.
I knew that.
Yesterday I had to do something I had never done before. I took off my wedding ring.
And I cried, which is just silly. But even if it was silly, I couldn’t help but cry.
I was in the pre-op room in nothing but one of those hospital gowns and my wedding band when the nurse said I’d have to remove it. I asked it be taped up instead. I’ve had several surgeries before, and I’ve always been able to tape it up. The nurse checked, but the answer was no.
I seriously thought about changing my mind right there. The surgery wasn’t that important.
The nurse was asking me if I’d need soap and water to get it off, but I slid it up past my first knuckle and held it there. That’s about the time I started crying. The nurse grabbed some tissues.
Then the nurse was trying to put an IV in my hand. She wanted to know if I had anything to drink since midnight, and I hadn’t. She smacked my hand. And then she grabbed my ring off my finger (I hadn’t yet completely removed it yet) to get it out of her way. I held onto it with my right hand while the nurse tried to put an IV in the back of my left hand.
She did NOT do a good job unless her job was to cause the most pain possible. Oh man did that smart! Plus, she didn’t get the IV in. And that is when she said….
“Has anyone told you you have wiggly veins?”
Um, no.
And then, “Since you haven’t had anything to drink since midnight, you are dehydrated. That makes it difficult. Did you drink more than normal before midnight?”
Umm….
I love how she blamed ME for her incompetence. By that time, it was clear the IV stick didn’t work, and she shared, “You’re going to have a bruise. You must bruise easily.”
And that is when she grabbed my right hand and tried again. This time, she was successful.
And then I waited for a long time because my surgeon had had an emergency surgery that pushed mine back.
Eventually, I was pushed into the operating room, and I started realizing exactly how nerve-racking surgery can be. There were at least 6 people in the room, and at least four of them were doing something to me. One was putting one of those stupid blood pressure cuffs on my left arm. The other was putting a board under my right arm. Then both of my arms were being strapped down. Plus the weird things on my lower legs were plugged in, so they started inflating one at a time — actually that was nice. It massages your legs because apparently it prevents blood clots. But then that cuff went off, and it wasn’t so nice. And then I felt the cool medicine enter my arm. I remember being told I would be out soon, and I was thinking, but I seem really alert and what if I don’t go under, and then I was under.
When I was finally wheeled back into my room, my mom and daughter and husband were all around me, and my husband was holding my wedding ring, and he placed it back on my finger where it belongs. I love that man.
He says now I can take it to a jeweler and get it fixed. Gold is a soft metal and after 16 years on my finger, it is a bit out of shape. I’m not sure I’m ready to part with it. After all, I’ve been wearing it every since he put it on my finger….
[Slight digression: My husband rarely wears his wedding ring. He works on machines, and he could lose a finger if it were to get caught. It doesn't bother me that he doesn't wear his ring since I like his fingers, but it bothered me more than I realized when I had to take mine off.]
