Now, the hard part...

Well, we're home from the hospital. We arrived at Willamette Falls at 9:30 am, and were put into "the staging area" at 10:00. Were asked a lot of questions and I was pointed to the free soda fountain in the day-surgery recovery kitchen. (Definitely the highlight of the day - besides my husband coming out alive of course.) They stuck us in pre-op at 10:30 where we waited...and waited...and waited. (While we waited we came up with some novel magazine topics. Our favorite: Hermit Living 'You won't read it, because you're by yourself.') Our surgeon came in at 12:20 and prayed with us. Matt asked the anesthesiologist why he needed a breathing tube ("So you can breath...") which made me laugh. While Matt was being "sliced" open, Beth brought me lunch and stayed with me for a couple of hours which helped the time go by faster. Dr. Cramer came in and said they found some smaller stones in the gallbladder along with the big one that they found on the ultra sound so it was good that we took that bad boy out. It took about an hour for Matt to stop feeling pukey but his stomach eventually settled down and he started enjoying the free cable. We got home at 6:00-ish and have been watching the Olympics and dozing ever since.

A few observations from the day:

• A man without cable will fight exhaustion and the chemical side effects of anesthesia to watch ESPN.
• It never fails that when you head to take advantage of the free soda fountain, the nurse will come in and tell you it's time to change rooms.
• Hospital toilets flush with the force of a jet engine.
• Whoever did the People Magazine crossword puzzle before me is a total idiot.
  
• Apparently "No Cell Phone Zone" does not always mean "No Cell Phone Zone" and maybe it's not a good idea to discuss a "super secret business deal" in a hospital waiting room.
  
• Some Republicans think Barack Obama is the Antichrist.
• The Mariners stink and very obviously benefited from baseball's steroid era.
  
• Most of the nurses felt the need to whisper, "Is this your wife?" to Matt. You know, just in case I wasn't and I didn't know about "the wife"
• BMX racing is dangerous and at some point you're going to end up in the hospital for multiple surgeries.
• NBC feels that its necessary to take its sweet time to show an event that happened 14 hours earlier in the day as well as show most of it again the next.
• Up until the medal ceremony, I was convinced the results that CNN and MSN posted earlier in the day were a hoax to disappoint all of us who were trying to go spoiler free for the Men's 100 Butterfly. So lets send an extra special shout out to Michael Phelps who still managed to surprise me with his win.
  

Now it's time to wait for NBC to show the US Women's volleyball team beat up on China. I could watch it online and put myself out of my misery but Matt is napping so he can wake up at 12:30 and watch it on "the big screen". I'll cut him some slack because well, he lost an organ today.