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muckefuckSince I'm in regular contact with Nemuci, I've taken on the responsibility of sending out a daily mailing updating various friends of Nuphy on his condition. It makes me feel like I'm doing something useful, it makes them feel like they're in the loop, and it takes some of the burden off of her. (She's already got a stable of semi-hysterical out-of-state email-hostile relatives to keep informed.) I try to write it as detailed, factual, humourous, and upbeat as I can.
Which is why there are some things I just can't include.
Yesterday, they had barely gotten Nuphy settled when a doctor and nurse came in to apply some tubes to his incision in order to keep it well-drained. They said they would put it under the dressing. I don't know why, but I had envisioned the incision as a bikini cut with the tubes to be placed on the surface of it. You know, as if fluid was just oozing out of a stiched-up cut and need to be channeled away so the dressing wouldn't get soaked.
I was in the middle of reading him an article from The Economist on Wagner in Russia and offered to leave the room, as I typically do when they come in to mess with any of his tubes or dressings and as his daughter had already done. But the doctor assured me I could stay and keep reading if I wanted to. Since Nuphy was awake, I figured it would be a comfort to him to have me there, so I held his hand and kept talking. In some ways, this was a bizarre replay of a week ago Monday, when I held his hand as the same night-duty surgeon spent what seemed to me an inordinate amount of time poking around in his chest trying to start a central line. That time, Nuphy was told not to move his head, so I kept saying, "Look at me! Don't pay any attention to the doctor." Of course, I couldn't help paying attention to the doctor--or grimacing as I did so--which rather undermined the whole process.
This time, Nuphy couldn't even raise his head, much less turn it. He was staring off into space beyond the doctor, but I could feel him squeeze my hand a bit, which told me he must be in pain despite the morphine. The doctor unlaced a white cotton girdle, which I described to Nuphy in humourous terms. "It's easier than taping it up," explained the nurse.
And then there it was: A huge gash running from his waist almost to his breastbone. Watching from an angle, I was staring at a startling cross-section--at least two inches thick--of the flesh on his abdomen. Beneath it, his internal organs, covered with a thin greenish slime, lay exposed. As the doctor laid tubes into what now appeared to be a yawning gap, I glanced at his lolling head and then back at his organs and tried to comprehend the fact that both were part of the same person. And not any person: Nuphy. A man whose belly I had patted scores if not hundreds of times.
I don't consider myself a squeamish person, but I was freaked. Not nauseated, but thrown for a loop and a half. I never expected they would open him up in front of me like that. As I said, they ask us to leave the room when they readjust his position on the bed. All I could think was that if I stretched my hand out, I could stroke his liver. If I sneezed, the spray could enter his abdominal cavity.
Superficially, my reaction was neutral. I kept up the chatter, either reading further or saying things like, "Just relax, the doctor's almost finished." When Nemuci came back, I almost said something like, "I didn't expect that!", but I didn't want to make any comments that would upset her--or him. She's been an absolute trooper through all this, but she's less inured to hospitals (and what goes on in them) than I am. Plus, she's an total nut about sanitation, always washing her hands before she touches Nuphy, and I think the fact that I was three feet from her father's innards without even a face mask would have unsettled her.
So I let it pass and we returned to the business of keeping Nuphy comfortable. Still, the images kept returning--more and more after we had left the hospital and I was walking her home. I decided I'd call my mom (the RN) for reassurance when I got home. As it was, I changed my mind and spoke to my brother instead. I thought relating the experience to someone else would help me get over it, but it hasn't. I thought about it while falling asleep and again while waking up. The image has been in my head all day. There's Nuphy, lying in bed, awake and yet slit like a fish ready for gutting. Usually, when I see an attractive man on the CTA, I imagine him naked. For the past twenty hours, I've been imagining these men cut open, their internal organs lying exposed.
Fuck a duck, I hope they stich him up again soon.
Which is why there are some things I just can't include.
Yesterday, they had barely gotten Nuphy settled when a doctor and nurse came in to apply some tubes to his incision in order to keep it well-drained. They said they would put it under the dressing. I don't know why, but I had envisioned the incision as a bikini cut with the tubes to be placed on the surface of it. You know, as if fluid was just oozing out of a stiched-up cut and need to be channeled away so the dressing wouldn't get soaked.
I was in the middle of reading him an article from The Economist on Wagner in Russia and offered to leave the room, as I typically do when they come in to mess with any of his tubes or dressings and as his daughter had already done. But the doctor assured me I could stay and keep reading if I wanted to. Since Nuphy was awake, I figured it would be a comfort to him to have me there, so I held his hand and kept talking. In some ways, this was a bizarre replay of a week ago Monday, when I held his hand as the same night-duty surgeon spent what seemed to me an inordinate amount of time poking around in his chest trying to start a central line. That time, Nuphy was told not to move his head, so I kept saying, "Look at me! Don't pay any attention to the doctor." Of course, I couldn't help paying attention to the doctor--or grimacing as I did so--which rather undermined the whole process.
This time, Nuphy couldn't even raise his head, much less turn it. He was staring off into space beyond the doctor, but I could feel him squeeze my hand a bit, which told me he must be in pain despite the morphine. The doctor unlaced a white cotton girdle, which I described to Nuphy in humourous terms. "It's easier than taping it up," explained the nurse.
And then there it was: A huge gash running from his waist almost to his breastbone. Watching from an angle, I was staring at a startling cross-section--at least two inches thick--of the flesh on his abdomen. Beneath it, his internal organs, covered with a thin greenish slime, lay exposed. As the doctor laid tubes into what now appeared to be a yawning gap, I glanced at his lolling head and then back at his organs and tried to comprehend the fact that both were part of the same person. And not any person: Nuphy. A man whose belly I had patted scores if not hundreds of times.
I don't consider myself a squeamish person, but I was freaked. Not nauseated, but thrown for a loop and a half. I never expected they would open him up in front of me like that. As I said, they ask us to leave the room when they readjust his position on the bed. All I could think was that if I stretched my hand out, I could stroke his liver. If I sneezed, the spray could enter his abdominal cavity.
Superficially, my reaction was neutral. I kept up the chatter, either reading further or saying things like, "Just relax, the doctor's almost finished." When Nemuci came back, I almost said something like, "I didn't expect that!", but I didn't want to make any comments that would upset her--or him. She's been an absolute trooper through all this, but she's less inured to hospitals (and what goes on in them) than I am. Plus, she's an total nut about sanitation, always washing her hands before she touches Nuphy, and I think the fact that I was three feet from her father's innards without even a face mask would have unsettled her.
So I let it pass and we returned to the business of keeping Nuphy comfortable. Still, the images kept returning--more and more after we had left the hospital and I was walking her home. I decided I'd call my mom (the RN) for reassurance when I got home. As it was, I changed my mind and spoke to my brother instead. I thought relating the experience to someone else would help me get over it, but it hasn't. I thought about it while falling asleep and again while waking up. The image has been in my head all day. There's Nuphy, lying in bed, awake and yet slit like a fish ready for gutting. Usually, when I see an attractive man on the CTA, I imagine him naked. For the past twenty hours, I've been imagining these men cut open, their internal organs lying exposed.
Fuck a duck, I hope they stich him up again soon.