Saturday, August 27, 2005

Operation Urispaz

When Sweet Girl was born, I was in labor for 18 1/2 hours, then I pushed for 4 1/2 hours and finally, I had an emergency C-section (it's a long story and I'm not going there now). The doctors at our hospital run a 24 hour shift, and Sweet Girl was the last of 14 babies that my doctor delivered in that day - and 4 of them were C-sections. I'm sure you can imagine that the doctor was getting pretty tired.

She must have been. When she visited me in recovery before going home, she explained that she had "nicked" my bladder while opening up my uterus and that I had a 1-inch cut to heal. She further explained that I would have to have a catheter in place for the next 10 days while my bladder healed. I heard this, but I was still stuck on "nick". 'Scuz me?!?! One inch does not equal a "nick"! That is a SLICE!

Well, Sweet Girl was in intensive care for 8 days and I roomed in at the hospital, carrying my catheter around with me. During that time, my bladder started to really hurt and get infected, so they put me on antibiotics and an anti-spasm medication. It was called (yes, this really was the name) "Urispaz". Champs and I got the biggest kick out of that. "You're a spaz!" "No, Urispaz!". "No, Uri... " You get my point. We were real mature back then!

In any case, the medication worked and they let me take the catheter out at 7 days instead of 10. I know you're saying, " you took it out?!?" Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I did. I was discharged at 5 days and the last 3 days I was a "guest" of the hospital, but I didn't get any food or nursing care. Basically, I was invisible to all but the NICU staff. That was OK since I spent most of my time in the NICU with Sweet Girl anyway. Well, on day 7, exactly 1 week and 5 minutes after Sweet Girl was born, I took out that catheter.

I'm sure you can imagine that I NEVER wanted to go through that again! When I saw my OB/GYN for my 6-week checkup, she explained that in 9 years of surgery, I was the first patient she had ever cut and she apologized profusely. She went on to explain that, due to the circumstances of Sweet Girl's birth, I could readily schedule my next C-section and avoid all the labor issues. I accepted her apology and said "now, you understand, this gives me complete and total teasing rights with you for the rest of the time you're my doctor, don't you?" She sighed and accepted that I certainly had earned that right.

Once I told Champs that I now had teasing rights, he went right to work on the plan with a mischievous glint in his eyes. What would we do? How to best capitalize on my experience? When a slow grin spread across his face, I knew he had hatched the master plan to make sure I didn't suffer further organ abuse and to fully exercise my painfully won right to tease mercilessly.

The next time I got pregnant, I would schedule my C-section, bright and early at the beginning of her 24 hour shift. We would come in with a wrapped "birthday gift" for the doctor. When she opened it, there would be a brand new "Operation" game, complete with batteries. He considered asking her to play the game right then, but we figured that probably wouldn't happen. In any case, that would be just the opening gambit; the real joke would come when we got into the operating room.

See, after I showered that morning, Champs planned to take a washable marker and draw a big uterus on my tummy with a baby holding a sign that says "cut here". Then, off to the side, down low, he would draw a bladder. The bladder would have a sign that said "No knicking, no slicing; no problem".

As it turns out, we never did have that second baby and now we won't. One reason I regret this is because now we will never have the chance to perform Operation Urispaz!

No comments: