The Power of Power

The power was off for seven hours the night before Amy’s surgery. We should have known that was a bad omen. It throws the rhythm of our daily lives off kilter, leaving us feeling unbalanced and threatened. Actually, when the power suddenly goes off and everything becomes strangely eerie, I rather relish it temporarily except: Now the Leavers have an automatic generator that comes on the instant the power fails. The raucous noise is annoying enough but the porch light comes on; their house lights up like a Christmas tree while the rest of us are simmering in silent darkness. The mysterious ambience is tainted. We no longer sit on the deck or front porch in dark quietude.

How did the tonsillectomy and turbinate surgery go?  Fine. I had planned to go over with Amy but while I was upstairs getting ready, the Surgical Center called and said they were running ahead and could she come right over. DeRay was sitting in a chair handy so she grabbed him. “She didn’t even want to wait for me to get my shoes on,” he explained later. After I thought they should be home, DeRay calls: “She’s in recovery but we’re not happy with what’s going on. Could you come right over?” “What’s wrong?” “I think she needs her mama.” I leave Ed and my unfinished lunch and rush over. She is gray. Scary. As things don’t improve, and we try to figure out how to make her more comfortable, a doctor decides to try Benadryl and something else in her IV. She falls asleep. Her color is coming back as she wakes up. Around 5, she wakes up enough to declare she wants to go home. I go to the desk and tell them she wants to go home and she doesn’t want to go to the bathroom or walk around as others have done. We get home around 7. The ride home is too much for her. She throws up brutally before she can even get out of the car. Nevertheless, she goes directly downstairs, as she had planned. There is nothing we can do to make her more comfortable. All night and all day. Friday night things turn worse. She is having a violent reaction to either the antibiotics or the pain medication. She takes herself off both but now her throat hurts mercilessly. The next morning DeRay calls the clinic. He’s left to talk to the pharmacist when they call back. “We can’t change her medication unless the doctor checks her. Have her come in.” “She can’t lift her head off the pillow. Maybe the doctor could come here.” It was a joke but she spent the next 5 minutes explaining to me that their policy is to not make house calls. I still have vivid memories of Dr. Aiken, who took my tonsils out twice, walking around town with his black bag making house calls. He lived 22 miles away. “Her doctor will be in Monday at 8 AM,” the voice continues. “She’ll be dead by Monday.” This was not a joke. “I think it’s better to have a dead patient than break rules.” She agreed to call Amy’s doctor. He called back and she listens to him talk. He takes her off the pain pills and the antibiotics. Tylenol and Ibuprofen alternately, exactly as she already had been doing.  I sleep downstairs one more night just to keep an eye on things. Otherwise, we are two stories away from her. We had been corresponding on the computer but she claims Dad never responds to her texts. She takes care of all her food and drink now, making both of us a lot happier. How does someone else know what a very sore throat and disturbed nostrils can handle? Healing takes time.

And we blame it all on the power outage. 
PS I'd love to post a picture of the inside of her throat but she won't let me.