Being in the hospital sucks

Not for me, mind you. I actually enjoyed hanging out at Saint Anthony Medical Center today with my friend Rustin.. part watching college basketball, part helping out, part watching friends and family file through the his room to say hi. And the internet connection was nice too.

But man, I feel for Rustin. He's been through the ringer after his surgery last week to remove a benign tumor on his lung. A full thorachotomy (sp?) meant they just tore him to get at the thing, including having to break a rib to get in there. Details aside, he's just had a really tough week of IVs, chest tubes, all sorts of crap.

As I sit and watch and talk with him, I remember being sort of in the same place during  my stays in the hospital - mostly for the apendectomy a few years ago.

It just blows. 

You just want to feel like a human being again but all the pain meds are wreaking havoc with your body. And there's really no level of decency possible with all of the nurses coming in at various times to check on you when you're in such bad shape.

And depending on who's working the nurse shift at any given time, you may have somebody really great or somebody who you would never trust with giving you an IV by herself.

It's great that he has family close by who have been able to help out. But ultimately he has to go through the physical stuff on his own. And it's no fun. And you KNOW you're not doing well when you can pass up a trio of Chipotle tacos...

He said earlier that he sees the reason why the doctor never fully described what he was going to go through. It's much worse than he had imagined, he said.  He's even been joking that during the first day or two of recovery, he may have begged to be put into a coma because all of the pain medication wasn't helping.

His doctor says the other chest tube can possibly come out tomorrow (the first came out this morning) and that he may get to go home Monday... I'll keep my fingers crossed on that one.

I know he's going to really enjoy being at his own place again. In fact, more than he really knows.