Joanna Gilman Hyde

January 29th The 103 7:49am

I have to be very grown up

this is what grown-ups do

They go to Operations

–

11:15am Queen Elizabeth II (Old VG) Halifax

“See Ya” rings out cheerily

in the halls

–

12:45pm

I wait, rest, in a room

thematically named “Beach”

Hunter was taken away @ 12:15

an hour & 45 minutes before scheduled

I wait to hear a “start time”

–

1:56pm

I am waiting for a “start time”

has the surgery started yet?

(note: shortly after writing this I was told

the “Cut Time” was 1:30

and was given a 3 hour “window”)

I see, for the first time,

10:22 is Really 22:22

on the 24 hour clock

(to spell it out for everybody)

It’s very loud around here — there’s

actually raucous laughter across

the hall

luckily I am the only person in this

“Beach Room”

(note:  one woman came in with reminiscences

of a trip through the Caribbean and described

how She would have jumped ship into the open arms

of a big black woman in the surf, who had a smile

as big as She was) 

–

2:30pm

(note: checked into The Lord Nelson)

–

3:00pm

(note: cell phone call from surgeon:

“Mrs Blair — I’m calling to say 

the operation went very well

Your Husband will be in Recovery

about two hours”)

–

(note: made phone calls to friends and relatives

had to find out Hunter’s Private Isolation Room

and visited Him there for a couple of hours

where the door was kept open and I was allowed

ungowned

though Hunter was a suspected MRSA* carrier

Hunter seemed wonderful — five abdominal incisions

for laparoscopy to fix a hernia and esophagus)

–

9:27pm The Lord Nelson Victory Arms Pub

I’m drinking Keith’s On Tap

& about to order a club

& Greek salad

The Waiter said

“You’re not from around here

are You”

*Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aurius 

also known as The Super Bug