The veterans

It’s 2:15 and Rico has just been wheeled into his final surgery. If all goes well,it will be short. If things are more complicated, there will be some skin grafts and muscles trading spaces, but that would be somewhat unexpected after how many times they’ve dug around in that spot. They’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s there.

Unlike me.

I know my way around Mayo Clinic. I know my way around Methodist Hospital. I could navigate the subway level with my eyes closed - truly. But the St. Mary’s area is different.

It’s smaller, and seems to have its own set of rules. The cafeteria appears to only be open about four hours a day, on the other hand the museum of medical history (oddity) is open 24/7.  

While this may be an exaggeration, it’s been my personal experience. The elevator will take you to the 8th floor, but only part of it. Sometimes we transfer Rico to a new bed for surgery, sometimes we wheel him right out of his room on the one he’s napping on. I can’t make much sense of it.

But there are other things that I’m pretty savvy about, and while I take no pride in being a veteran here, there is a bit of comfort in knowing what to expect. There are people who’ve been here much longer and more often than us, people who are on first-name, even nick-name basis with the pizza delivery guy, but there are also people who have never been here before, and having been there, it makes me sad. 

I sometimes wonder if we’ve made ourselves too comfortable. We hike in like sherpas scaling Everest, with our too-full backpacks hanging off of our shoulders, our pillows and favorite blankets stuffed under our arms, stacks of photos and a roll of scotch tape to make his room more homey, our own box of tea because all they have here is lemon lift and earl gray, and we’re more cinnamon types. 

We scope out the mini kitchen, because there’s no need for him to ring the buzzer when one of us has two working legs and can go refill the ice chips on our own. When they need help moving him to the bed he calls for me and I help lift. I’m getting pretty good at bracing the gurney against my leg so it doesn’t roll away. The admissions people see us coming and don’t even offer us an escort to the room. “You can just go,” they say.

We are so grateful for this place, grateful for the love, the care, and the expertise. 

But we’re also grateful that we aren’t real veterans. You know, like the guy who had to bite on a stick while Dr. Mayo used his good gallbladder spoon.

 We’ll take unpredictable cafeteria hours, as long as they’re also throwing in lazers, scopes and sterile hypodermics.