Grant's day off

Grant had a random day off from work today. Who knew it'd end up so messy...

For seven years, Grant has had a cyst on his shoulder. He's had it looked at on more than one occasion and his doctor assured him that it was harmless. However, a few days ago Grant bumped his shoulder against a door-frame and his cyst became very swollen and painful. It was finally time to get rid of his old familiar friend.

Since Grant has today off, he thought it would be the perfect time to stop by the doctor and have the cyst taken off. The doctor told Grant that he could definitely take it off or that Grant could leave it alone and that the swelling would go down in a few weeks. My brave Grant opted for the former and spent forty minutes on a table while the doctor dug deep and removed the cyst. Grant received two internal stitches and five outer stitches.

After his outpatient procedure, Grant (being the great husband he is) picked up lunch for both of us so that we could eat in my office. While trying to get through my chicken, Grant went into great detail about the procedure and how the cyst had popped and he could feel fluid...ok I'll spare you. When he was sure he'd completely grossed me out, he went back to our apartment to take it easy.

Not even ten minutes had gone by before Grant called me. "I think I'm bleeding through my bandage". Lovely. I was up and running. I got upstairs and could see that the bandage was indeed filling with blood. I thought it would be best to remove the bandage and put some fresh ones on. Grant, instead, had me line four band aids over the original. As I laid the final band aid down, blood began pouring down his back from underneath the band aids. The flood gates had opened. As I stammered and wondered what I should grab to wipe at the continuing flow, Grant calmly walked to the kitchen and leaned over the sink so as to not get blood on the carpet. (A man after my own heart.) I grabbed toilet paper from the bathroom to wipe up the streams of blood running down his back. He instructed me to put pressure on the incision and wait for the bleeding to stop. While I was doing my job and staring wide-eyed at the many bloodied wads of toilet paper around us, Grant calmly called his doctor. The bleeding patient was put on hold for no less than four minutes and then told that all doctors were out of the office for the day and that he should go to Urgent Care if the bleeding continued. Again-lovely.

After a few minutes, we both decided that the bleeding had finally stopped. I remarked to Grant that I didn't generally do well in emergencies, to which he replied, "Oh REALLY?". Well, at least one of us was calm and collected...even if it happened to be the one in distress! We put new dressing on the incision and after a few minutes, I decided it was safe to go back to the office. WRONG WRONG WRONG. Fifteen minutes later, Grant called to tell me he was bleeding again. I was again up and running. I came upstairs to find the white t-shirt he'd put on totally soaked in blood around the shoulder area. This was becoming a problem. We pulled off the blood-soaked dressing and applied pressure again. This time we decided not to chance it. We hit the road, destination-Urgent Care.

You'd think the girls at the front desk of Urgent Care would've found Grant's situation a little more...urgent. They stared blankly at him, asked why he was bleeding, and looked around at each other, waiting for someone to take charge. They finally said that we'd have to go to the ER, since the bleeding was a result of a medical procedure and that that in itself was a liability. Fine. Except that streams of blood were still running down Grant's back. "Can I at least get a bandage?", I all but screamed at the girls. At that moment, a nurse appeared in the lobby and whisked Grant away. She and a doctor dressed Grant's wound and bandaged it as tightly as possible so that we could make the trip to the ER.

Back in the car, I called a friend to let him know the situation. As I talked, I could see Grant was not feeling all that great and was sweating a little bit. I remarked to him that I was surprised this was our first medical emergency in all the years we'd been together. And anyone who knows us would've probably bet money that it'd be ME who'd need medical attention. Grant agreed.

We arrived at the ER and Grant was taken back to be treated more quickly than I had ever known any ER to operate. (High five to Norman Regional.) I waited in the lobby and must have looked more than a little stressed because one of the triage nurses offered to take me back to Grant. (All the talk of organ donors and living wills at sign-in had me more than a little on edge.) I found Grant in Room 11, sipping water and happily chatting with a doctor who was giving him three additional stitches. Once the room cleared and Grant was instructed to wait for discharge orders, I took that opportunity to do the obvious-CRY.

So that was Grant's day off...and my day full on as the wife. There are two pictures below of the t-shirt he soaked through and some of the toilet paper we used to mop off the blood. (This was at the patient's request. For some reason, seeing all the blood he'd lost thrilled him. Sick-o.)

CAUTION: Don't look at the pictures below if the sight of blood makes you woozy!!!!