My grandmother went in to get her right hip replaced yesterday. Boy does that sound funny, but it’s amazing how they can just pull out an entire joint that’s pretty much essential to living and replace it then have that person up and walking that evening. Anyways, my grandfather was nervous, though he wouldn’t say it of course. That’s not a manly thing to do, and he turned into, what I like to call, a “Clouseau” (Pink Panther) while at the hospital.
When they first called us back to see her before the surgery he manages to trip over one of the doctor’s wheelie chairs, successfully landing with one knee to the floor. This all seemed to happen in slow motion too. Funny how that works. The nurse that was in the room almost successfully filled her drawers watching him go down. We got him back up and he sat down, regaining his composure, twiddling his thumbs and acting like nothing happened at all. Business as usual. The nurse told him to behave himself and to hold my hand on the way out. lol
He did manage to trip a little getting out of there, but I had shoved the wheelie chairs out of his line of travel, so nothing much happened. We got him to park himself in the waiting room and chill. He impatiently sat there waiting for the buzzer the nurse gave him to go off. Every buzzer in the room that went off made him jump for his. After the surgery was over we traveled to the next floor to wait. He was standing in the hallway and after about 30-40 minutes my grandmother finally shows up. She was still really out of it and drugged up. She couldn’t talk or anything just move her head and look around a little. When she was in place and set up, he went over to her bed and was leaning in to say goodbye and give her a kiss. He tripped again. The wheels on the bed weren’t locked so it started to roll off to the other side of the room, with him almost falling on her. My husband caught the bed so it quit moving but he looked at her heart monitor and saw that it had shot up about 10 points. I was watching her and her eyes were the size of pies and she gave my grandfather such a glare. The glare of I can’t do anything but if you stay around long enough I will try. The whole thing reminded me of a scene in the Pink Panther with Clouseau and Dreyfus. After that, we put the bed back in place and he again leaned in and was going to kiss her goodbye. He told her we were going to leave and her heart monitor instantly dropped a few points. I couldn’t help but laugh a bit.
I think from now on I’m going to keep any furniture with wheels on it away from him. Overall her surgery went really well though, they got her up on her feet that night to walk a bit and we got the old man home in one piece. We have success!