Emergency Surgery and Parking Lot Breakdowns

A few weeks ago, my wonderful Handsome Husband had to have an emergency abdominal surgery to remove his appendix.

Everything went a-okay, and lucky the dude is making a stellar recovery in no-time!

Here's how it went down:

6pm Tuesday night: HH starts complaining of stomach pressure and pain.

We sort of assume it's gas, and he takes some gas relief meds, and tries to get some sleep.

Throughout the night he gets awful sleep, poor guy was tossing and turning every ten minutes.

7am Wednesday morning: HH is still in pain, and decides to take the day off work to get some rest.

11am Wednesday: On my way back to my clinic after a meeting, I call my Hubster who is still complaining of pain.  Worried, I have him call his doctor and get in to see her.  (HH has been seeing the same physician since he was born and always gets in to see her right away when he needs to.)

2:30pm Wednesday afternoon: Handsome Hubs calls me, tells me his doc is pretty sure its appendicitis, and that he is going straight to the ER at our local hospital (steps from my work, as in we share the parking lot).

By 5:00pm Wednesday we had been told it definitely was appendicitis (after a CT to confirm), and we were taken up to Pre-Op around 5:30pm.

At 6:00pm I gave HH some good luck in surgery kisses, and by 6:45pm the surgeon was coming out to tell me all went well.

In those 45 minutes, I freaked a little.  Up until then everything happened so fast that I didn't really have time to worry.  Not that worrying was really necessary as an appendectomy is a very routine surgery with a very small risk of complication.  However, there is still that risk.  And those 45 minutes gave me lots of time to think about them.

There was also the fact that there were about five families in the waiting room, and I was the last to get my good news.  Once four families got theirs, I started wondering about odds and if there was any way I could possibly get good news after all of them had.

I started to think what would happen if something went wrong, if somehow I lost my sweet HH suddenly.  Surely, everyone knows life is not guaranteed and that you can lose the people you love any day, but being confronted with it like that, having to wait to hear whether your loved one is waking up from surgery, is a bit different.

But thank God, he was fine.  I saw him after surgery, spent a few hours with him post-surgery, and then headed home per his instructions (I seriously considered breaking hospital rules and sleeping in a chair bedside with him, but he insisted I head home).

And then I got into my car.

And then I lost my shit.

I cried an ugly cry like no other.

I sobbed at my steering wheel like I haven't in a long time.

And why?

(I'll be honest and say that I think this breakdown was highly influenced by 2 things other than the below: 1. PMS, and 2. A book I had just finished at the time, Two Kisses for Maddy, in which a spouse becomes a very young widow suddenly - Book Club Friday post to come!)

I cried because I realized I could lose this man at any moment,

and that terrifies me.

My life would never be the same without my husband in it - he is my main source of laughter, encouragement, love, intimacy. 

He brings such joy in to my life, that I can't imagine my life anything but dark without him in it.

My husband is my best friend, and I don't mean that to insult my other amazing female best friends.  I mean it to do nothing but praise a man who puts up with me every second of every day.  He deserves an award for his patience and caring with someone who is not always the same towards him.

He is truly and unequivocally the love of my life.

So I cried because even though on that day he was fine, I could lose him (and any of my loved ones, for that matter) at a moment's notice, and how effing scary is that?

After a sufficient crying sesh (sometimes you just feel so much better post cry, don't you?!), I pulled myself together and got myself home, as we do. 

And since then, I've been attached to his hip.

Okay, not really - but for a good 72 hours I practically was.