Tests of Our Mettle 4/13/2025

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

Last week I waxed a bit philosophically, or at least I think it can safely be called that.  I figured this week might be a better time to have a bit of a lighthearted story time.  Now the tale I am about to tell does come with a bit of a disclaimer.  The contents of this have their moments of being graphic, so if hearing about things that one might stumble upon in a hospital type situation are not your proverbial cup of tea, or IV bag of saline in this case, you may want to wait until next week to continue reading. And honestly, while that type of thing doesn’t particularly bother me, I am not sure this is the type of story that I would choose to read if I hadn’t been thrust into the situation where I had to live it in the most hands-on type of way you can imagine. So, if you’re still here and haven’t opted out yet, here we go.

My husband and I had not even been married for a year yet when this adventure began. And before you ask yes, I have gotten his permission to tell this story as he is pretty much our protagonist, well also antagonist in a way as well, but we’ll get there. He had come home from work with a stomachache that wasn’t letting up. As the evening progressed and things only got worse, he eventually felt he had no course of action other than for me to take him to the Emergency Room.  By the time we arrived at the hospital he was in abject agony. Once we began the thrillingly typical process of waiting to be seen he began to vomit due to the pain. Now, I need to interject something here. I had never witnessed my husband vomit before this. So, when he went to the apparently very thin-walled bathrooms in the waiting room and began to emit what sounded like a cross between a bloody-murder scream plus a removal of all his internal organs, well, I was a tad traumatized.  Fortunately, I have since learned that this is only characteristic when he is in intense pain and also fortunately, he has not produced this sound since.

Once we finally got to leave the waiting room which was filled with people who, if I am honest, looked all just as horrified by what they had just heard as I was, we finally began the experimental processes begun by nurses and doctors. They couldn’t really nail down what was wrong. Thankfully at least he was given something for the pain, or at least that must have happened as the uproarious bathroom visits had ceased. Tests were run. He had to drink strange liquids. Nothing could be sorted out until finally after a CT scan they discovered the cause of his problem. Apparently, the problem was his appendix. This seems very routine and like it should have been relatively easily discovered but his symptoms hadn’t been exactly traditional, so it took them a bit longer to investigate that angle, or something of the sort was the explanation.  But removing the appendix would be done relatively soon and it’s a simple enough surgery so all should be well before too long. Oh, my dear reader, if it were only that simple.

He went back for surgery, and I waited. And then I waited more. And then I waited a great deal more.  After multiple hours (I don’t remember exactly how many hours, but it seemed like days) his surgeon, looking a bit taxed I remember, came to talk to me and tell me of the adventure that this surgery was. It should have been simple and laparoscopic except for the intriguing development that his appendix was in the wrong place. This led to them not being able to get to the pesky ailed organ by using scopes and tiny incisions. No, my husband had been cut with about an 18-inch-long incision, maybe more as I don’t have his scar for reference in front of me at the moment.  It seems also that his appendix may have also ruptured somewhat because the doctor described it as plastered to his intestines, and he was terribly ill.

He was in the hospital for nearly a week.  The first few days he was so medicated that he was barely conscious. Then there was infection around his surgical site which required even stronger medication. Then there was the glory that was the staples closing his incision ripping through, so his giant wound was open. So there he was, medicated to the gills, unable to do much of any moving about on his own, with a gaping maw on his stomach that will have to have a lovely thing called a wound-vac which is exactly what you think it is and this giant hole will have to be cleaned, packed with sterile gauze and bandaged multiple times a day. And this is the state he was in when it was time to go home! When the surgeon was discharging us and telling us all this, I asked him about a home nurse. Oh no, all day, every day cleaning, packing and dressing of the wound would fall to me. I would have liked to have seen my face as he very flippantly informed of that. I married him to fill a hole in his heart, not his abdominal cavity.  But I suppose I also did apply the for better or for worse clause, though in my defense, we did not have traditional vows that said that as I wrote them.

Over the next several weeks, or indirectly months, I learned many things. I learned that I can in fact clean out and dress a massive surgical wound.  I learned that letting a wound heal from the inside out is called secondary intention healing and this is a fun term to toss about and sound very medically savvy. I also learned that I could help a grown man do things that he would rather not have needed help doing. One day, while at eye level with his giant “stomach mouth” as we affectionately began to call it, I was feeling very pleased with myself and thought perhaps I should have been a nurse as I was doing such a fine job. Then I remembered that I actually loved my patient and would have no incentive whatsoever to endure such things for a total stranger, so I tossed that thought rather quickly. Oh, I forgot, we also learned that the only pain medication that even touched my husband’s suffering from this abomination of a surgery also gave him a particularly unpleasant attitude. I must also interject here that he has no recollection of this period of time as he was so heavily medicated to fight pain and infection, and he has profusely apologized for the behavior that I had to relay to him later on.  If I am honest that was the worst of it, but I don’t hold it against him as he was probably more medication than man for a while there.

Eventually he healed though there were multiple follow-up surgeries to repair all sorts of hernias and other unpleasantness that was a result of all this.  His stomach is still a tad misshapen on the side with his large scar.  When we’re at the lake or by the pool he’ll tighten his stomach muscles which makes the scar area bulge strangely and he enjoys telling visiting children it is his “alien baby”.  I suppose it is his parlor trick of sorts.  And other than him having a less than symmetrical abdominal shape, we have emerged from everything for the better. That was twelve years ago this summer.  While as a new wife it was rather daunting, I guess there was some comfort in knowing that dealing with new orifices in my husband’s body would likely not be (knock on wood) something that I would have to do again.  For enjoyability I don’t recommend such an experience, but as far as a learning not only what you’re capable of but also how much you truly love your spouse in a trial by fire type of way, I would say it served well.