Took Mr K to the hospital today, he’s having a gaggle of procedures done on his head.   A septoplasty, turbinate reduction and something about removing a bony protrusion into his upper sinuses as well as a gratuitous tonsillectomy for good measure.  Doesn’t sound like a lot of fun but it should vastly improve his ability to… well… breathe really.

My Mum dropped him up to the Bris Private Hospital (I had a lecture this morning) knowing full well that he’d be sitting around for hours given they told him to arrive at 1100hrs and he wasn’t booked in until 1430 for the procedure but when I got there I got told by the smiling blonde on the General Enquiries counter that ‘family are not allowed in the Patient Waiting Areas’ and that I ‘could wait around out here in the General Reception area’ as she gestured to the stuffed to the gills seating area behind me.

I told her that I’d been admitted there at least a dozen times myself and that I’d always been able to have a family member with me.  She pertly informed me that ‘this is a new policy, since March 1st’.  I asked her why’d they do that?  And she said ‘it gets too crowded back there’.  So I had her confirm that she wasn’t going to allow me to see Mr K and that I was expected to wait outside here until he was done… expecting that to be about oh, 1830 and I was having this little chat at 1215.

I toyed for a moment with the idea of creating a monumentally uncomfortable scene by very loudly and angrily vocalizing my displeasure at being told that I couldn’t sit with Mr K before his surgery, knowing full well he isn’t used to this sort of thing and would be sitting back there literally freaking out but instead just politely asked her where the nearest public toilets were and quietly went around the corner and made my way to the Patient Waiting Area anyway – where I found Keith sitting in a familiar room of about 40 seats with three other patients.  Shrug… some rules apply to other people.  Trolls.

I stayed with him for a few hours while he waited to go in, trying to help him keep his mind off it all, but the place brings back such horrible memories for me.  About half of my egg collection surgeries were done there (so six or seven), an abdominal laparoscopy where I picked up a near fatal golden staph infection (oh joy of joys that was), one really botched anesthetic where I half woke up and then had a hand the size of an elephant from a badly placed IV and of course the worst day of my life …. the D&C after _that_ miscarriage.

Same ugly coloured walls, same crappy art, same uncomfortable couches covered in a semi-plastic fabric that squeaked when you move.  Just being there made me want to cry… but probably just out of habit.
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