The Phone Call

When I was a young kid growing up in Idaho, we seemed to spend a lot more time on the phone (talking) than we do now. These days, phones should really be named whatever Greek words encapsulate texting-with-friends and looking-at-pet-pictures-on-the-internet. We video chat with family to keep in touch, but true honest audio phone calls are kind of rare these days.

There are a few that you will always remember though: “Dad, we’re all OK, but the fireman would like to talk to you” comes to mind. Blame a microwave oven and Orville Redenbacher for that one.

Today, however, I was really looking forward to getting a phone call.

The day started with Carol getting ready for her oophorectomy surgical procedure by showering with Swedish Hospital’s special disinfectant soap (which she also had to do the night before). After waiting the 2-minute minimum time for the disinfectant soap to do it’s thing, she rinsed off, got dressed and we headed down to Swedish First Hill campus.

The covid-19 protocols are a bit more established there right now (they literally changed in the middle of her double mastectomy late last year), so I knew that I was allowed to park the car and walk her up to reception and help check her in. We found a spot on level D (that would be D as in “dog”, not “deer” according to the sign says I) and went through the health screen that you go through at every doctor’s office or hospital these days.

After a quick exchange of health insurance information and me writing all of my contact info on a piece of paper, we sat down to wait. At 8:15AM, the nurse came and took Carol off to her surgery. Patients aren’t allowed to have anything valuable around while under anesthesia, so I am handed over her phone and wallet (we knew this was expected). Caregivers aren’t allowed to stay in the hospital, so I head off home to wait for the phone call.

I did the dishes, but the phone didn’t ring. I started on the laundry eventually at 11:15 I got the Most Important Phone Call from Carol’s surgeon. It only lasted thirty seconds, but it was an extremely gratifying thirty seconds. Everything with her surgery went extremely well. Her surgery was done with a robot (which we knew was the plan) and the robot only needed 3 small 8mm incisions to remove her ovaries, fallopian tubes and uterus. Damn.

Her surgeon said she was waking up and would be heading off to recovery and that I should expect another phone call from the nurses there. Great! Two more loads of laundry later and I got the phone call.

She was out of recovery and heading down to the discharge department. I asked if it was time for me to head down to pick her up. No, she said, “the discharge department is still staffed with more nurses and they’ll tell you when it’s time to come in. It wasn’t all that informative, but I at least gathered that she was out of the immediate surgical recovery area and off to the area where they were waiting for her to demonstrate that she was ready to come home. Time to wait for another phone call.

So I had some lunch, watched some Champions League Soccer in Spanish on TV and folded more laundry while waiting for a phone call. I finally got it at 2:06PM. Carol had successfully met all of the requisite tests and was ready to head home. They knew I lived up in Lynnwood and so it would be at least 30 minutes until I arrived. They told me to call them back when I arrived. I headed down immediately and arrived at the front door and made a phone call.

The aide answered and said she would tell the nurse I was at the front door, awaiting my wife. 5 minutes passed, then ten. Finally at 20 I decided I’d best check again. This time the nurse answered and said that Carol was on her way, but had to stop at the pharmacy to pick up her discharge medications and apparently there was a bit of a line. OK, no worries, as long as things are moving along, I’ll just sit here and wait.

A few minutes later Carol came out and we got into the car to come home. It wasn’t until we left that she told me the story of what was going on in the pharmacy. The pharmacy is operated by Walgreens, not Swedish, so it’s a completely separate business. There were three prescriptions there for her, but, as you may recall, she has no wallet with ID or credit card. Nor does she have a phone to contact me to get information that she could just tell the person what the relevant numbers are verbally. I suspect you see where this is headed. If only she had a phone.

As it turned out, two of the prescriptions were for medicines which we already have and didn’t really need. The other one didn’t actually have any cost associated with it that was to be charged to us and so they were able to actually give her that one. The back and forth exchange of how to make this work (or not) took a good fifteen to twenty minutes in the pharmacy and so now you know why there was a line of people at the pharmacy.

In the end, Carol is now home, consumed some applesauce, fluids and the proper medicines she needed. She’s now resting comfortably and taking a nice siesta in the sun. She’ll be able nap without interruption because I took her phone.