Seth's hands had been giving him fits. They were numb/tingly or unable to hold things well. He suspected (knew) it was carpal tunnel, so he saw a specialist who was able to confirm it. Rather than putting up with the problem, they decided to schedule surgery right away.
December 18 was Seth's Friday off anyway, so he set up the time for that date. The day before, the hospital called and said his surgery would be at 2:30 p.m.; he and I needed to be at the hospital by 1 p.m.
The girls had school that day, so he and I spent our morning checking out D.I. and Goodwill. Seth received a surprise call from the hospital at 11 a.m. The doctor was AHEAD of schedule. Could we come? Like, now?
He quickly took a shower and I packed a lunch. We zipped over to Mountain View and got checked in.
Seth got an I.V. started in his elbow pit. We waited.
He was moved to a different area. The I.V. was in the wrong place for this doctor who prefers to put the tourniquet higher on the arm. A nurse had to undo the I.V. from Seth's arm and put it in his foot. We waited.
And waited some more.
Apparently the surgery right before Seth's had some complications. So instead of the doctor being ahead of schedule, Seth was wheeled off to surgery at 2:47 — 17 minutes later than the originally scheduled time.
Everything went well until Seth woke up. His left hand hurt. A lot. Much more than the right. The nurse in recovery informed him that they had forgotten to put the block in his left hand. Wha?! (We're going to make sure we don't get stuck paying for blocks in both hands since Seth certainly didn't get blocks in both hands.) After getting chummy with the nurses in recovery (Seth's default state when coming out of general anesthesia), we brought him home to recover. That was the last day before we officially moved into our house, but he and I spent the night over here anyway since our bed had been moved in, and we figured it would be easier for him to recover here than in a trailer with no running water.
Seth was back to work (from home) by the next Monday. He got the stitches removed earlier than originally scheduled (2+ weeks is a long time to have those bad boys in) and is waiting for his 6-week post op appointment. He hated watching Bekah and I move in the rest of the furniture (organ, entry table) and the heavy boxes without him, but everyone managed.