Thanks Celine Dion
SO my Mom had open-heart surgery on Monday. Aortas, valves, aneurysms-it was all so technical and unreal just two weeks ago and now it is all we think about. I was completely unprepared for how awful it was.
Before they took her into surgery John, my mom and I were joking about the “signs” that would let us know the outcome. We had Lilo with us (yes, we took our dog to my mother’s heart surgery-don’t ask) so we said that if Lilo suddenly started howling we would know she was gone. Fortunately there was no howling, the geese flying over were not harbingers of death. Animal wisdom we were prepared for, but who would have thought Celine Dion would have been a moment of comfort? At the halfway point in her epic surgery somewhere in a distant room the sounds of The Love Theme from Titanic came wafting through-”And I know that my heart will go onnnnnnnn”. I announced to our tribe that now I knew she would be just fine.
And she was. I had brought my camera in some naive idea that I would take photos for the blog-again, read the first paragraph where I was in complete denial about how awful this was. Which is why I am using the photo from her wedding to Jack about a year and a half ago. She was slow to come to but is on the path to recovery.
But this all leads me to a discussion on just how unreal Grey’s Anatomy is. I discuss each weeks episode with two girlfriends, one of whom is a nurse. Last week Carrie asked Jan how realistic the show was from a medical perspective and Jan explained that it really wasn’t. Now I can contribute to that. In Sunday’s episode a guy is diagnosed with an aneurysm, just like my mom. It bursts and he has some surgery and a few hours later he looks just fine, is talking and worrying about the heartless bitch who just left him. WRONG! That man would have been in at least 8 hours of surgery followed by hours of critical care. There would have been a tube going down his throat helping him breath. Several tubes would be thrusting out of his chest sucking out the excess blood that was leaking out. He would look waxy, wired up and half dead. He would barely be able to speak let alone discuss how his bitch fiance had left him. And by the way-I still feel sorry for Meridith, like McDreamy more than McSteamy and am glad Addison got poison oak.
