Well, not really... (the wife's perspective)

I never imagined that having my husband flopped on the couch watching basketball would give me such a warm, fuzzy feeling. After Wednesday, though, there's nothing I'd rather see!

I'd been getting more worried about him all day, as the pain got worse and worse (and less and less flu-like), and when he finally said he needed to go to the ER my brain sort of froze. My husband, the guy who'd been doing all the chores, waiting on me hand and foot, and being my rock for the last two months of morning sickness, was in enough pain that he needed... the ER? I'd suggested it a few hours earlier, but he had brushed it off. Now he was asking me to take him! I probably resembled a chicken with its head cut off, looking up directions to the hospital (which is five minutes away with signs starting practically at our front door - I've passed it multiple times on my way to other places), trying to figure out what I should bring (I ended up grabbing my purse, an energy bar I never ate, and a water bottle I forgot to fill), and unable to decide whether to finish my late lunch first (it sounds heartless, but at that point my brain just wasn't processing the "emergency" part.)

I managed to make it to the hospital without speeding or crashing, with Tim trying to make me "lighten up." Whenever he's behind the wheel, I always drive him crazy by telling him as soon as a stop light turns green, if he doesn't hit the gas within a second. On the way to the hospital, he was doing the same thing to me intentionally to make me laugh! It was a bit hard to laugh with him doubled up groaning the rest of the time, though. By the time the nurses at the ER checked his vitals and asked the normal questions, he couldn't walk. I pushed him back to the waiting room in a wheelchair, and we waited what felt like several hours for them to get him a room and a doctor. In my hyper-emotional state (which was not at all helped by the fact that I'm pregnant), I was dividing the time in the waiting room between tearfully worrying about Tim and silently cursing the poor nurses for "not doing something!" How could they possibly be so calm, how could they possibly sit still, when MY HUSBAND was in so much pain?? I'm sure that guy they just took in could have waited a few hours - I mean, it looked like he only had a few broken limbs. And that woman? For goodness' sake, she's only having a baby! Tell her to man up and wait!

Despite time slowing down, he did actually get a room about an hour after we got there, and a little over half an hour later they finally gave him an IV with morphine. I was probably nearly as relieved as he was! He relaxed almost immediately, and started chatting non-stop with the nurses and me, making us all laugh. We watched TV, and my job was basically to keep him awake to drink all the gross stuff they gave him to have before his CT scan. My wonderful friend Kristi brought me dinner as soon as she found out what happened, which pretty much saved me - a snickers bar and a bag of trail mix will not keep a pregnant lady going for six hours!

The rest of the night went much better, they found out what it was and did the surgery (the surgeon told me afterwards that if we'd waited much longer to come in his appendix would have burst), and I got to see him around midnight when he came out of the anesthetic. I was very proud of myself for not crying (at least, not very much) all evening, but what finally set me off was the mean nurse at the desk telling me I couldn't stay the night. In hindsight she was actually very apologetic and as nice as she could be, but she will forever be "the mean nurse who made me cry." She did let me stay for a bit, even though it was past midnight and visiting hours ended at seven, so I spent awhile crying out the stress of the day on Tim's shoulder (even though he was the one who'd just had surgery after being in excruciating pain all day). I was finally able to think about the day and realize how awful it had been and how worried I was, and I was far too tired to deal with those thoughts!

I came in as soon as visiting hours started in the morning, and took him home a few hours later when they finished giving him antibiotics. I thank God now that he's sitting on our couch, very talkative (probably because of the Vicodin!), watching basketball. Sometimes you don't know what you've got 'till it's threatened.