Cody went to the oral surgeon this morning to get five teeth pulled - one molar and four wisdom teeth. His dentist looked slightly more gentle and his tools looked a little more professional than the guy in the pic above, but I'm pretty sure this is how Cody viewed the doc and his tools.
All is going well so far - changing out the gauze, taking meds, ice packs on, staying elevated - just the regular stuff. But for Cody this is a very big deal since he's never even had an IV before this morning. He HATES needles... and even gets a little whoozie if he has to watch me or Kate get poked.
Over the course of the nine years we've been married, Cody has taken care of me through 8 or 9 different surgeries - but this has been my first opportunity in our marriage to be on the nurse side rather than the patient side post-op.
I think I like the patient side better. It was very hard to just hold his hand this morning and have to stand there unable to help him as they got his IV started and strapped on all the monitors. I wished over and over that I could just trade places with him for a few minutes so he wouldn't have to go through the hardest part of his day: the needle. I'd have let them poke me 18 times if they could have found a way for him to not have to hurt.
I guess we have to allow the ones we love the most to hurt sometimes so they will be better off in the long run... but even though I understand that, it's still definitely not easy to stand by and watch them hurt.
So today I'm perfecting the art of being a good nurse as Cody starts the healing process. I know the next few days won't be a whole lot of fun around our house, but we're both going to be learning how to fulfill our new roles and appreciate each other in different ways than before.
All is going well so far - changing out the gauze, taking meds, ice packs on, staying elevated - just the regular stuff. But for Cody this is a very big deal since he's never even had an IV before this morning. He HATES needles... and even gets a little whoozie if he has to watch me or Kate get poked.
Over the course of the nine years we've been married, Cody has taken care of me through 8 or 9 different surgeries - but this has been my first opportunity in our marriage to be on the nurse side rather than the patient side post-op.
I think I like the patient side better. It was very hard to just hold his hand this morning and have to stand there unable to help him as they got his IV started and strapped on all the monitors. I wished over and over that I could just trade places with him for a few minutes so he wouldn't have to go through the hardest part of his day: the needle. I'd have let them poke me 18 times if they could have found a way for him to not have to hurt.
I guess we have to allow the ones we love the most to hurt sometimes so they will be better off in the long run... but even though I understand that, it's still definitely not easy to stand by and watch them hurt.
So today I'm perfecting the art of being a good nurse as Cody starts the healing process. I know the next few days won't be a whole lot of fun around our house, but we're both going to be learning how to fulfill our new roles and appreciate each other in different ways than before.
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