RIP Ralph

 About six years ago Abe noticed a lymph node near his jaw/ear was swollen, leading him to believe he was fighting off an infection. However, it never receded. He checked in with a couple doctors over the years and they told him not to worry about it. He finally decided it was time to get rid of the large node that had grown to the size of a bouncy super ball.

The doctor ran a CT scan before to see what they were dealing with. It came back totally clear, so next a biopsy was performed. I was relieved it came back benign, basically a calcium deposit. 

An outpatient procedure was scheduled, but a couple days prior Abe went in for the same type of pre-op procedures I had completed before my stone removal. The day of, Eli had online school school and I didn’t want to leave him home alone, so I dropped Abe off at the hospital at 10:00, although he thought the procedure was probably going to be around 1:00. On the drive in he mused that the growth should have a name before it goes bye bye. Hence the naming of Ralph.

Abe and Ralph were checked into a private room to spend the day. Weird, right? A hospital room for an outpatient procedure. The room even had a nice view of the river.

Around 1:30 the doctor popped in to tell Abe that the procedure would go down in about 2 hours. Once the bigs got home from school I headed over to GNU. I missed Abe, as they had finally taken him down around 4:30. I went to his room to wait. 

Y’ALL.  

I got the shaft on my hospital stay. 😤 The very first thing I noticed was the cute little blue hand towel on Abe’s bag. I had never seen it before. Then I spied with my little eye a bag, like a toiletry bag setting on the bedside table. A bag! The mysterious blue hand towel had come from this bag, plus a drinking cup, toothbrush, toothpaste, a little bar of soap in a plastic container, and set of chopsticks and a spoon! 

And there’s more. Abe even got a little pair of slides to wear down to the operating room. You know what I got? The stink eye. I got the stink eye when I asked for a spoon to eat my soup. 🤬 I had a two night mandatory stay and I got nothin; Abe had an outpatient surgery and he got a swag bag. You know what else?? Insurance refused to pay for my two night, three day required stay. Abe got a private room with a swag bag and he walked out the door paying nothing. We will see what we end up paying insurance, but up front they approved his room. I was robbed, y’all. 

Sorry about that rant; back to Ralph. Finally at 6:40 they wheeled Abe back to his room. 

He just had a local anesthetic, much like you get at the dentist. 

We waited another hour or so for the doctor to come in to check on him and give us follow up instructions. The doctor said it was a bit larger than he expected, and Abe’s mouth might take 2-6 months to totally recover. 😳 We were like, do you mean weeks? “Onyo,” he replied,  “Months.” The corner of his mouth was kind of motionless, like when you leave the dentist after numbing. 

Praise the Lord it bounced back as soon as the anesthesia wore off. 

*WARNING* - graphic content coming up 

The next picture is Ralph. He was about 2.5 centimeters in diameter. That’s gotta leave a big hole in the side of Abe’s jaw.  

We're almost a week out and it seems to be healing quite well so far and Abe feels no pain in the area. 

Even though Ralph has been hanging out with Abe for several years,  Abe doesn’t even miss his company. Let's hope Abe has more allegience to me than he did this little guy.

[January 18]