**Warning: sensitive content**

Imagine if you will, you are on pins and needles waiting for your spouse to come out after going through the first stage of MOHS surgery. When he comes out the first time, his face is bandaged and he says, “I’m done…unless they have to go deeper.”

You tense back up and wait. The nurse calls him back again, and you try to stay busy while you wait. He comes out about 15-20 minutes later, face more worried and obviously in pain. He says he hopes that was it. The third time they call him back, you go back too. The doc comes in later and says “We got it all.”

You are overjoyed and start to relax until he explains the rest of it. The wound will take considerable care to keep dressed until a week from now, when he will undergo a flap surgery to cover the wound. They get ready to show me the steps to the wound care. I ask permission to take a picture, thinking it will show the boys what he’s going through and make them feel for him.

Now imagine, you getting up, walking around to the surgery side of your husband’s face, thinking you will see at worst, a small divot cut out. Imagine your horror when instead, you see a bone-deep wound about as big around as a piece of chalk, maybe bigger, at a downward angle and not knowing just how far down it goes. I will spare you the picture, but his brother, one of his 3 sons, and one other person has seen it and agrees with me. That’s horrific!

Then you ask why he wasn’t sedated because you can’t imagine going through that, twice in your life now, with nothing more than a local to numb it and some extra strength Tylenol for pain. My husband is tough as nails, I tell you!! Now imagine as I watch them cauterize the edges of the wound, his great pain as he winces every time, and the smell. I’m getting emotional, so I will just tell you that I was incensed.

I might have broken a few laws getting him home because all I wanted to do was get him home and make him as comfortable as possible. Every nerve in my body was on high alert, and I’m starting to feel goofy from lack of sleep. I’ve been off of all my vices- vaping, occasionally drinking, and using CBD gummies to sleep since Monday. I’m grinding my teeth. I’m worrying he’s upset with me after viewing the wound when I looked at him and said in my best Paul McCartney imitation, You ‘ave an ‘ole in your ‘ed” and nervously laughed. He nervously smiled back, but was it too soon?

Once home, I fret and fuss over him until I know he’s comfortable, then sit to inform everyone on the planet that we know before allowing myself a minute to digest all of this myself. That was yesterday.

This morning we rose early, not having slept much, or well, and tried to read our news and enjoy a cup of coffee before attempting to change the dressing. When it’s time, I grab all the necessities and wash my hands before trying to put what looks like a quarter tsp of Vaseline into the open wound and cover it up with gauze and tape. Fail. He tries, messy but at least he can see. You feel inadequate as a nurse. You run to the store for better supplies, and food when you are approached by a crazy sounding man on a scooter, claiming to be hungry and asking if you’ll buy him just these two things because he hasn’t eaten in two days. He tells you he’s schizophrenic and paranoid and people normally won’t help him. Your heart goes out but you need to get back and you have no phone, so goofy you forgot it. The items are a bag of powdered donuts and some ice cream on a stick. About $6. You decide to do it, but you’re nervous he might follow you out and try to add more to the list.

I grabbed the last of what I needed (or so I thought) and practically ran to check out, but there he was calmly rolling up beside me. I rang up his items and bagged them, handed them over and said, “You’re welcome” when he thanked me and said he owed me one. I finished paying for my items and quickly left, feeling the adrenaline pumping through me as I got to my car and loaded up the bags. Sometimes doing a good deed is satisfying and makes you happy and other times you do it but you’re a little freaked out.

I got home and relayed the story but Dave didn’t understand why it scared me so. “Have you seen and observed what the world is like these days”-that’s what I wanted to say but didn’t. Still I hope I did the right thing by trying not to judge and helping the guy out. He has a real illness, wether it’s what he said it was or not, idk, but he was slurring like a man on lots of medication. Had I had the money to give, I’d have just given him some money and walked away wishing him well, but I had to go to the register with all my crazy thoughts swirling through my head.

I’m glad the things I bought made a better and smaller dressing, but Dave still had to apply it most himself knowing how much it hurt and how to keep it out of his eye so he can still see. As I’m sitting here typing, I catch myself gritting my teeth again, a sure sign of nicotine withdrawal. Time for another piece of chewing gum and maybe after a while…a nap!

It may be the spookiest month of the year, but I prefer to get scared watching a movie than dealing with horrors in real life. I hope I haven’t scared you all too bad, but at least now you know my state of mind a bit better.