When it comes to hospitals, there's a world of difference 600 miles away

Brent's mom (and my future mother-in-law!) came into town this past weekend, which was fun, even though the underlying purpose of her trip was to be there for Brent during a surgery he was scheduled for.

I was definitely happy to have Mom M around not only to have someone to do things with, but also to help me deal with a very unhappy fiance who was not looking forward to six weeks on crutches in a city where you walk everywhere.

So I took the day off from work on Friday so I, too, could be with Brent at the hospital for the very late-in-the-day surgery. We left around 1 p.m. to take the subway uptown to the very last subway stop in Manhattan, then walked two blocks in an extremely shady-looking area to the satellite hospital where Brent's surgery was scheduled.

This hospital was unlike any other I'd been to in the past. The ones I'm used to in Toledo have large, carpeted waiting rooms with plants and tons of people walking around in crisp scrubs or nursing uniforms. Toledo hospitals have several nice, big elevators leading up to squeaky-clean hospital rooms that just reek like they're sterile.

Nothing about this hospital reminded me of the ones in Toledo. This particular one was a dirty yellow color from top to bottom and actually seemed dirty as well as deserted, even though it was mid-afternoon.

When we finally found where we needed to be, Mom M and I were regulated to a nearly empty waiting room with only hard, plastic chairs to sit on and CNN running on a continual, annoying loop. The reason we couldn't be with Brent while he was getting ready for surgery was because there wasn't enough room in the pre-op area for both of us and the book bags of stuff we brought to stave off boredom. (She brought a book and I brought boxes of blank wedding envelopes that needed to be addressed along with some magazines.)

So, we took turns sitting with Brent as he waited more than an hour to go into surgery. During that time, two bags of IV meds were pumped into him in under 10 minutes, which we both thought was a teensy bit too fast. Add that to a scary, near mix-up with the IV drips, and I was way more nervous than he was by the time he was wheeled into the operating room around 5:30 p.m.

By that time, the hospital had virtually shut down. I went down to the cafeteria to get some dinner and found that I was cutting it close because it closed at 6 p.m. Soon thereafter, Mom M and I were asked to retrieve Brent's personal items from a locker because the pre-op area was closing.

I didn't even know hospitals closed!

But after about two hours, Brent came out of the surgery asking to go to Chipotle for some tacos (he wasn't able to eat all day) and spent less than an hour in recovery because he wasn't put completely under anesthetic.

Even though he wasn't staying overnight at the hospital, they still had a completely incompetent nurse wheel him to a hospital room. After she missed several doorways - thus slamming the gurney into walls and jarring the patient who just came out of surgery - we were left wondering why Brent wasn't just discharged after he was done in recovery.

But after less than an hour, they had him sign a piece of paper and told him he was free to leave. We looked at each other, puzzled, because in Toledo, patients are not allowed to leave the hospital unless they're wheeled to the curb in a wheelchair. But in New York, apparently, you walk out when you're done with surgery.

Now don't get me wrong - the hospital was fine and Brent's doctor was stellar, but the hospital was just too different than what I've been used to. And one of the big pluses at this hospital was that when we were ready to leave, all I had to do was pick up a phone receiver at the desk in the main lobby and, two minutes later, a town car was waiting to take us back to our apartment - all for less than 20 bucks! Score!

Now I have six weeks of doing all the housework myself to look forward to - including the job I loathe the most - ironing - which no matter how hard I try, I simply cannot do. So Brent will have to settle going to work with collars that slightly flip on on each end and more wrinkles in his shirt than were there when they came out of the dryer. But hey - I'll try.