Truthfully I have had oil changes that have taken longer...

My husband had neck surgery to kick the week off -- once again testing our marriage vows.
Luckily, that in sickness and in health clause has been activated only a few times in our nearly 25 years legally together.
Hopefully this most recent procedure will alleviate the pains in his neck (stifle those jokes about his wife please) and the tingles in his arm (remember I am the funny writer here) that have been bugging him for far too long.
A little back story:
When the neurosurgeon looked at the CT scan a few weeks ago I admired the surgeon's confidence and the Maserati parked in his office lot. With a quick glance our specialist told us "he could fix it," and we believed.
Said husband, also a health professional, wasn't nervous at all that this might not work out.
The procedure, to fuse three discs in the neck with a titanium plate and remove bone spurs and debris, was supposed to take an hour. The incision would be in the front of the neck, near his throat. The procedure was scheduled as outpatient surgery, with a room reserved at the same hospital just in case the anesthesia and pain didn't agree with the patient, and vice versa.
I planted myself in the waiting area of our suburban hospital with a stack of books and my first cup of vending machine cafe. A color-coded chart hiding the identities of the patients with numbers, updated me periodically on his location behind the double doors -- pre OP, in Surgery, in recovery, in recovery II -- and the locker room where his possessions were stowed.
We had not told a lot of people outside of out-of-town family about the surgery. Didn't want people to worry.
Have you ever noticed that when you tell some people something medical they will dis your doctor or the location you have chosen to have the work done? Really? What good comes from that karma?
Back to the back story:
Our daughter offered to take off work to sit with me "if I wanted." Our at-college son, when apprised of the day's agenda weeks earlier, said: "He'll be fine." They are so different. She is more a worrier. He is a man of science like his dad.
I was barely on my third concoction of vending machine cafe (a mocha/cappuccino with milk and sugar; did I mention it was free?), when our  neurosurgeon came out to the waiting room -- sans scrubs -- to tell me how well the surgery had gone. Truthfully I have had oil changes that have taken longer.
I put down my copy of Getting Into Medical School for Dummies and tossed my empty third cup of vending machine cafe in the trash to do a caffeine induced happy dance.
The incision was barely 3 inches long with Frankenstein hash marks. The permanent marker and glue they pasted the wound closed with should be gone after several showers. The incision should not inhibit wearing bow ties in the future.
Poof, several weeks of worrying about everything from paralysis, to his losing his voice, to the inability to travel without setting off security alerts at airports everywhere, gone in an instant.
Checking the electronic chart, I saw I still had time peruse the gift shop and make a run to the cafeteria before they would release the patient back into my custody.
My husband is such a good guy, even under the stooper of anesthesia and muscle relaxers he insisted on putting his wedding band back on his finger before needing my assistance to get dressed. Three bags of fluids and the meds made that a super human task, the re-ringing, not the dressing. His fingers were swelled up a size or two.
A couple of graham crackers and Diet Pepsi's later, he was strong enough to stand up and eliminate all that excess liquid on the nurse's command. You aren't allowed to leave the hospital unless you show them you remember what to do in the washroom. I know, TMI.
The patient wasn't interested in staying no matter how many packages of Lorna Doones they left on the table.
I know there are a few women out there who would agree that there is nothing worse than a sick husband. I may have said that myself a few cold and flu seasons in our history. Or maybe I muttered it after he caught the chickenpox as an adult working in a pharmacy back when our daughter was a toddler. And then there was the time he had his tonsils and adenoids removed as an adult to help with his sleep apnea.
A McDonald's milkshake eased the interior scratchy throat on the ride home. He was in some discomfort, but after 24 hours was pain med and muscle relaxer free. It will be a few weeks until the tingling dissipates.
We have received a barrage of calls and texts from people who were concerned about him. After 24 hours he was answering the phone on his own.
Miracles of science.