Plates & Screws

The surgery took about 2 hours, longer than expected. After Jessie and I had a Bamboo Sushi time, she went home and I went back to the hospital. Bruce and Bethany arrived as I was checking in, and we asked the receptionist where we should wait during the surgery. They said to go to Clarke's room. As we paraded into his room on the 6th floor, we noticed the nurses (the NOC team) looking askance at us. I asked them where we were to be waiting, and Nurse Vanessa said, "in the waiting room down on the 1st floor - but its too complicated to explain how to get there." She asked an Aide to escort us down, and the cheery aide guided us about 50 feet down the hall to a grouping of chairs and tables where one alone woman in blue shorts was sitting reading an old newspaper. We questioned the aide, saying we understood that we were to be on the 1st floor. She said she would check, and turned back to the nurses station. She returned, and said, "Follow me - you're supposed to be going to the 1st floor waiting room." At which point, the woman in blue shorts called out to us, "that waiting room's locked, no one will let you in there." We went anyway, and found the door wide open to a large room with multiple clusters of sofas and chairs, an area absolutely empty of humans. We sat down, laughing at the "Who's-on-first" scenario, and Bethany ate her dinner out of a brown cardboard box. Suddenly a stranger arrived in the room, and sat directly behind us - there were probably 60 empty seating possibilities in this room but, for reasons that we cannot fathom, he wanted to be close to us.
There was no sign or sound of life for the next hour or so, when the surgeon called to say that Clarke did fine, the surgery was successful, and he's in recovery. About half an hour after that, a nurse called from the recovery room to report that he continued to do well, and they'd be bringing him to his room in about 20-30 minutes, and we could meet him in his room. As it was now close to midnight, Bethany and Bruce left. 
It was about 10:30 or later when two cheerful ladies briskly wheeled the patient into Room 641. He was alert and looked oh so much more relaxed. He said he felt some pain, but it wasn't the searing jabs that had tormented him since the fall. He urged me to go, so I took off once I felt OK with the people caring for him.