While I was sitting in the waiting room for Sarah to come up to recovery, I became aware of someone complaining. Since the delays had been getting longer all day, that wasn't too surprising. But this guy was clearly angry. And he was just warming up. The doctors had lied to him. Why was it taking so long? The Shouty Man insisted that he wanted to go back and see his wife. This wasn't possible. He insisted that a doctor come out and explain what was going on. Even though he wasn't dealing with the stress well, I could feel for him. If I'd been left hanging with no info, I'd probably be freaking out too. But wait, there's more. One of the problems the Shouty Man had was that they were told to arrive two hours before the procedure was scheduled. This, like so many other things, was bullshit. But that's what we were told -- to be there two hours before the scheduled go time. Perhaps we can let that go. He was stressed out about his wife and so everything became a problem. But wait, there's more. While ranting, he mentioned that he'd lost work because of all the delays. Apparently, he'd had a work-related appointment scheduled for 3pm and since things were running late, he'd had to cancel. What in the what now? Who schedules a crucial appointment for the day of their spouses surgery? Talk about manufacturing a crisis. But wait, there's more. It seems that part of the delay was caused by his absence. He claimed not to have been told that since he was his wife's ride home, he had to be present. Apparently he'd left her to go to the hospital coffee shop and at some point in the check-in process everything had stopped until he came back. See earlier comments about manufacturing crisis. But wait, there's more. After causing so much commotion that hospital cops showed up to have a few words with him (I was surprised that, rather than pushing him completely over the edge, this actually seems to calm him down a bit), the Shouty Man got a visit from a patient care advocate or hospital ombudsman or something like that. He suggested they step out of the waiting room so they could talk in private. And the Shouty Man refused. He was absolutely not going to leave that waiting room, in case there was any chance that someone would come out with news about his wife.
What I took away from this was confirmation that, sometimes, the more you know, the less you know. I don't think I've ever had so many quick changes in opinion from "oh, that poor guy" to "what a jerk" and back and forth and back again. And I still don't know what my final take is. Obviously. If I knew what I thought, I'd have been able to write a sentence, instead of a page and a half.