Surgery

Well, I'm back. It was a strange 30 hours, even though I probably slept through 15 of them.

The hospital story begins as I left my apartment at 6:20 AM, after staying up all night working on my papers, turning them in, and then cleaning my apartment in preparation for crippledness. I've been staying up pretty late the past few weeks, as I tend to write better in the early morning hours and I've been drinking a lot of red bull. But there was no red bull on Sunday, since I had to fast for the anesthesia and I didn't want the taurine interfering anyway.

So I was a little sleepy as I took the metro to the hospital. When I got there a little before 7, the hospital was closed. I mean, the doors were open and you could walk in, but nobody was working. That's not something that I'm used to seeing. So after waiting for the help to arrive, I checked in and headed for my room, on floor 2, section U24.

I assumed they meant floor -2 (2 floors below the entrance, in Europe the ground floor is "0") since that's where all of my appointments had been. I took the elevator down and there was indeed a section U, which was the surgery section. I followed the signs looking for room 24, which it said was next to the surgery theater. "Cutting to the chase" I was thinking "I like that." There was no receptionist at the station so I headed in, walking past people in wheely beds prepped for surgery.

I was walking down the hall when a woman in scrubs started yelling at me in French. The only parts I could understand were "you can't be in here" and "you have to leave now." I didn't think much of it, as I'm used to making such mistakes so I went back to the reception and waited for the receptionist to show up, who informed me that there was indeed a floor 2 in a different bank of elevators.

So I found my real section and found a nurse who showed me the room I would be sharing with another man (later introduced to me as Angel from Peru). My surgery was at 9 so they had me change into the hospital gown right away and take a shower with some disinfectant, then the nurse shaved me knee. I got into my hospital bed and an orderly wheeled me down to the same section I had barged into before, only this time I was prepped for surgery in my wheely bed like the others.

I stayed there for quite awhile, as other patients were wheeled in and left, and I started to think that 9am on a Monday morning isn't the best time to schedule surgery and maybe my doctor was hungover or stuck in Ibiza. It was pretty close to 10 when a group of doctors came and got me, and started asking me questions in French as they wheeled me into the theater, which I didn't understand so I just nodded my head, which made them mad because they were asking me how much I weighed, which is not a yes or no question.

At this time I should say that the hospital I have been going to is a teaching hospital. The doctors sometimes have assistants that are medical students who do some of the easy work. There were probably 10 people in the operating theater when we got there, and I new that half of them where there to observe by the way they were trying to look busy. I am an expert of knowing how to look busy, so these gomers couldn't fool me. One plucky young lad, with a "real" doctor's assistance (maybe my anesthesiologist?) starting jabbing a needle into my hand for the IV. He missed several veins, gave a Rick Perry "oops" and then pulled the needle out and went for a third time. I silently prayed that Dr. Butterfingers wouldn't be near my knee to make a salad out of it.

Next they put a plastic holder for my left leg to prop it up, and they put a mask on me which they said was oxygen. At this point, one of the doctors (or maybe a gomer?) asked me which knee they were operating on. I wanted to say "how about we start with the one that's shaved and in the plastic holder" but I just laughed. I don't know if I was laughing because there was some kind of anesthetic in the mask or if it was because I had been up for almost 24 hours. Mercifully, at that point the anesthesiologist told me it was go time, and I nodded and then the sounds of the operating room got very strange and then I was out.

When I woke up I was in the post-op, which made sense. It had only been under for 2 hours. My left knee was in a lot of pain, which considering what was going on before the surgery made me somewhat relieved. They shot me full of painkillers and then wheeled me back up to my room. I think I slept a lot that afternoon. When I woke up there were people speaking spanish in the other half of the room. Angel's family introduced themselves, the daughter started speaking to me in English. "The nurses tell me you only speak English," she said. "That's not true," I corrected her, "I speak un poco de espanol and I can understand sometimes when people yell at me in French." She didn't seem impressed, but she was polite anyways.

I spent the evening alternating between reading and sleeping. There was a bottle with a snap cap by the side of my bed. "It's for pee" one of the nurses had said when I first arrived. Around ten o'clock another nurse came in "Il fait pee pee? (Does it make pee pee)?" she asked. "Non." Then I heard her asking Angel, and when she left I hear her asking the same question people in other rooms down the hall. Nurse Pee Pee, as I came to call her, came back every hour asking if I made a pee pee, and every time the answer was no. Finally, at about 4am  I did have to go. But I have spent 31 years conditioning my body to not make a pee pee when I'm lying on my back. Plus the whole gravity thing was wrong. So Nurse Pee Pee helped me wheel my IV while I hobbled on crutches into the bathroom. She asked "Il fait pee pee?" as I came out. "Yes." "Bon!" she replied, and I never saw her again, making me wonder if she was part of some opium dream.

This morning was easy, just sleeping and watching some TV. Around noon they brought lunch, and Angel and I had a pretty good half-hour chat in Spanish. I could understand maybe 70% of what he said, if you count hand gestures. Usually people get bored talking to me in Spanish, but he seemed to enjoy it. He told me stories about being a professional soccer playing in Peru, back in the day. Then the doctor came and checked me out and told me I could go home. Fahim drove out and picked me up and took me back home, where I am now eating burned frozen pizza in bed.

That's where the story ends. Now I have people coming over to play guitar. I hope you have enjoyed my story about surgery.