Saturday, February 18, 2017

The Waiting Game .....

I enter the change room and I am handed my supply of surgical appropriate attire : knee length green socks, paper booties, one robe that ties behind and the other is an overcoat that ties in the front. They have a sample hanging in the room as to how to assemble this wardrobe. I have mistakenly fitted the left foot paper cover on my head. I thought the extra was a spare. Neither of these items match in color or are color coordinated.


I wait on the gurney with the ~ever so private~ cloth curtain that divide patients. I have heard the entire life story of the lady next to me, how her sons are so fabulous and her "designated driver home"
begins to chomp on carrots because they run along the beach and she is already complaining about the wait time to return to her routine. I fart. I ask my husband loudly "Has Doctor Nowzaradan arrived yet?" because in that question I know my husband will laugh out loud and then start spewing inappropriate comments about fat people and weight and calories. 


Sometimes he is useful. 

After an hour or so I am sequestered at another area, where hubby has stirred up blasphemy by bringing a cup of coffee by my bedside " I won't share" he politely argues, but apparently it is not appropriate to bring smells of food to those who have had to fast for surgery. At this moment I am hoping my farts do not resonate garlic. He leaves to dump his coffee but Nurse Ratched has sneakily strolled me away .... no good-bye. No last kiss. No last ~smell you later~. I will learn that this has upset him quite a bit, but I assure him I will make up for it.

I am strolled into a room with real surgical stuff and spot lights, there's four nurses and an anesthesiologist and a table that seems to be suffering from anorexia nervosa, and they want me to roll onto it. There's no fucking way I'm going to fit onto that teenager sized maxi pad, but I evidently managed to roll onto the strip, as they brought out the arm extenders, IV on the left, blood pressure thing on the right ... the only part I didn't understand was the hole where I had to place my ass.

Then my Doctor comes in, she's wearing a blue wig and has a big, huge smile. "HELLO" But that may have been distorted by the oxygen mask on my face that eerily smelled like a smoker had used it previous. I'm still a bit blinded by the sunlamps tanning my face.

So there I lay, all tarped down, then suddenly I am awake. In a different room. I'm realizing difference. That's the odd part about the whole thing. I have been beamed up to my current position, but missed the journey. And there's some sort of sadness about missing the journey.