Andrea goes to the hospital – part 1

I’m finally getting to writing this down, what with all the words and scenes re-running through my head. I’m doing this mostly for me, as I read my own archives to remember , but hopefully you’ll be amused as you read along.

Last Friday morning, I kept waking in anticipation of the alarm going off. For Ron, he got to sleep in. Eventually it was time to get up and we got ready in due order. Ron had a larger list of things to get ready, clean off the car for instance, so I mostly paced. He dropped me off at the door to the hospital so I could check in while he parked. We had to be there at 8:30, and I figure I’ll get to the operating room four hours later. I took a number in Reception and waited my turn. One of the local bums (and I’m allowed to call him that) was also there chatting up some poor lady across from me and telling her all about his frostbitten hands. Hands that were not wrapped well and that he was waving around. “I think they can save ‘em,” he was saying. Well, I’m no doctor, but judging by the black finger he had, I don’t think that one’s fixable. The other ones didn’t look much better.

Anyway. He left after the nurse yelled loudly it wasn’t every week he’s to come by, it’s every other week. We all wave goodbye to Jimmy. I chat with the lady he was talking to, and I convice a couple of people to yell “BINGO!” when their numbers are called. Naturally, I do the same. When I get to the desk, she informs me Admitting is behind this divider and I finally see the teeny sign at the back, behind the reception desks, where I’m supposed to go. She assures me people miss it all the time. I chat up the admitting clerk too, because I figure that I’ll be here a while, I’ll talk to lots of people, so I might as well have fun.

Ron and I head up to Day Surgery, where I announce my presence. A minute after we sit down, the only other person waiting asks if we know the time. We both look at our watchless wrists immediately, then notice the ginormous clock right above the lady’s head. We all giggle. I think it was a quarter to nine or so. Then they call my name. Yeah, it was really fast. I get changed, “but I just got dressed!” I told the nurse with a smile, and settled and the nurse works me up. My blood oxygen is low, and the nurse is puzzled. I mention it could be because I am overweight, unfit and tend to forget to breathe deeply. She gives me A Look. She finishes up with me, I’m cuddled under warm blankets and Ron settles in to the chair for a wait. My glasses and wedding ring are removed and packed away. We hardly got any good conversation in, and they are ready to move me again. There’s not a lot of people around and I’m moving through the system quickly. The nurse tells Ron to come back in an hour and check where I am. I’m thinking that’d be awfully fast, but I tell him to go get something to eat.

Now it is 9:30 and I am in pre-op. When Emma had her teeth done, this was as far as they’d let me come, and in telling Emma that Mommy had to go to the hospital, we reminded her of this place and the nice nurses. “Make sure they give you a sticker,” Emma had told me. I see the kid’s wagon in the corner and wonder if Emma is awake yet. When the pre-op nurse came around, I explained I had a six-year-old at home and what she said, so she gave me a sticker. “Barbie okay?” she asked. I said yes and she clipped it to my chart. We both smile.

On with the charts and workup. I get a silly blue hat. She asks me a bunch of usual questions, then asks what I’m having. “A cone biopsy,” I tell her. She nods and continues reading. “Do I need to tell you how they do it?” She laughs and says no, that’s not necessary. I mean, I could – I looked it up. I keep her giggling. She tries to start the IV and tells me my vein is rolling away from her. The second try she gets it right though. I think to myself that it’s going to leave a whopper of a bruise, but it does’t. We have a good enough conversation that she asks me if I’m a nurse. Nope, I just read a lot.

The anesthetist comes by to introduce himself. “Call me Dr. P,” he says, then explains that most people can’t pronounce his last name. Of course I ask what is it. He sounds it out and I repeat it back to him SIX TIMES until we are both satisfied. Natually, I’ve forgotten it, but he explained it was Dutch / Belgian / German by way of South Africa. Yes, it was a mouthful. We have a nice conversation where I tell him I had an aunt from South Africa, and it’s been a bad couple of years. Not sure how we got to that. Anyway, he tells me some sort of keep the faith and be strong thing, and the whole time I’m thinking, well if events are to make me stronger, I must be forged and fire-hardened steel. We move on, and I tell him that in my experience, there’s two kinds of anesthesiologists: ones with a sense of humour, and ones without. I tell him I’m thankfull he’s got one.

He leaves and a couple of nurses stands over me while one explains my chart to the other then they start to wheel me to the OR. It’s ten a.m.

“Hey, I knew most of what you said,” I tell the older nurse, and give her some details.
“Oh? Are you one of us?” she asks.
“Nope, I’m just nosey.”
“GOOD!” she exclaims, “We need more patients like you.”

Then we are in the OR, and all these people are waiting just for me. There’s Dr P, and there’s my doctor in the corner conferring with another doctor from the OR next to mine. For some reason, they are counting backwards and the nurse makes a joke about how it’s supposed to be me counting. They help me move over to the other bed and get me settled. The newer nurse is having trouble attaching an arm rest, and I tell her to wiggle it and tilt it up. The older nurse looks at me weird again. “Well, last time I was in here someone had the same problem,” I tell her. She smiles at me and shakes her head. They get my arms out and I think it’s going to bother me but it doesn’t. I have a brief thought about being on the alter of medicine. Dr P says he’s giving me a local now, so the other medicine doesn’t burn when it goes in.

“Don’t worry,” says the nurse as she strokes my hair. “We’ll take good care of you.”

I give her a beautific smile. “I know you will.” My hand starts to tingle. “Here it comes Dr. P,” I let him know what’s going on as I feel the tingle start to move around my body.

“Twenty minutes,” I sleepily mutter. “It always feels like I’m out for only twenty minutes.”

Then I fall down the rabbit hole.