Surgery

Tomorrow will be a week since surgery. I got a two-fer, and a gift, since the doc discovered and repaired a surprisingly large hernia in my gut before taking out the prostate.

My dear wife and I had taken the bus to the hospital that day, and then walked two blocks in a heavy rain. We sat together and made the same kinds of jokes and avowals of support, in the same room where I had waited with her, nearly four years earlier, for her mastectomy. So, deja vu from both points of view.

A short, broad and friendly Hispanic man, who introduced himself as "RJ," wheeled me into the ward where people undress and wait. Sweet wife stays right by my side.

On reflection, it's odd how I lay there feeling, for all intents and purposes, perfectly healthy, yet completely resigned to the scalpel. I had totally--with alacrity, even--accepted the medical diagnosis, as well as the prescribed removal of the infected body parts.

I had found out only a week earlier that the surgery had been rescheduled, from first thing in the morning to sometime around noon because my surgeon was assisting in a kidney operation. I figure that's because he's such a deft guy with the DaVinci (which is the brand name (?!) of the robotic hardware and software used to perform both surgeries).

We waited an overlong time in that taking-off-your-clothes room, to finally be told by a concerned and friendly nurse, an attractive redhead, that the kidney surgery was lasting longer than anticipated, so the doc would be delayed at least another hour. BFF was famished, so we agreed she'd go to the hospital cafe for lunch.

Of course, it wasn't long after she left that a new nurse came and whisked me upstairs to the ward where they take away your robe as you lay down on a gurney, waiting for the team to come greet you.

The friendly-faced operating room nurse arrived to reassure me that she and the doc have done a thousand of these surgeries, and everything will be OK. At that point, my concerned and mildly chagrined wife is shown in as this other attractive woman, who will be all over my body in another hour, says goodbye, and a laconic, older than expected, and still strangely attractive, anesthesiologist hooks me up to an intravenous drip as he tells me about the cocktail of knockout drugs he will be administering. Barely an ouch.

And then, The Guy Himself. I'd seen him at a computer station a few minutes earlier as I went to the bathroom (possibly entering his charges for the kidney op), but I didn't exist for him them. Now, though, I was the sole object of his attention.

The Guy Himself is average height, built solidly, in his mid-forties, face tanned with freckles. He exudes such gravitas, I am now completely confident of a favorable outcome, whatever the situation. And as a bonus for the patient, Himself had this very same procedure to remove his own prostate a couple of years ago; so he was able to share stories with me of his own recovery in a brief, frank, yet encouraging manner. I'm totally psyched.

We shake hands and he gives me a rare, for him, and reassuring smile. Not long after that another friendly and attractive middle-aged nurse comes to take me away (was it the rose-colored glasses, my helpless state, or were these women all, really, so good looking?).

My dear wife and I exchange our love, as we always do when we part.

I am wheeled into the nearby operating room, which I noticed was smaller (about as big as a medium-sized living room) and more crowded with equipment and purposeful professionals than I had expected. It was quiet though; the lighting seemed dim, and the ceiling low.

Two scrubs were prepping some monitors. The robot control console--the DaVinci--was in one corner, and the operating cart in another, with its three or four robotic arms articulated like a praying mantis, their business ends covered with clear plastic bags.

I chatted with the assisting surgeon (a smooth and attractive (!) Chicagoan of Asian descent who had spent an hour talking me through this process several weeks ago) as he, the anesthesiologist and a new nurse moved me off the gurney and strapped my legs down on two rectangular foam blocks that were covered with a shiny black plastic skin, and scissored off a larger, square block of tan-colored foam for my corpus. The latter was stained the blood-orange of iodine.

I looked up at the array of multi-bulbed lights, not yet fully lit. I felt a little buzzing in my blood, and asked the anesthesiologist if he had started the juice. Affirmative. That's all I remember until about four hours later.

I must have started thrashing, trying to remove tubes, whatever, as I groggily came to, because I have a vague recollection of several people moving to restrain me. For the next twelve hours, my greatest discomfort was from where I had scratched my cornea during that brief struggle. My wife told me that when she saw me a little later, up in my room, she was saddened to see that my arms were in restraints.

I had the sweetest nurse--Jenn--that first night. Maybe you always fall a little in love with the ones who give you morphine. Jenn checked in often, but was very quiet so as not to disturb me. If she heard that I was awake; she offered me a couple of Tylenol and a tab of oxycodone about every three hours.

The pain now is pretty manageable without all that. I'm still taking some though, most consistently in the evening, but am weaning off.

I was dismissed about noon the day after surgery after my vitals checked out, no infections found, and I proved I could eat without getting nauseous, and walk without getting dizzy.

The catheter is more of a bother than a pain. After realizing the strap-on bag filled up in less than a couple of hours (it sprayed urine all over my sweats, slippers and the bathroom floor when I first tried to empty it), I've been carrying around the nighttime bag all week. Taking a dump is an awkward, unpleasant, and time-consuming task, graphically described here in a poem.

My uniform all week has been a robe over loose-fitting shorts and a t-shirt. The catheter bag hooks conveniently on the robe's pocket. I've walked around the house a fair amount, but because of the weather, haven't done much more than duck my head outside, although today I cut some lilacs to give my sweetie for Mother's Day.