The Surgery
I woke up that Saturday morning with two anesthesiologist over me. Not 100% coherent, probably not even 50%. Kinda sorta maybe remember being wheeled out of my room. My sister might have been there, it could have been Liz. I just don’t know. I do remember them asking my name and birth date. Those two questions were frequent over the next few days… any time a nurse gave me meds they always wanted to know this information. I got so bothered by it that anytime a new face came into my view I would introduce myself. Even familiar faces got the introduction. But anyway… back to the happy guys. My second memory of them was they handed me a pee bottle… apparently I needed to urinate before the surgery. I had pee fright cause I didn’t have to go/couldn’t go. (Paruresis is a thing, go look it up). They encouraged me but I couldn’t. No liquids that I can remember since last night. I asked them if they would catheterize me anyway so why bother. They kept insisting I try. I kept insisting I couldn’t.
I looked down at my bare and swollen leg exposed. The other covered up by just a thin sheet. Still trying to pee into that bottle. With as much of a straight face as I could muster I asked them which leg were they going to fix? I remember stories of doctors getting it wrong so I had to be sure. I asked for a big Sharpie so I could write “NOT THIS LEG” on the one that looked perfectly normal. No worries one of them assured me as he took out his pen and wrote “TL” just above the knee cap. Perfect. “THIS LEG” I thought. I still couldn’t pee so I gave them back the bottle and asked them to just do what they had to do. I dozed off immediately from whatever they gave me. No counting backward, no you’ll feel a bit strange.. Just out.
In an almost empty room with 4 or 5 empty beds around me I woke up. Someone was at the foot of my bed, a nurse perhaps. I don’t remember much other than feeling cold, hungry, tired, and I had to pee. Go figure. Whatever, they had already removed the catheter so I was given a new bottle. No fright this time. As soon as I got back to the room I could eat. I fell back asleep, and don’t remember the trip back up to the room, or if I ate anything.
