Surgery

    It was 4:45am and I had been up all night anxiously completing last minute tasks when I arrived at the hospital. Told to wait in a chair, I looked around. At that hour everything seems alien, but the front entranceway is an especially odd combination. The floor itself is burnished and elegant with a reception desk that has a light glowing softly from under the edge. Then from about 8 feet up it gives the impression of something hastily assembled and not quite finished.

    There are vertical support beams all over with their tops branching out into Ys studded with rivets holding up the ceiling. The ceiling itself looks unfinished, just sheets of plain corrugated metal not even painted. There is also a strange double check in system where the person at the lit desk sends you to someone at a more improvised looking desk further back who checks your ID and then sends you on to the elevator. 

    The area leading to the elevator is very nondescript and has a basement feel which makes you wonder if you are lost. But then when the elevator doors opened they were sleek and shiny and when I got to the second floor there was a smell of paint or varnish in the air and the floor itself appeared so newly finished that its gloss felt sticky under my sandals.

    I found myself  in a big waiting room with just a few scattered people, the ones who have been told to show up at 5am and actually managed to do it. Most of them were in pairs, some obviously couples and some with relationships that are harder to discern.  The waiting area had a low glass wall overlooking the main lobby below. At 5am precisely, classical music started echoing through the main lobby.

I was kind of tired for trumpets, in fact I was so tired that I put on my shorts backwards and couldn’t be bothered to fix them since I figured they didn’t look any different and they were just going to make me undress anyway. The pockets were a little inconvenient facing the wrong way but otherwise it was fine.

At 5:05am they told us to line up and a bank of six women at computers called us over. The woman I was assigned, a Latina woman with kind face asked for my cell number and then asked whose number she could put down. I gave her Misty’s name and number and she asked me who Misty is to me. “Assistant,” I said although that hardly covers it, so I added “basically the person who runs my life,” and the clerk started to laugh. She entered Misty’s number which added her to an automatic tracking system that would tell her what stage I was at along the way.

After that I waited in another section of chairs until my phone rang. They hadn’t told me to expect a call but I saw a Mt Sinai number so I picked up. “Come to cubicle 7,” a voice said so I found my way over there. “It’s a good system” I said to the woman behind the desk, “much better than yelling names across the room.” “Sometimes we still do,” she said, “because people shut off their phones or can’t get signal in here.”

While she was focused on the computer, I looked around the cubicle which was aggressively pink. A pink cube with the definition of “change maker” was right in the front. I was intrigued because usually people associate change maker with someone who makes policy or starts an organization. But I guess a competent, caring hospital registrar can actually make a difference for people. The pink extended to a frame filled with pictures of her and her young son, and a pink mat under her keyboard and even the keys themselves. 

She was having trouble getting her computer to open the forms she needed. “It’s too early for it,” I said “this is the end of my shift,” she said. “I’ve been here all night and by 5:30am I will barely know my name.“” I used to run a shelter,”I told her “and when there were no staff to cover I would have to do the overnight shift myself. Nights in a shelter,especially a youth shelter, can be hectic.” 

“Do you have a health care proxy?” she asked me kind of robotically pushing a form in my direction. “Yes” I said, reaching for the folder in my bag. She seemed pleasantly surprised. It must be really unusual because she had already checked no before handing me the form and had to take it back to change. “I’m having spine surgery, so I figured I’d better be prepared,” I said. We were done with the forms so she told me to exit the opposite side of where I entered the cubbie labyrinth and she met me in the hall and walked me to the next area. “The nurses will call you when they’re ready” she said and I settled in to wait

When the cheerful nurse called me she zipped through a list of questions “falls-no alcohol-no drugs-no suicidal thoughts” I wonder what they do if someone says yes to that- cancel the surgery? She asked me who the president is. “Ugh,” I said and she smiled before I said “Trump.” She asked me if I am menopausal, the answer to which is who knows because you have to wait 12 months for it to be official. So then comes the pregnancy test- I used to get really angry about them, it felt disrespectful when I was with Kate, and even more so as a single lesbian living with a bunch of cats. One time I got so angry (more than a little prednisone was involved) that a gay nurse whisked away the offending cup and dumped it in the trash.

I raised my usual objections just as a matter of principle. “It’s not my protocol,” said the nurse, a black woman. Next came a young guy carrying the blood draw supplies. Looking at him I was a little jealous because when I was a young phlebotomist they made us carry these large baskets of supplies everywhere with every possible kind of tube and all kinds of other supplies.

He drew my blood and the assorted debris started falling off the table attached to my chair because it slants from the point where it is connected at the chair to the free end like it’s too heavy to hold up its head. “I hate these tables” he said, gathering trash off the floor.

At this point, they took my clothes and property, including my phone. I put on the two hospital gowns, cap, and shapeless non-stick socks. Then they led several of us down a corridor into the pre-op area, which was empty and still smelled of cleaning products since we were the first patients of the day. Gradually the pre op area filled up with medical staff coming to see their patients.

The first guy who came to see me explained that he was “nerve protection” and would be constantly monitoring my nerves using bits of electricity going through electrodes into the nerves. “They’re small, like an acupuncture needle,” he said, trying to be reassuring while measuring my head with a tape measure and marking it with blue pen. 

Next came someone from anesthesia, and finally the surgeon himself. He asked me to describe the procedure I would be having, I guess to prevent any confusion.

With nothing left to do until the OR was ready, I observed the scene around me. I heard the name of the man in the bed next to mine, and thought it sounded familiar but didn’t have pleasant associations. I could not place him until his surgery team arrived and they started to chat- not just about the surgery he was having, but about the surgery he does. Then I realized, he was Dr RP, a knee specialist I was sent to years ago who I considered an arrogant asshole and never saw again.

Before I could think much about the odd coincidence, one of the younger surgeons on the team grabbed my bed, wheeled me into the OR and dumped me on the bed. Without my glasses, the multiple overhead lights in the OR were disorienting, and the last thing I was aware of was multiple pairs of hands stripping off the hospital garments I was wearing.