Surgery

A couple of weeks ago, I was staring at the ceiling, wide awake. It was 4 AM.

I rarely get insomnia. However, after a whirlwind December in which I did all the Christmas things with my family, hosted a birthday party at my house (attended by a dozen wild and crazy 10-year-olds), and managed to sprain my ankle, my brain had finally slowed down enough to consider the event scheduled for four days later.

Surgery.

It’s one of those words that sound completely different depending on what mood you’re in. If you say it lightly, happily, it sounds like crickets chirping outside your window on a peaceful summer evening. If you load it down with the dread I was suddenly feeling, it sounds like an evil curse from Mordor growled by an orc.

The actual surgical procedure, an excisional biopsy, didn’t sound so bad. I’d had so many needle biopsies lately (see: The Sinister Breast) that I was starting to sympathize with pincushions. This was yet another biopsy, just on a larger scale. I had found a surgeon I liked and trusted.

What scared the crap out of me was general anesthesia. I had thought it was a simple drug that made you go to sleep. Apparently, no! It’s chemically induced paralysis, with a machine breathing for you. Eeek! My husband, who’s had general anesthesia, described the panic he felt upon waking up with a tube jammed down his throat. My boss told me a horror story about how she woke the next morning, 24 hours after the anesthesia had supposedly worn off, and couldn’t move any of her limbs.

I’ve been trying to adopt this motto to get me through unpleasant medical procedures: find the funny. But the more I read about general anesthesia, the less I could find to laugh about.

Apparently, anesthesia can kill you! It kills several hundred people a year in the United States.

Oh, and did I mention “unintended intraoperative awareness”? That’s when the paralysis drugs work but the painkillers don’t. So you’re awake, feeling every incision, but you cannot move or speak to let the surgeon know. If that’s not the stuff of nightmares, nothing is.

After doing all of this “research,” I’d scared myself silly. In a maudlin moment, I wondered if I had time to write out a will and get it notarized.

Then, in a joyful twist of fate, my fears ended up being a non-issue. The day before the surgery, my surgeon’s nurse told me I would NOT be having full general anesthesia. Instead, I would be having a lighter version called MAC (monitored anesthesia care). No paralysis, no breathing tube. I did a little happy dance with the phone still in my hand.

At 6:00 AM, I arrived at the hospital in good spirits, eager to get the whole thing over with.

My "cold shoulder" style couture gown

The nurse who did the IV was a gruff sort named Mary Ann. Every other staff member I’d met so far had been exceptionally nice, so Mary Ann rubbed me the wrong way. Then I realized that I knew her type. I used to work with a woman just like her. My co-worker, Kathy, grumbled every word she ever spoke, but she was a hard worker, a get-shit-done type with a heart of gold and a dry sense of humor if you could get past her grumpy exterior to see it. Find the funny, I reminded myself. I suddenly felt a strong need to make Mary Ann laugh. Shortly thereafter, we had the following conversation:

     Me: So, did the drugs go into that IV yet?

     Mary Ann: No. Steve will do that.

     Me: What will the anesthesia feel like? Will I get loopy and start to say funny stuff?

     Mary Ann: You’ve had surgery before, right?

     Me: No, never!

     Mary Ann: Oh, you’ll love it, we’re doing martinis today.

     Me: Great! Can I get an olive with that?

And Mary Ann cracked a smile and it was the best part of my whole day.

I lay back on the bed as they wheeled me down the hall. I had just enough time to marvel at the hugeness of the operating room and the roundness of the big bright lights before I passed out.

Two days later, my surgeon called. The voicemail message she left was sixteen seconds long. It contained several dozen words, but I only heard two of them.

“NO CANCER.”