Sunday, September 23, 2012

Do These Scrubs Make My Butt Look Fat?

Almost everything was perfectly planned. Admittedly, the layout and sequence of events in the Same Day Surgery wing were slightly different but the destination we were funneled to, the pre-op area was the same at our hospital stop yesterday.

I'm not sure because I didn't ask but it's quite possible my doctor didn't have a practice patient or two before me as I had sort of hoped-that way the physician gets warmed up and the surgery just sails by. As if by the time we got to the OR I was in a position to remember very much though I do recall seeing the inside of the OR which wasn't true the last time I was in for orthopedic work.

In May while I was at Yale for the arterial stent I was awake through the shaving of a rather intimate and hirsute area of my body so that the surgeons could run the stent from the opposite side. I couldn't tell you what kind of straight razor shaving cream they use not that there's any kind of an endorsement deal in the wings (not that it was my wings they were shaving). I guess I dozed off afterwards from all the excitement.

From what the doctor explained to my wife, who does very much deserve better and, instead, has me, there was more tendon damage, and thus repair, than she had thought (point in fact with the way the fibula was blocking the MRI, she could only guess which is not something anyone likes to do when rummaging around inside another person). And, perhaps because I'm old(er) or just never had much tolerance for my own pain (yours I can stand all day, and all of the night. Thank you, Ray Davies), this time around, especially the morning afterwards, it hurt like little I've ever experienced.

I'm supposed to keep the foot, ankle and leg elevated which means a lot of hopping while walking like an Egyptian or not going anywhere at all. I really tried to do the latter. Seriously. I was prone on the couch in the living  room with both legs up (hey, it could be catching, you never know) for just about two hours Saturday morning, watching USA Network shows I'd DVRed, most notably Fairly Legal ('that's bitch, bitch and jackass, for your information.") though I didn't really notice any creative changes from the first season. I'm good at DVRing (and inventing gerunds) just not good at watching the shows and after two hours, I was restless.

Did I mention my wardrobe is a PJ shirt, with a pocket as all of my shirts need pockets or I won't wear them (I have to have someplace for a pen, to include when I sleep though I never take a pen to bed or it that considered TMI?) and hospital scrub pants torn from the hem to the knee on the right leg because I wore trousers on Friday instead of shorts and almost went home in my underpants. We have tinted windows in the car but not that tinted.

I managed to get sick on the two minute car ride home between the drugs for the surgery and the excitement of sticking my head out of the window. If only someone had thrown a Frisbee as we drove by, I'd have another verse to write in my litany of lament. Considering the number of people in the world who are worse off than I am, I could do myself and you a favor by shutting my yap and cease trying to play the world's smallest violin. It is Sunday. The light blue scrubs help bring out the red in my bloodshot eyes and despite my complaining, life is actually pretty good. I'd offer to hop on that cheering idea but there's no place like prone.
-bill kenny    

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad to read you survived with your sense of proportion and self-effacement intact. And, self-importance, too.
L. Roy

William Kenny said...

Most especially, the latter.
I write about what I know, and since we both realize I know squat, I attempt to word-jazz around it.

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