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Belly up! Thursday August 24, 2000

One from the archives
Pigdump goes way way back to the last century - 1997 - and revisits a critical moment during the Common Sense Revolution. Enjoy this true story:

The No Frills Surgery

I belong to a healthy, durable family. There haven't been many hospital visits in my life. Rather, there have been a whole lot of visits with old aunts and grandparents who were well into their eighties and nineties. So recently when I was told I had to have some abdominal surgery, I really didn't know what to expect. I hadn't seen much of the health care system before... you know... the cuts, and therefore would never really know what I missed. Nonetheless, here is my tale of health care in the 90's, my No Frills Surgery.

I was told to show up at the hospital a week in advance to have a little pre-surgery seminar. This is because they want you completely ready, so that come surgery day, you can come right in, hop right up, and how-do-you-do scalpel! The nurse asked me about what drugs I had taken in the past 2 months, she told me where the incision was going to be, and she instructed me to stop eating and drinking at midnight before surgery. Routine stuff. Then she put me in a little room with a television and VCR. "Pay close attention to this," she said as she pressed play and shut the door behind her. It was a video on The Pain Pump, the cutback era's answer to post-operative pain-relief. No more need for care-giving nurses with their needles, no! Just press The Pain Pump and morphine will shoot right to pain central! Wow! Self-administering morphine. I was going to be in control of my own recovery. Empowerment! I was leaving the Pre-Admission Seminar with a smile on my face when another nurse stopped me. "Have you picked up your home scrub kit?" I looked confused, alarmed even. "Oh sorry. You're not the knee patient. Never mind." Scrub kit?

The week passed, and the big day came. My surgery was set for 10:30 am, so the hospital wanted me to check in at 8:00. At 7:50, my friend and I found the surgery reception area and were greeted by a full waiting room. Most people were in street clothes, but there were a couple of patients in little blue gowns and booties. I turned to my friend and said "there's no way I'm coming out here in that get-up," just as the man at the desk handed me my little blue gown and booties. "You can change in there, put your street clothes in this bag and come back out." Alas. A ragged white dressing gown covered up any humiliating openings in the little blue number, and I walked back out to the waiting room with my dignity and my clothes in the green garbage bag in my hand.

But the wait wasn't long at all! They called my name before my nearly bare backside hit the chair. I was led down a couple of hallways to a long room that looked like a barber shop. Green swivel chair after swivel chair lined the walls of this room which turned out to be the prep room. I was fitted with my I/V drip, and sat patiently. I waited. And waited. No magazine, no book. I counted the chairs. I made up names for the people in the chairs. Finally, a woman said "you can go out and sit with your friend if you want." I grabbed the I/V pole and made my way back to the waiting room as fast as my little booties could take me.

I was happy to have my friend with me. I needed comfort, nay, distraction in my nervous hours before major surgery. If they weren't going to pamper me and let me pass my anxious time in a hospital bed, then the least they could do was entertain me. Well, I got more than I bargained for. There was a man right across from me in his little blue gown who didn't wear it so well. His way of dealing with pre-surgery nerves was to jiggle his legs back and forth, which made his blue gown ride up, and up and... Well, unbeknownst, the poor man was sharing more with his fellow patients than hospital garb intended. Too bad his dignity was packed away in a green garbage bag. But then, as if planned, another distraction came along to spare the poor man any more humiliation. A tall blond guy in a bright orange jumpsuit stumbled in, escorted by a couple of security guards. Something didn't seem right. When he shuffled toward the desk, it was quite clear. He was in hand cuffs and leg irons! I looked at him and wondered how they were going to get him into a little blue gown and booties. But, I'll never know. He was escorted to a different waiting room around the corner. Private. Dignified. With no one staring up his gown. I guess you have to be a convict to get special treatment now.

It was well past 10:30 when I was finally called. They took me back to the barber shop where they removed my glasses and put them with my clothes. A nurse came by and took the I/V off the pole. "It's time," she said, "follow me." I got up, waved goodbye to my friend, and trailed along behind the woman who was carrying my lifeline in her hand. I followed her down a long corridor, everything around me a myopic blur. "Careful there, the floor's wet." We stepped over a puddle. "Oh watch out, don't walk there it's wet and slippery..." I looked up and down the long hallway, squinting as we passed brightly lit rooms with scrub basins on the outside. It finally hit me -- I was walking to my operating room! The wet floors, the lights... where was my gurney? Where was my wheelchair? Why am I conscious? And what have I been stepping in? She stopped outside one of the bright rooms and attached my I/V bag to a pole. "Looks like they're not quite ready in there. Just wait here and I'll get you a chair." She left. And there I stood. Outside my operating room looking like I was waiting for a bus. A blurry person walked by, concerned, and said "Are you okay? Should you be here?" She must have taken me for a poor wandering out-patient. "Oh ya, I'm okay. They're just getting ready for me in there." My escort returned without a chair. "They're ready now," and she led me inside the O/R. Someone dressed in greens with a mask said "Okay, get up on the table and lie down. Make sure you're in the middle of the table. Are you in the middle?" I stuttered "I-I don't know. I didn't bring my slide rule." Then someone else in a green mask turned on the machine that goes ping. "I'm your anesthetist. I'm just going to attach the anesthetic to your I/V. If your eyelids feel heavy, you can close them." Whomp! My eyes shut instantly. And then came the barrage from the anesthetist "When were you born..." I thought hard... "Umm umm May 18th..." "Do you have any allergies..." "....um I have a puffer..." "It says here you have recently used claritin, sudafed, vitamin E, Tylenol..." I tried desperately to explain... "no, no, you don't get it, I don't do drugszzzzz.." and I left the planet worrying that they were going to ask me what my PIN number was and why I was in therapy.

I have only fleeting memories of my post-op experience. Pain being the most vivid. I remember crying out for help... well, it was more like a whisper. The room was bright and loud with machines that go ping, but there didn't seem to be anyone around. Eventually, a nurse came and started my morphine treatment. And so I went back to sleep. Then I remember motion. I was on a gurney. Whew! I guess they figured I couldn't walk out of my operating room. Then someone was patting me on the hand, trying to wake me up. "It's 3:30, dear, we're in your room now. Can you just move your leg over here..." I was being put in my bed.. "... that's good, dear, now just move yourself up over here..." I was putting myself in my bed! Oh well, I could deal with it, because I had the Pain Pump by my side! I slept a lot. I know my surgeon came in and told me everything went well, that I was in really good shape. It was over.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of drilling and hammering. I guess the hospital needed some repairs. But I was happy. When I pressed the little Pain Pump button, I was instantly taken care of. When I pressed the little nurse's button, she came as quickly as she could. All the nurses were terrific, but I could tell they were being pulled in every direction at once. My surgeon came and saw me again, my progress report was terrific. And a few days later, I walked through the din of the drills and hammers out of the hospital.

That was my No Frills Surgery. The surgeon did her thing perfectly. I was taken care of when I really needed the extra care. I got the basics. So I guess that's what we get now. No special treatment before the procedure, no pampering, and the bare minimum of care that leaves you one drawstring away from complete humiliation. But who can complain? You get exactly what you need, nothing more, nothing less. Unless the cuts go deeper... nah! For the rest of my life, I'll have a scar that looks like I gave birth to Frankenstein to remind me of my fiscal-conscious, 1990's No Frills Surgery.

Tomorrow: Almost there, eh?


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everything I know ...continued 173. The epiglottis is the caritlage at the back of the tongue.

174. Richard was the sole survivor.
to be continued...


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