Ever since my freshman year in med school, I’d dreamed of being a surgeon.
Yes, surgeons face long working hours, time away from family, and a challenging work environment. But I see surgeons as invincible. To be a surgeon, you must forgo anything that makes you feel vulnerable.
When I hear the stories of your mother–her brilliance, sense of humor, activism–I feel that I knew her on some level. After all, I know her daughter, taught well by this woman I never met. A great listener, but also one to share, trade stories, talk it out; throw around ideas like playing catch in the yard, bare-handed, because that’s what friends do. Catching words like a ball, bare-handed, stings a little, but we still do it.
My patient inquires about one final issue during her appointment. After wavering for years, she’s decided to travel to Florida for liposuction. She has saved portions of her paycheck over the past year to pay her airfare, hotel, and surgical fee. The surgeon requires X-rays, an EKG, bloodwork, and preoperative clearance. And I am asked to provide them.
Often patients unhappy with their weight—and physical appearance—dream of a quick fix. With an internet recommendation of a surgeon and a few Zoom calls, the surgery is booked.
When I was fifteen, I attended a summer music camp with my cello. One evening, during a capture-the-flag game, the boy I was chasing fell. I tripped over him, breaking my tibia and bending my fibula. Two surgeries later at a small community hospital in Maine (external reductions to avoid scars), my shin was dented. To this day, my left leg is shorter than my right, and I walk on the outside of my left foot with a limp.
My dad, an ob-gyn, hated to be late. If traveling, he insisted on arriving at airports hours early, in the days before TSA screenings necessitated it, resulting in long waits in boarding areas. I’d sigh and fidget in protest. Now, I’ve learned it’s wise to allow time for the unexpected.
Dad ran his office like clockwork. “Don’t be late for a doctor appointment,” he emphasized. “It throws their whole schedule off and keeps others waiting.” Yet he always made time to talk with his patients, to listen to their concerns, to help them through a rough patch.
I held my breath as the medical assistant cut through the last layer of gauze and began to peel off the bandage. This would be my first view of my left foot since surgery two weeks earlier to correct a bunion and hammer toe.
My big toe and fourth toe were deeply bruised; a jagged, three-inch incision ran atop my bunion onto my big toe; another puckered incision snaked from the top of my foot onto my first toe, which was red and swollen.
It’s a few weeks before Halloween, that time of year when perfectly intact pumpkins are evident everywhere. I feel great empathy for their plight: “You have no idea what is going to happen next, buddy,” I think. “Someone is going to take a knife to you, and you have no idea how your beautiful, smooth face is about to transform.”
A line of medical professionals awaited me in the ED and worked me up for a complete heart block. A day later, my cardiac surgeon walked in and said, “You need a pacemaker.”
My heart rate had gone down to 28, it turns out, compared to a usual rate of between 60 and 100 beats a minutes. I met with a myriad of professionals on my team; each one explained their role and what I should expect from my impending surgery. I woke up in my room with a pacemaker rep, discussing my pacemaker.
I am a PT with 38 years of clinical experience. Though I have many interests, the human experience of pain, especially where physical pain intersects with emotional pain, has been a patient-care focus of mine for some time now. I am also a mom of two, one of whom I lost to the disease of addiction six years ago. And recently, I have been an orthopedic patient, having had a partial knee replacement two months ago.
The fountain, meant to evoke a spa-like environment in the waiting room, tinkled loudly enough to be distracting. Still, I persevered with my reading, the downtime a welcome postwork/precommute break while I waited for my annual gynecologist appointment. As an extra treat, I had plans to meet my brother afterward for coffee.
A tonsillectomy at age nine that led to hemorrhaging and a return to the OR. An operation on four impacted wisdom teeth at age sixteen that kept me in a coma for three days. A hysterectomy at age thirty-six that involved the wound opening up, internal bleeding, and two additional hospital admits.
There’s more!
Dear Pulse readers,
I’m very disappointed.
I was scheduled to have a surgical procedure this past Tuesday. Knowing that October’s More Voices theme would be Surgery, I was planning, in this letter, to recount lurid details of the operation and of my postoperative pain or delirium, depending upon how many narcotic pills I was ingesting.
Alas, my procedure was postponed for a week.
