The Operation
The gurney squeaked and the white neon lights passed above me. I have been waiting for this moment for a long time, and I had high hopes. In my mind’s eye I pictured myself running through a grassy field, up a hill covered with oak trees, reaching the top and admiring the view of the San Francisco bay. A large yellow Monarch butterfly flew past me, and a squirrel carried an acorn up a tree. My lungs filled with clean air, and the exertion slowly left my calves.
“Could you put this mask on? Just a few breaths will suffice,” a doctor in scrubs leaned in and said.
I didn’t remember the next several hours. I woke up in a hospital bed feeling like a horse kicked me in the back. I had a herniated L4-L5 disk which caused excruciating pain, and much disability. This operation fused the vertebrae above and below thus eliminating the disk. I was convinced that it was the solution to all my problems. I was suppressing the cases where it didn’t work, caused pain elsewhere, or made the pain even worse.
Hospital
“What are you doing in bed? You have to walk, doctor’s orders,” nurse Amy commanded.
“My back hurts, I just want to rest,” I said.
“Come on, up you go,” Amy stepped closer.
“Alright, alright.” I hoisted myself out of the hospital bed. It wasn’t easy, with the infusion tube snaking out of me. My wrist hurt where the tube was inserted.
“It’s painful,” I mumbled.
With mincing steps I walked the ward pushing a tall pole with the infusion packet hanging off of it like a pirate flag. “Some pirate”, it took me an entire minute to get out of bed. Yesterday I could just swing out of bed.
…
“I see you haven’t touched your food,” Amy said and gave me a sideways look. She had a deep voice for such a petite woman.
“Not hungry, sorry,” I said, and turned over in bed. Well, I tried, the tubes didn’t let me get far.
Amy pushed the food tray closer, “you have to eat to get your strength back.”
“But I’m not hungry,” I protested. “Besides, the opioids are giving me terrible constipation. If I eat more, it will just increase my stomach ache.”
“Here, let me help you sit up,” Amy moved closer much faster than I could get away. In fact, I couldn’t get away.
“Alright, I will try some of the chicken, it looks good,” I lied through my teeth. Amy scowled, seeing through my pretense, but relented.
…
“Have you urinated the last two days?” Amy inquired.
That wasn’t very subtle, I thought. She could have said it in a more refined way. “I went to the restroom, if that’s what you are asking, but there were no results,” I replied testily. My stomach hurt after two days without an outlet. I kept drinking water thinking that at some point, it will have to come out. It was not working.
She handed me a big plastic bottle. “Fill this up, and show it to me. If you can’t, we’ll put in a catheter.”
I studied the can with a sinking feeling. I had trouble visualizing myself filling it. “Hmm, I could put in water instead,” I smirked, “I’ll ask Susan for some lemon juice, for the color.”
…
I was wheeling my infusion-stand down the corridor, trying to accumulate the walking mileage that would get me back on my feet. “Hi Chuck, how is it going?” I said.
“It’s good, I am getting out in two days,” Chuck said; he was pushing his own infusion stand. “Did you hear about Jason?”
“No, what’s up with Jason?” I asked.
“He didn’t have sufficient bowel movements so they are keeping him here for another ten days,” Chuck said.
“They can’t do that!”
“Sure they can.” Chuck leaned in, as far as the tubes would let him, and whispered “take care that it doesn’t happen to you.” He nodded to himself and shuffled down the corridor.
…
I woke up, disoriented, there was some incongruous noise, someone was talking loudly. It was midnight.
“Do you have the keys to the house?”
An older guy was being wheeled into the next slot in the room, he was talking on the phone. You could immediately tell that he was the kind of person with a naturally loud voice. He also seemed the kind that has such low self awareness that he couldn’t imagine himself being a nuisance. I didn’t know his name, so I tagged him “Gray-beard”.
I couldn’t hear the answer on the other side of the conversation.
“Oh well, ask Bobby, I think he has them. But don’t bother driving down from San Francisco,” Gray-beard said.
I tried to fall back asleep, but the noise continued. Then his two grown kids arrived. I thought they allowed visitors only until 9pm. I pulled the pillow over my head and did my best to ignore them. It didn’t work.
I must have drifted off when I was suddenly woken up due to a commotion.
“Really! So you came by the house but you had the wrong set of keys! Huh. Well, you are going to have to wait for Charlie to come back from the Sierras. Let me give him a call,” Gray-beard said.
I went back to my book and it was slipping from my hand when the nurse came.
“Let’s take some vitals, shall we?” Amy said.
“But you already did,” I replied weakly.
“That was two hours ago. Stick out your tongue,” Amy commanded. “Now give me your left arm.” She checked my blood pressure, which has been steadily rising since admission. I needed to get out of here before they hospitalized me for high blood pressure. “Say, when are they letting me out of here?”
“Show me the filled container in the morning,” Amy said.
I hid my smile, Susan was going to be here next morning, and I would have the can ready for inspection.
…
“Wake up Ron, you need to take a walk,” Amy said.
Weak morning light was seeping through the window slats. “Hmm?” I asked groggily.
“I see that the level of urine in the bottle is low; you didn’t fill it.” She disappeared down the hall, and I assumed that was the end of the story. That was a serious mistake. She came back with reinforcements.
Now I had two tubes going out of me.
Free
Two days later they let me out. The nurse reluctantly disconnected me from the tubes, she seemed to think I’ll be back at some point, so why take out what she will have to put back in? I was so glad to be let out that I didn’t feel any back pain that day. It was a good day to be alive.
