Overheard while waiting for surgery

When I went in on Friday morning to get my tonsils out, I was doing well. Considering the anxiety I was feeling toward this thing weeks ago, I was very grateful to not be more worried. I was there on time (one hour before the surgery), and only had to wait 30min to get checked in. Not too bad.

After getting checked in, I only had to wait about 10 more minutes before the took be back to get me prepped. Yay punctuality!

Then came the fun part-the nasty gown, the poofy little hair net hat, and the slipper socks. And considering that I was wearing no makeup and didn't do my hair, I was nothing short of the pinnacle of beauty. Look, Aaron took picutres:

Aren't you jealous?

I felt like I should have had a sign taped to my head that said "I promise I am not this ugly everyday". It's a good thing I'm not a lunch lady-I just don't rock that whole hair net look.

I preferred my view:

See? Who wouldn't want to stare at that for 2 hours.

We got the IV in, plunked my little heiny on a gurney, and started the wait. The first thing stuck in my IV was called techadron. I had never heard of this little drug before Friday, nor had I ever heard of a side effect like one it comes with.

"I'm going to shoot this in very slowly," she told me. "It can have a kind of, um, strange effect of some people."

"Uh, how strange? What is it?"

"Well, sometimes it will make your, um, groin area feel.....kind of flushed and warm."

OK.

Thank you body for sparing me that side effect.

As the prep nurse walked out of my semi-private curtained area, she said "looks like you are up next, it shouldn't be too long!" Music to my ears. (it ended up being another hour and a half, but that's another story) Laying there smelling the sterile surgery smells gave me too much time to think, which made me nervous. So to take my mind off the upcoming events, Aaron and I eavesdropped on the conversations around us.

Hey, it's not hard to do when the only thing between you and the next conversation is a thin sheet hanging from some hooks in the ceiling.

We listened to someone who was having surgery on their toe. "Do you have any metal in your body?" asked the nurse. "uh, no. I don't think so. Well, until today." "Well, not counting today." "Well, no. I guess not then. Until you put the pin in my toe. Does it come out?" "We'll take the pin out in the office later. It will stick out the side of your toe. You'll have a Frakenstein toe until then." "Oh, that's nice."

A teenager next to me was having some knee surgery done. She was pretty freaked out. Her mom was trying to be consoling, but to any parent within ear shot, it was obvious that mom was pretty worried too. "Oh, don't cry honey, it's FINE. Everything will be FINE." The nurse called the girl Angela, mom corrected her. "It's Angelica. But you can just call her Angel. She my angel." (Awww... and gag!) Then repeatedly over the next 10 minutes: "you'll be FINE my angel. Oh, Angel, you'll be FINE." Heck, the mom was stringing me out! Anyone who assures you that forcefully and frequently that you'll be FINE isn't that convincing.

Also, her mother kept telling her to turn her socks around so that they were on the other way-you know, so the grippy things were on the bottom. I think she told her 4 or 5 times before she finally figured out that they grippy things are on BOTH sides!

And though many of the other things we heard that made us laugh escape me right now, my favorite was the guy who got parked in the curtain stall next to me after "Angel" left. We could hear the buzz of a razor when the nurse walked in, followed by him chuckling. She asked why he was laughing and he said "Oh, I was just thinking about the last time I shaved my legs!" and launched into stories about when he was in high school that involved shaving legs, wearing nylons, and it being a shame that people take things too far and too seriously anymore for kids to be able to do those kind of things. (It sounded like he was talking assemblies and spoofs). Interesting thoughts in that man's head!

And then it was time for me to go. I met my dr, nurse and anethesiologist (who looked like Larry Bird-and I told him that), and got wheeled back to the OR. I was going to just climb off the gurney and hop up onto the operating table and they all had a fit. Not sure why-I wasn't under the influence of anything yet (except the techadron which didn't make a difference). Of course people freak out when I get up to walk to recovery rooms after delivering babies too. Whatever. Instead they scooted me over as close to the table as possible and had me slide over onto it.

Yah, much more graceful.

All I could think was "this operating table is SO skinny! How do they operate on big people?!"

Also that my anesthesiologist looked like Larry Bird.

And I think I told him that twice more as I was falling asleep.

His reply? "If only Larry could play ball like I can!"