Deja Vu All Over Again

Almost exactly ten years ago I had to undergo the same surgery I am anticipating having on Monday. I was a medical student and had just enough knowledge to be petrified. I had the surgery the first day of a two week scheduled break from school. Dad came to look after me since I lived alone and all my friends would be out of town on the last vacation before our clinical rotations started. Being a touch hypervigilant Dad makes a pretty good nurse. I thought the worst part was going to be waking up from anesthesia screaming for help and trying to put my abdomen back together. I was sure they'd left me wide open. Worse however was trying to go back to school two weeks to the day after surgery. I had an incision about six inches long across the lower portion of my abdomen. It was not exactly symmetric so it interfered a little more with the forward motion of my left leg than it did my right. My top speed could only be described as processional. With effort I could stand up almost completely straight but I couldn't hold this position for long. My forward progress was slow and loping. It caused people to stare.

Nevertheless I reported for duty on my first day of third year to the department of orthopedic surgery. If you've ever visited a hospital you may have noticed the flocks of doctors in white coats swooping like swallows down the corridors. I was definitely the runt swallow. Outside of the OR orthopedic surgeons see about 10 patients an hour in the office and round at the hospital on untold legions. Hospitals are designed so that the more relevant two departments are to one another the further apart they are. My limping and gimping along caused the entire team to have to ride elevators instead of heroically storming the stairs, pouring out of obscure doorways unexpectedly and causing alarm in hallways all over the hospital.

The operating room was another level of hell altogether. Orthopedic surgery requires fluoroscopy, a sort of adjustable X-ray, in order to judge the integrity and alignment of the bones and hardware being pieced together. Consequently the surgeon and every other soul in the operating room has to wear lead. About 40 pounds of it. Front and back, top and bottom, even a little piece for the front of your neck. I thought I was just going to die right there. Crushed like a soda can. I could feel the adhesions forming in my abdomen. I had no choice but to last as long as I could each day and try to look alert. Any wonder a month off looks like a vacation to me?