Breakfast cane and went and my stomach growled. The reception on my little television was rather poor, and everything at that hour sucked anyway. As some vitals were being checked on the other sides of curtains another strange orderly or nurse came along and asked if I'd been marked. I had been, the day before.
Then they asked me if they'd come to get me yet. Um, I'm still here, aren't I, was my response, and they nodded and left. Must be getting close. Then somebody came by with word that anytime they'd be sending for me. It wasn't quite noon yet. I called Corrie and told her that "anytime" was upon us, and there would be a communication blackout, like when the shuttle reenters the atmosphere.
Not too much later really a large black lady came through with a serious stretcher/gurney. It was finally my turn. I did have to hoist myself up onto the thing, and I might have been a little too big for it; my feet dangled off the end and my head was mostly over the other edge, if still supported by a pillow. It was almost comical.
The lady wheeled me down the hall and towards a service elevator. A piercing alarm was sounding, and once in the halls I could notice the tiny strobe lights attached to the fire alarms were flickering. "Is there a fire drill going on?" I asked, noticing the obvious and hoping it wasn't serious.
"Every damn day," she tells me, "Every day they run a fire drill. Mmmh-mnh. Nobody's goan believe when they really do have a fire." She'd pressed down on the emergency freight elevator button, and the doors opened and an older black lady was inside, upset now. "I was going up..." My escort said, "Well this is a service elevator and we heading down. When you see they have doors on two sides of the elevator," motioning to the doors on the opposite side of the doors we entered, "you got to know this elevator is for patients," all the while we were moving in and the older lady was walking out, mostly upset. On the ride down I agreed repeatedly with my escort about how some people just don't pay enough attention and get a bad attitude.
I was deposited in a futuristic like MASH triage room. Gurney's were strewn, nurses walked around with blue hairnets, they joked with each other in code, and there were repetitive sound effects regularly sounding, like robot crickets.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! BOOOP!
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! BOOOP!
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! BOOOP!
Then a series of nurses and orderlies would come over and take vitals, hook up weird diodes to my hairy chest, and tell me the anesthesiologist, or one them anyway, was on their way. Then a third robot cricket started to chime in, somewhere in the distance between the close long sound and the farther, shorter sound:
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! BOOOP-Bip!
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! BOOOP-Bip!
Soon a lady named Dr. Castroi came along and started to ask me questions. She was an anesthesiologist and was there to perform the nerve block on my left leg. It was supposed to last something like 20 hours, so it should cover the entire first day. Was I interested in that? Um, yes. Hook it up, please.
A guy showed up, calling himself Dr. Dewitt, and explained that he was going to wash the area where they were going to need to use the sonogram to find the nerve. This area was on my left hip. Dr. Dewitt mentioned that the washing liquid is kinda like alcohol, and that if it were to roll down onto my testes, that it will burn, and that I wouldn't be able to touch it to offer relief if that were the case.
Dr. Castro came over and started using the sonogram, and it looked pretty cool. I'd never seen my muscles and nerve bundles before. At one point the relationship between Castro and Dewitt became clear. Dr. Dewitt, upon spotting something on the sonogram screen said, "Ooh, what's that?" It was a highly dense looking grape sized bundle. The manner with which Dr. Castro answered cleared up everything: "Lymph node?" with the upward lilt. She was the student, and he was the teacher. (She was right.) They found the nerve bundle, and then she stabbed a long needle like thing into my hip muscle, and started to flood the nerve with marcaine.
They told me, as the flooded it, that my leg would start to feel heavy, and then warm, before it started to numb up. "Do you feel it yet?" the young lady asked.
"Well, I'm a little more focused on the fiery salve that's on my testicles right now." That was true. My balls were on fire. Dewitt, the guy, started cracking up, while Castro, the young lady was confused and disarmed.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! BOOOP-Bip!
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! BOOOP-Bip!
My leg finally went numb, and the eventually wheeled me out into the hall way. These halls down by the operating rooms were more cluttered than the mud room where they fitted me with the splint. Whole wings blocked off by equipment. Groups of surgeons shooting the breeze as if they were gathered at a water cooler, nurses bickering with orderlies about where to put us patients, and all the while my head and feet over laying the undersized gurney I was on.
They decided to move me over (once they found a larger gurney), then got into an argument about which of us got which room, then, once that was settled, I was set up outside the OR as folks were getting it ready. There I had a long chat with the Aussie anesthesiologist about what the yummy cocktail of knock-out drugs I was getting. Fentanyl, propofol, and a few others, and gas to keep me asleep. Then she gave me a shot, a Hello cocktail to make me loopy for the last ten minutes before they put me down, and I started to feel real groovy.
The moved me into the operating room, and as they shifted me to the big gurney, I was having fun noticing the two futuristic large industrial circular apparatuses, likely lights (if so, they were off). I started to say something, and the nurse removed my oxygen mask (soon to be gas) to hear me.
"I've seen this episode of The X-Files," I managed. That got some smiles and chuckles, another serious shot in the IV opening on my arm, and then I was out.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! BOOOP-Bip!
I came to back in the same room with the robot crickets. And my leg was killing me. That twenty hours seemed to be up pretty quick. They hit me up with five shots of morphine and after a few minutes wheeled me back to the room with Mister Anthony, the Spanish GSW, and Steroid/Colon Window guy.
They were pretty surprised that I'd worn that nerve block off, but somehow I had. That made the rest of the day and that first long night quite uncomfortable.
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