Yesterday, Wednesday, I had an outpatient procedure performed on my lower digestive tract.  I won’t go into the specifics of what was done, except to say that there are lovely, lovely painkillers that my surgeon gave me that numb me to the point where I don’t care about the pain anymore (note that this is not quite the same as getting rid of the pain altogether).

The Day Before

If you’ve ever had any sort of endoscopy or other procedure performed in the local what us Puritanical types tend to refer to as “Down There,” you’re aware that there are certain steps that you’re supposed to take to prepare yourself for your doctor’s intrusion.  And so, I stopped by my local Apothecary on the way home from work on Tuesday evening to purchase the necessary supplies for this.

I know I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I don’t understand why stores that brand themselves as “pharmacies” crowd their aisles with supplies that are not even remotely pharmaceutical in nature.  The branch of the chain that I went into, one known by its initials, had a sale on soda and wine.  That’s right, wine.  At the pharmacy.  “It’s good for what ails ya!”

I wandered around back toward the back, wondering where said pharmaceutical chain kept what I was looking for (oh, why be coy: I needed a two pack of enemas).  I eventually found them … next to the foot cream.  If there’s a logic there, I don’t know what it is.  I’m not an experienced enough enema buyer to know that there are different types of enemas, and I spent longer than I really wanted to going back and forth between this brand and that brand, and finally deciding to save a whole 21 cents on the store brand rather than the name brand.

One of the reasons why I don’t care for pharmacies in this day and age is that when purchasing an item of a deeply personal nature, such as the two pack that I carried with me, is that I don’t always feel as though the transaction will be handled with the necessary decorum and tact that I might like.  And so, when I found myself behind the woman purchasing cigarettes, the young man purchasing a bag of chips and a soda, the elderly gentleman who made the cashier perform a price check on a DVD copy of “Old Yeller,” and then proceeded to argue with the cashier about whether or not it was on sale before ultimately deciding that he didn’t want it, and the guy in front of me buying milk, I was kind of glad that no one got in line behind me.  Yes, I know people have to purchase enemas somewhere, and the amount of shelf space devoted to them suggests that a significant number of people are buying them, but when you’re the only one in a long line at the pharmacy purchasing any sort of pharmaceutical item, I’m just putting out there that it’s not necessarily the first item you’d want to be buying.

Yes, I do embarrass easily.  Why do you ask?

My purchases placed in a translucent bag through which the name of the item was clearly visible, I got in the car and went home.  The rest of the prep for the following morning–no eating, drinking, smoking, or swearing after midnight–was significantly easier to accomplish.

The Day Of

Over the days leading up, my surgery had been bumped up twice.  I was originally scheduled for 12:30.  Then it was moved up to 10:30, and, in early afternoon on Tuesday, I was called one last time by the pre-admitting nurse to let me know that there’d been a cancellation and I was now on the docket for 9:45 in the morning.  Normally, someone with my blood sugar levels (I’m hypoglycemic) would leap for joy at knowing that I’d be able to put food in my stomach hours earlier than scheduled.  However, the nurse informed me that I’d need to be checked in by 8:15 in the morning.

Austin traffic being what it is, I’d have preferred the 10:30 slot.  There’s a reason that I’m in the office by 7:30 every morning.  If I leave the house much later than when I leave currently (6:45), traffic slows down considerably, and it becomes vastly unpredictable.  Hence, Ray and I dragged ourselves out of bed at 6:30 so that we could get in the car by 7:15, in the hopes of making it the 20 miles to central Austin by 8:15.  We weren’t far off the mark: by the time we got parked and up to the intake office, it was right around 8:05.

It was me and a bunch of old ladies in the waiting room, and they all glared at me when I was called down first.  They set us up in a room barely large enough to accommodate the bed/stretcher that I crawled into, and Ray had his choice of two utterly uncomfortable chairs to sit in.  They gave me one of those oh-so-fashionable robes that open in the back, footie socks, a “bouffant cap” (the box was right across the hall, so I could verify that this was the official name), and a set of gauze pants that, I was instructed, I could wear “if I wanted.”

Thus set up in my little day surgery room, a string of visitors came through.  First was admitting nurse number one, who went over all of the paperwork that I’d already gone over with someone else.  Then came nurse nurse, who put the IV in.  Now, I’m not the biggest fan of needles that go in my arm in the first place.  The problem I had with this particular episode … well, there were two.  First off, the IV didn’t go in my arm, it went in the back of my hand.  Second, she decided to try to ease the process by numbing the spot first, and … well, I’m actually better off without that step.  It tends to make me woozy and lightheaded, and, sure enough, I got woozy and lightheaded.  “Oh, my,” she said, “Does the sight of blood bother you?”

“No,” I mumbled … because there was no blood to see, but why bring that up?

The next visitor was the anesthesiologist.  She asked me … for the third time that morning … whether I had any jewelry on, and I cut to the chase: “No, no piercings, no tattoos.”

“You know,” she said, “I realized I can’t say that anymore.  I had breast reconstruction?  And you know, they tattoo on the areola when they do the reconstruction.  It looks really good, but now I have to answer yes whenever I have to fill out these forms.”

I have to tell you, that’s not necessarily the sort of information I’d offer to someone that I just met for the first time.

At some point after this, I realized that I had to go to the bathroom, which involved summoning a nurse to unhook the IV and walk it into the bathroom across the hall with me.

And then, it was time to get wheeled down the hall.  I left Ray with his laptop (“Hey, I can’t get the wireless to work,” he said.  “I guess now I don’t have to feel guilty about watching the DVD I brought.”) and a good-luck kiss, and off we went.

I know why the nurses are supposed to engage you in conversation as you head into surgery, but … I didn’t particularly want to have the “So, what do you do for a living?” conversation at that particular moment.  I don’t have a job that lends itself to explanation in a sound bite.

And into the Operating Room we went.  And, to my surprise, there were a lot of people in there.

“Wow,” I said.  “I’ve got an audience.”

“Uh huh,” she said.  “The procedure they’re doing on you is still pretty new, and so there are some other doctors observing, and those two guys are from the company that makes the machine they’re using, and those are the nurses who work with the observing doctors, and … ”

There were at least seven people in the room, none of whom were my surgeon or the anesthesiologist I’d met earlier (the one with the tattooed areolas).  The anesthesiologist’s assistant came over, introduced himself, and said, “I’m going to give you some drugs that will kind of mellow you out and make you not care.”

“Bring it on!” I said.  There was some general milling about the room, but … well, everyone was watching me.  And, so, as the drugs kicked in, I nodded at the doctors standing nearest me and said, “Gee, I hope you all enjoy your guided tour of my rectum!”  There was a bit of laughter …

… and then I was in the recovery room with no pants on.

By the time they put me in the wheelchair to be wheeled out to Ray’s truck, it was nearly 1 PM.  We stopped for lunch on the way home, and then, saddled with the shopping list that I’d been given at discharge, stopped once again at the pharmacy for painkillers and other supplies.

And now … well, I’m propped up in front of the TV with a recurring diet of painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs, and bemoaning the fact that there’s nothing good on television during the day.

But still, it’s the best excuse not to work from home I’m likely to get