Surgery day

Wednesday night I slept around two hours. Oddly, I slept deeply, free of the xanax nightmares and percocet waking dreams. The wake up call shrilled at 5:55; in discord with our barrage of apple devices shrieking in tinny harmony, an atonal prelude to a day that would prove to be no less easy on the ears. It was the first time I'd worn my XL sweatpants and UW sweatshirt out into to harsh light of day since sophomore year and I found myself wishing I was just running late for another constitutional law class.

My mother asked me how I was feeling.

I looked at myself through the dim wedge of light left in my right eye.

"like a cancer patient getting ready for surgery"

I whipped my hair into a french braid and gave the mirror my fiercest scowl. If they'd let me I would've shown up in full warpaint and feathers too. Because I'm a fighter.

My race was set to go off at 6:30 and we panicked when we drove up to the parking garage gate. Mom had lost the ticket and her hands shook as she tore apart her purse looking for it. The same thought resonated in our heads: "please please please" because who was late for surgery because of a parking ticket? After a millennium or so, the slow eyed attendant deigned to open the speaking grate and we begged and pleaded our way to a room charge on the parking stall and held our breath as he spent 5 minutes manually opening the gate. We zoomed out and parked in the first garage we saw near the hospital, we arrived breathless at the check-in desk at 6:31 where we signed our name beneath an unbelievably long list of other patients. I read down with a sinking heart: they were here for the same treatment. I hit the bathroom and left mom to wheedle our wait time out of the stone-faced receptionist. When I returned and plopped down in a seat, she told me I was second in line. I just nodded and looked dour-faced at the depressingly full waiting room.

Ten minutes later I was afraid and 20 minutes later I was sure the rest of the room could smell the terror coming out of my pores. Thirty minutes later my headphones were in and Les Miserables was on full blast. Then Tupac. Then Yo Yo Ma. Then Pitbull. Anything. As loud as it would play. By the fifty minute mark I had decided that I should really discuss with my therapist my decided tendency to deal with fear through extreme anger. By the hour mark I hated every living being in the room with a hatred so strong I had to visibly restrain myself from assaulting the little old ladies across from me discussing the (inaccurate) urban legend of Mr. Roger's alleged sniper kills during the Vietnam war. Ten minutes later when one asked the other if she used mustard in her egg salad I wanted to stomp on her head (for the record I don't feel one way or the other about egg salad, mustard or no).

Luckily for the little old ladies (and everyone else in the room), they called my name and I leapt up expecting to be taken back into preop. Instead they seated me in front of some overgrown boyscout with a very straight side part and crisp polo under which he had inexplicably worn a very awkward looking long-sleeved undershirt. I restrained myself from informing him of this because I have a very good sense of what is socially appropriate. He went over the same information the nurses had told me the night before then called to confirm. My blood pressure rose incrementally with every page I signed and I was apoplectic by the time he told us it would be "just a little while longer" before they called me back. I was considering asking for a voluntary straitjacket when dropped the real bomb. In an embarrassed, red-around his stupid polo collar kind of way, he pushed a folded white paper notice across the table at me and informed me uncomfortably that "ladies of a certain age" were required to submit to a urine test before going into surgery.

I hit the roof.

Through all of the many written instructions we'd received, walk throughs and recaps, no one had mentioned a urine test. They had, however, been diamond, laser cut, crystal, 20/20, windex streak free finish clear that I was not under any circumstances to eat or drink ANYTHING for the 12 hours preceding my operation. Which meant that my pit stop to the bathroom immediately following check-in gave me about a 2% chance of having any passable liquid left in my body. After I'd silently counted backwards from a million and visualized throwing his computer across the room (spoiler alert: that was the pg version, upgrade to Bigbadphillytrip pandora professional for 4.99$ a month for an ad free experience and the gory details of what actually happened to Mr. boyscout that morning) (second spoiler alert: just kidding no boy scouts were harmed in the making of this blog). I asked him calmly what would happen if I was unable to comply with the urine test. It was the kind of calm that made his perfect part frizz up a bit as he told me I would have to drink something, wait for it to pass through my system and delay the surgery another 6-8 hours as his eyes involuntarily started scanning the room for immediate exits. I signed on the dotted line and went back to my seat hoping that the next time he put his nice polo in the wash it shrunk to the size of a hand puppet.

With my head full of vicious thoughts about Mr. Boyscout, the little old ladies were safe when we returned to our seats and waited another half hour before we were at last called into pre op. My well meaning nurse ushered me into a holding stall and sent me into the handicapped bathroom, cheerily assuring me that she believed in me, which made me feel like a toddler out of a pampers commercial. I sat. And I waited. First in hope. Then in Fear. Then in Anger. Then I looked at my empty pee cup and cried. My nurse knocked hesitantly on the door and asked if she could come in and help. Through my despairing sobs I wondered what she could possibly have in mind. I decided not to risk it, threw the empty cup away, washed my hands and face and stepped out to face my disappointed nurse.

At this point, things could've gone either way if it weren't for the arrival of another nurse who regretted to inform us that the plaques (the radioactive contact lenses they sew on your eyeballs to kill tumors) were delayed and would not be arriving for another hour. This eliminated the "either" part of the going and things went south fast. My angry barrage of "why didn't you tell me about the goddamn test" and "can't anyone find me a goddamn xanax" was cut short by the whirlwind arrival my my surgeon, the great an terrible Dr. Shields who, unbelievably, was even more furious than I was and not the least bit afraid to show it. Now normally, as I am in management and believe in the basic dignity of all (or at least most) human beings (I'm looking at you Mr. boyscout) I am adverse to the public admonishment of superior to employee. But in this case, terrified beyond human endurance, and hysterical over my inability to urinate, the scathing barrage of fury she let rain down on her team behind the thin curtain separating us from the masses was sweet music to my ears. I made me feel impossibly, ridiculously, unfairly better that she had shown them the wrath. I don't think I could've even done it better myself. A moment later she stepped back onto my side of the curtain, apologized politely and curtly for the delay and told me I could say "aloha" to my tumor within the hour, before turning on my trembling resident to order up the anesthesiologist to get me something to calm my nerves. He arrived shortly thereafter and kindly agreed to forego the pee test then ran me through the usual list of allergy questions before summoning up the nurse for the IV.

The one blessing of the endless delays was the extra time spent in my hospital bed, which meant I got to call my husband and hear his voice before surgery. His inability to travel with us had left me feeling desperately lonely and I must've told him I loved him a million times before I hung up the phone. As the nurse prepped me for the IV and then stuck the needle in ("ok big pinch honey"- like I mentioned, all Wills eye hospital employees need a refresher course on the proper use of adjectives and descriptive nouns) I stared fixedly at our wedding picture while the tears rolled down my cheeks. We looked so happy, it was our first kiss photo and my hair looked dynamite. The horse tranquilizers were running through my blood stream before my tears had dried and I spent the next 10 minutes tunelessly singing Johnny Hartman's "lush life" under my breath, somewhere far beyond my pink fog in lala land. The anesthesiologist returned and I have a vague memory of people, things, and words, before time ceased to exist.

When I awoke, the terror of the waiting room came surging back, coupled with a fresh, fun, new fear: they had wanted to "wait to see how I felt" when I woke up so I felt very keenly the poisonous metal contact lens behind my eye and even more clearly the sutures that had held my eye sewn shut. This made me feel like I had awoken in Saw XXIVVI: eye hospital edition and I officially lost my mind. I clutched my eyes and hollered about how I couldn't open them, I screamed at the nurses and god and the world and was generally belligerent. They forced a percocet down my throat and got the hell out of my way as we staggered out the door and into the friendly 10 degree Philadelphia weather. I don't recall how long it took us to get back to the car but I do recall staggering around (and through) the streets like I'd just downed half a bottle of gin and poured the other half in my eye. I also vaguely recall the very inventive and prolific strings of profanities that I managed to holler out the whole time with a breath control that would've made my high school voice coaches proud and appalled my poor mother who should really be nominated to sainthood. We finally reached the car and after a few more slurred "don't touch me"s I made it inside the vehicle although not, as I recall, in the manner the manufacturer had probably intended a person to sit in a car. When we made it to the hotel and up the endlessly long 8 floor ride in the elevator, our door seemed to magically appear before me and I collapsed, face first Hollywood style into bed, where I knew nothing more of the world.