Although my surgery is scheduled for 9:30 a.m., I quickly realize that surgery is not unlike flying commercial: a lot of things must fall into place before I'm wheeled into the operating room and the surgeon picks up the scalpel. In my case there's a 2-hour plus delay, most of which I spend reclining in a comfortable lounge chair and answering the same questions about my medical history and allergies over and over again. These are posed to me by a West Indian nurse; 2 residents, including one who is overcaffeinated or seriously disorganized, I can't tell which; Dr. Ranawat; the anesthesiologist; and the operating room nurse. Somebody informs me that a representative of the company that manufactures my prosthetic device will be present during surgery, and a man from security catalogs the contents of my wallet and other valuables before taking them away for temporary safekeeping.
Fortunately, I've brought along a copy of The New Yorker but my attention inevitably switches from "Escape from Spiderhead"--George Saunders' chilling story about psychoactive drug experimentation upon prisoners--to the disembodied voices answering the same questions that I am being asked. The women next to me suffers from heavy menstrual bleeding. The elderly man across the way is angry that his daughter failed to pick him up at home this morning, although she now is by his side. A doctor gently scolds another woman for not following pre-surgical protocol. There's little drama in my cubicle aside from the fact that I haven't been able to tie properly the 2 gowns I've been given and my refusal to remove my navel ring. "I've never taken it out," I insist, which the nurse writes down.
I sense that the time is near when Dr. Ranawat finally pulls back the curtain. "And what are we doing today?" he asks brightly. "Right hip replacement," I respond. "Good answer," he says. "Why?" I ask. "Because it means we're both on the same page," as he marks my right hip with a black magic marker. "Skinny--we like that!" he observes. I flush with pride and fidget for another hour, until the operating room nurse finally appears. She gives me an oxycontin and tells me she'll be walking me to a gurney in the hallway. I ask to use the bathroom first even though I haven't had a drop to drink since midnight and by now it's nearly noon. The oxycodone already has kicked in. I'm feeling giddy and nearly lose my balance. So this is what all the fuss is about?
The route to the operating room isn't straightforward. The nurse has to maneuver around several obstacles in hallways which are crammed with different equipment and push through numerous doors before we enter a fairly small room with 3 or 4 people in scrubs already present, including one of the residents who introduced himself earlier but who ignores me now. The nurse, in her crisp eastern European accent, instructs me to roll over onto what looks like a small saddle, which will support my hip. It is bracketed by 2 longer tables. As I look around the room from my new perch, the anesthesiologist re-appears and inserts a catheter into my left arm. The nurse gently puts an oxygen tube into my nostrils. A radio plays to my disappointment--I had hoped Arcade Fire or classical music would provide the hip soundtrack to my hip replacement. No matter, I quickly slide into unconsciousness.
When I'm revived, a pretty young nurse asks me how I feel. "I feel OK," I say, and I do. She tells me they want to keep me under observation for a little while until my semi-private room becomes available. I drift in and out of consciousness without a care in the world.
Suddenly, it's time to leave the recovery room. The nurse wheels me out and I find myself transported to an electrically operated bed in front of a huge window. Marie, the Filipino head nurse and her certified assistant, joke with me about how young I look for my age. I score points by guessing that Marie, who is about to go off duty for the weekend, is in her late 20s. She's actually in her mid-40s. A TV on a swivel arm looms directly in front of my face but it requires a phone call and $7 to activate. The nurse summons security and my valuables rejoin my clothes, packed in plastic clothes. She also provides an "abduction pillow," shaped like a tall isosceles triangle, placing it between my legs so that I won't accidentally cross them and do damage to the tendons that were severed during surgery.
Unexpectedly, another friend named Tom enters the room wearing a chartreuse marshmallow jacket. I have been deliberately low key about visitors, refusing to provide colleagues or friends with many details. But Tom had asked, and there he was. It meant a lot to see a familiar face. A young woman with a handheld computer asks me what I would like for Saturday breakfast. Oatmeal is on the menu, just like at home. Things are looking bright.
"It looks like you may have a private room, " Tom observes just before leaving. No such luck. A hip dysplasia patient, who makes it clear during our co-habitation that he has undergone more complicated surgery, for the second time in 2 years, is wheeled in. "I need a room with a window. I have depression," he demands. I roll my eyes but during the course of the next few days, I will re-learn a life lesson: squeaky wheels get the oil, if not the window.
Marie, the quiet, efficient African-American night nurse, pulls back the curtain and enters to take my vitals and re-fill the liquid painkillers that are doing their job splendidly. A moment or two later she returns. "Is it OK with you if the mother of the other patient in this room spends the night with him?" Instead of assenting graciously, I add an absurd condition: "only if they're quiet."
Pulled curtains make good neighbors, I think, before falling into a sleep that Marie will interrupt every 2 hours to take my vitals. She wins me over completely by never failing to empty my urine bottle.
