Under the knife

(Last Wednesday, I underwent surgery to remove a misbehaving gall bladder and accompanying stones. Apropos of nothing in particular here at Blogcritics, I offer up my experience. I thought some others outside my site's readers might like to see it - I know I would have liked to have found more personal experiences about the surgery (my first of any kind) beforehand, so maybe this will help ease someone through the anxiety. By the way, this is posted under "Et Cetera - Original Fiction" simply because nothing else fits - it's 100% non-fiction, I assure you.)

Tuesday night was the longest short night I think I've ever had. There have been few events in my life that I have truly dreaded with such cowering fear, and fewer still that I knew simply had to be done and that would lead to a much higher quality of living nearly immediately afterward. But Tuesday night, as bedtime approached, telling me that meant very little - all I could focus on was that in 12 hours, 11 hours, 10 hours . . . I would be sliced open and have things clamped, cut, and removed that I'd never given a thought to prior to a couple months ago, and I would face the dreaded IV, the mother of all needles (that men face, at least - and please don't bring up the nightmare that is the epidural. It must be understood first and foremost that I am a wuss, and as such, the thought of any needle brings about in me the kind of shivering fear normally reserved for torture techniques like bamboo shoots under the finger nails, or accidents that involve sheets of metal shearing off the scalp so it lies, folded back over the skull, like a rubber mask - while the victim is still very much alive.) Truth is, once I left the relative safety of the side of good wife Alissa, my nerves were calmed by the trusty hands of the nurse I have assigned the name of "Carmen" too, because in my nervousness I completely blanked out her name. I expressed my dismay at the IV, having never had one but having come to the hospital with a Stephen King's novel full of unique and detailed ways in which the IV could become dislodged from my vein in the most violent and bloody ways possible. "It's a good thing you got me then," Carmen said, "because I am one of the best." I smiled slightly as she rubbed my arm down with alcohol, then reassuringly said, "This will be a little pinch - you ever had bloodwork done?" I answered yes, last week, "well then, no problem. This is just slightly larger. Okay?" Before I could think, I felt a sting and it was in. A few strips of tape later, she patted my arm and said, "There, see? No problem, right?" No, I guess not, I sighed. And, for a moment, the worst was over.

Article Author: Tom Johnson

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