(continued from "A Good Man")
I was in the 6th grade and my doctors were preparing us for the big surgery. It was moving so fast, there was no time for me to sort through my feelings. I have scattered memories of appointments, tests and then it was time.
My spinal fusion would actually be performed in two parts, one week from each other. Dr. Fountain said that I would be in the hospital approximately four to six weeks total. We joked about putting a small basketball hoop on my hospital room door to help pass the time.
I can only remember a few of the tests that preceded my operation. One of which was due to my lack of appetite. Today I am only 4ft2in tall and weigh around 71lbs. Back then I was virtually the same height, but weighed only 50lbs. I look at old pictures of myself from that period – always with a big smile, but frail looking. I was burning so much energy just to breath, and I never ate much at one setting. I still eat like that – “like a bird”. But there was some concern that maybe my stomach was abnormally small. So one test involved drinking the most disgusting liquid I had ever had. The consistency may have been like a milkshake, but this tasted like cement. And they wanted me, a person who still takes tiny sips of anything to drink an entire cup of this “barium” – Blah! It took forever. My mother sat in the hallway with me, encouraging me to keep drinking. Finally I drank enough to satisfy the technician and I laid down on the exam table. The room was dark except for a monitor that was mounted up in the air. On it I could see my digestive system at work. I thought it was pretty cool. Not a show worth drinking a cement milkshake for, though.
A few days prior to my surgery we went to the hospital for some more testing. They cut my arm with a small blade and then timed how long it took to clot. They took some blood and asked a lot of questions. Then we met Dr. Fox in the MSICU (Medical Surgical Intensive Care Unit). He explained that this would be where I would recover immediately following my surgery before moving upstairs to the pediatric ward. The MSICU only had two individual rooms. The rest of the area was open with curtains separating one bed from another. All of the patients were sleeping, the only noise from their "stalls" being the beeping and alarming of machines.
We talked for a few minutes, during which time my mom informed Dr. Fox about my allergy to tape. After my surgery when I was two I broke out with two huge rashes, one on each cheek, where they had taped my oxygen tubing. After hearing about this experience, Dr. Fox walked to a station in the MSICU and grabbed several rolls of tape; paper tape, plastic tape, a tape called Transpore, etc. He cut short strips off each roll and placed them on my arm. He instructed us to keep them on for a day or two and see which ones (if any) my skin would have a bad reaction to. A couple days later small rashes started to develop under all of them except the Transpore. To this day that is all I will let nurses use on me.
The only other thing I remember about the time right before my surgery was going to get my hair trimmed. I had long hair that reached all the way to my hips. My parents and I went to a lady's home to get our haircuts and I remember admiring this Christmas decoration she had. It was a little boy - I think an angel - playing a flute or something. She saw me admiring it and gave it to me. This visit felt like part of a strange ritual. I was preparing for ceremony in which I was the sacrifice.
Everyone's actions made me feel like an inmate on death row. Something horrible was about to happen to me that they couldn't stop. I couldn't stop it either, even if I asked nicely.
But I'm pretty sure I could have gotten anything else I wanted.
(to be continued)
No comments:
Post a Comment