Back to the Cutting Board

What a trip back surgery was. My back was cut open, cleaned out, and then glued back together again with super glue Tues­day morn­ing. I got back  Tues­day after­noon and have been pretty much wiped out since. It was a crazy expe­ri­ence –  like noth­ing else I’ve ever expe­ri­enced. Let me share some high­lights of what I remember.

Final Awak­en­ing

I woke up at 4:45am Tues­day morn­ing. When the alarm sounded I thought at first I was get­ting up to go for a run. The exu­ber­ance quickly passed, though, and was quickly replaced by the real­iza­tion that I was going to get my back cut open and vac­u­umed out. As crazy as it sounds, it wasn’t sup­posed to be that big of a deal, this oper­a­tion. Besides, surgery was going to get me closer to run­ning, some­thing I haven’t done for over four months! The thought of being pain free encour­aged me to ease myself out of bed.

My wife drove me to the hos­pi­tal in San Fran­cisco where we joined what must have been about 50 other cou­ples fill­ing two wait­ing rooms. UCSF per­forms a lot of surg­eries, appar­ently. Some­how the fact that there were so many patients also await­ing the knife helped me feel a lit­tle bet­ter. With this many peo­ple, my surgery had to be pretty rou­tine, I reasoned.

After sign­ing in with a rov­ing atten­dant and her clip­board, my name was called along with about 10 other people’s. We were then herded and packed into an ele­va­tor that took us up to the surgery prepa­ra­tion ward. For­tu­nately, I got a “room” in a wing away from where most of the other peo­ple were taken. After shar­ing a wait­ing room and tight ele­va­tor ride with oth­ers, I was crav­ing some calm and quiet.

An Old Geezer

I was glad that my wife stayed with me in the room. I enjoyed her com­pany but it was her abil­ity to tie the back of my hos­pi­tal gown that made me ecsta­tic. I’ve never been able to wear one of those things prop­erly before, as I’m always alone. Appar­ently, I don’t have the dex­ter­ity the “design­ers” of these robes were count­ing on patients having.

I was glad that my wife stayed with me. I enjoyed her com­pany but it was her abil­ity to tie the back of my hos­pi­tal gown that made me ecstatic.

I was then seen by a series of med­ical pro­fes­sion­als who were involved in my pro­ce­dure one way or another. What threw me were how young most of them were. They looked like smart, nice guys, but I’m used to see­ing guys that age behind the counter at Peet’s Cof­fee. I tried to tell myself that I was just get­ting old, that they were not too young to be in charge of keep­ing me alive. That just made me feel old, which wasn’t any better.

I did feel old, though, espe­cially since every other patient I saw looked retired. The gen­tle­man next to me was in his 60s and in for a sec­ond round of decom­pres­sion surgery. Good Lord, I thought. Are these now my peers? Have I skipped my 40s and 50s and gone straight into my “Golden Years?”

My anes­the­si­ol­o­gist, besides look­ing like a High School stu­dent, was a good guy. When I held up my phone and asked him if he could tweet updates for me while I was under, I got the sense that had he known how to tweet, he might have con­sid­ered it. I was dis­ap­pointed that the world wouldn’t be able to fol­low my progress dur­ing surgery. I was relieved, though, as I fig­ured if an anes­the­si­ol­o­gist  had time to mas­ter twit­ter while in res­i­dency, I didn’t want him in charge of tak­ing me to heaven’s gate and back again.

One of the res­i­dents came back in say­ing he had for­got­ten to mark my back where the surgery was going to be per­formed. I wasn’t hor­ri­fied that the sur­geon would be rely­ing on a mark on my back to per­form the cor­rect surgery since I had read about this as being stan­dard now (after folks had their good leg ampu­tated!). I did do a quick check, though, as I rolled over and exposed my back to make sure he wasn’t still using a crayon. I was glad to see the appro­pri­ate adult marker.

A Man With Knives Awaits

My anes­the­si­ol­o­gist sud­denly said they were ready for me in the oper­at­ing room. With the click of the wheels as they were unlocked and a few jerky false starts, I was off. The anes­the­si­ol­o­gist then men­tioned that he had given me a lit­tle seda­tive to take the edge off. I made it as far as around the cor­ner before I noticed the effects. I remem­ber say­ing some­thing about feel­ing the drug. I then got a kiss good bye from my wife. I don’t remem­ber see­ing any­one or any­thing as I was wheeled into the oper­at­ing room except feel­ing a mask on my face. Look­ing back I am a bit dis­ap­pointed that I didn’t get to do the count down while the anes­the­sia was turned on. I won­der if they give you a seda­tive before they even wheel you away so you never have a chance to scream, “Oh my God, I’m going to die!” Maybe I’m the only one who is curi­ous what would hap­pen if I yelled that.

I won­der if they give you a seda­tive before they even wheel you away so you never have a chance to scream, “Oh my God, I’m going to die!”

Next thing I woke up and saw a chain saw being pulled on by a guy in all black. No, wait, I don’t think that actu­ally hap­pened. I believe the next thing I remem­bered was talk­ing with my sur­geon back in the recov­ery room. The funny thing is that I only remem­ber hav­ing spo­ken with him, not any of the con­tents. Appar­ently I told him that I didn’t have any pain in my leg. I do remem­ber now telling myself to focus and react like I wasn’t an idiot while he was talk­ing. I was say­ing, “Nod and don’t drool,” or some­thing like that. For­tu­natly he gave my wife instruc­tions on what I should and shouldn’t do.

The next time I was semi-conscious was when I felt itchy all over my head and neck. I began itch­ing my fore­head and then heard my nurse tell me not to do that. I opened my eyes as she explained that I had an aller­gic reac­tion. My first thought wasn’t one. Then I real­ized what she was say­ing and won­dered out loud if they gave me any aspirin. I had a red tag around my left wrist with the word Aspirin writ­ten in big let­ters, but I fig­ured they may still have screwed up and given me some­thing sim­i­lar. The nurse said I didn’t receive any anti-inflammatory drugs and that they didn’t know what I reacted to. “You should have seen your face!” she exclaimed. I’d rather not. Appar­ently I was a lot bet­ter now than I had been, though my eyes still felt puffy. The heavy dose of Benadryl was mak­ing me very, very sleepy, though, and I quickly drifted back under the drug’s spell once more.

I awoke next to see my wife’s beau­ti­ful face. Her warm touch added some life to me. for all of 20 sec­onds. The Benadryl sure had it’s grip on my con­scious­ness and was keen on demon­strat­ing who was in con­trol. After a few more attempts at becom­ing lucid, I was finally able to talk with my nurse and ask what I had to do to get out of there. Don’t get me wrong, I quite enjoyed drift­ing off to sleep, but some­thing in my was anx­ious still to leave the hospital.

Free at Last, Free at Last

There was an inner drive push­ing me to get out of bed and use my legs. I think it was the real­iza­tion that I was finally on the other side of the surgery and for the first time in over four months, I was in a posi­tion to start heal­ing! It had been the vision of this moment, after my surgery, that had kept me going all that time. All I had to go on was the promise that I would have my back fixed one day and would be able to start recov­er­ing. Now, that moment had arrived.

There was an inner drive push­ing me to get out of bed and use my legs.

The nurse said she wanted to see me sit up in a chair and keep some food down before I would be allowed to go. Oh, and I had to show her that I could pee (I don’t think she meant that lit­er­ally). You might be think­ing eat­ing and pee­ing wasn’t much to do. I was too, until I started to lift my head . For­tu­nately, I didn’t get nau­seous, but I did feel light headed. Yet I was deter­mined, and with the help of my wife, I was able to move to the chair. I also fin­ished a banana that my wife got for me. Two tasks down, one to go. I had received a full liter of liq­uid from the IV drip so I fig­ured my chances were pretty good at pee­ing. How­ever, my body was still too out of it, as noth­ing hap­pened while sit­ting on the pot (there was no way I was going to attempt a stand­ing pee!). For­tu­nately, they still let me out with­out prov­ing I could pee.

My wife pulled the car up to the front of the hos­pi­tal while I was brought down in a wheel chair. Once securely in the car, I insisted my wife drive me straight to one of San Francisco’s finest cafes which hap­pened to be around only a mile away. I shuf­fled into Hol­low and was greeted by the owner. He asked in his usual friendly voice how I was doing. I explained that I had just got­ten out of surgery and due to an aller­gic reac­tion was drowsy from a big dose of Benadryl. His reply man­aged to get through my fog and crack me up. “If only we had some mag­i­cal elixir that fought sleepi­ness,” he pon­dered out loud. I had come to the right place. My recov­ery was now in full swing, I thought, as I sipped that won­der­ful elixir called espresso. Then I col­lapsed into the car.

And for those with the stom­ach for it, here’s a photo of my back all crazy-glued up a day after the surgery: