I thought they weren’t going to give me anything aside from some local anesthesia, but they must have because I felt goooooood. So much so that I’m planning on having a hernia at least once a year just to get a shot of whatever it is they give to, as they put it, “calm the nerves”, and inaugurate my summer vacation a tad earlier. It doesn’t knock you out. It just makes everything seem so cool. That means the doctor can approach you and say things like, “OK, Brian, we are going to take a knife and open your lower abdomen; then we are to stick your intesitne back in place, stuff a pplug in there, ptach it it up and then sew you back together with a needle and some thread. How does that sound?” To which I reply, “It sounds awesome. Heck, you can cut my leg off for all I care. You wouldn’t happen to have any nachos on you?”
The epidural injection did the rest.
The operation is immensely relaxing, but I guess with the right kind of drugs just about anything is. The doctor fixed me up all right; then he came over and told me everything was fine and then he left. I never saw him again. Surgeons can be like that I guess.
Then I was coasted off to the post-op. They parked me in the same place I was before. I wouldn’t quite call this the ICU, but something of the sort where basically they keep you there to make sure the anesthesia wears off so that you don’t end up confessing self-incriminating information to everyone you see on the way up. So, I just hung out and chilled for a little while. I mean really chilled. If there is one thing that stuck out on the operating table, it was the low temperature. I was suffering from hypothermia, and I could have done with a few blankets. I figure they keep things at that temperature to control all the life-threatening germs from descending upon my wound. And frankly I thank them for that.
At the ICU I got to share one of those heart-beeper machines, or whatever they are called, with an elderly woman who was stretched out on the bed to my right. Together we got a pretty cool duo of percussion sounds going. From time to time a kind of alarming alarm would go off on the machine, and the nurse would come over and turn it off without the least interest in what it was warning us about. I never really figured out what it was, but I didn’t really fret too much because, as I said, with enough of the right kind of drugs, everything was just fine and dandy.
An hour later, they sent me back up to my room where I got to hang out quietly. I felt cold, almost had the chills, but this time I was able to get a blanket. I don’t know, maybe it was just a side effect. Either that or I was slowly dying.
I had an aching desire for a little Peter Tosh and wondered if those nachos would ever come. But maybe I was asking a bit much of the hospital’s infrastructure.
