On January 2nd I went into the University of Washington Medical Center to catastrophically change my life forever. This is not the first time that I have seen changes in my life in such "earth shattering" terms. When I was about six years old medical authorities dragged little Bobby Dunning kicking and screaming from behind a door at the clinic at Barber's Point in Hawaii in order to give him a polio shot. There would not have been such a team of thugs this time to rescue me from myself. Nor did I hide screaming behind a door. The "animal" is not allowed to prevail much in the person that I have become during the sixty-five years since we all lived in Hawaii.
The night before, Barb and I rented a room in a hotel in the "University District" so that we would not face a long drive in traffic on the morning of January 2nd. It turned out that there probably would not have been much traffic because they told the patient to deliver the victim to the facility at 6:30 AM. Lately, I have repeatedly been delivering the victim to various facilities for medical procedures that undermine his health under the theory that the eventual results will be much better. I lay in a bed at the Valley Medical Infusion Center sixteen times while they infused poisons into my veins. There were two other procedures where I lay on a table while teams of experts performed amazing techniques on my body. I am not retired anymore. My career is now medicine.
So Barb and I went to the "Surgery Pavilion" at the UW Medical Center where we were soon ushered into a small cubicle. I was told to remove all my clothes, put on the usual (maximum access) hospital gown and make myself comfortable on the little rolling bed. There I presided over a parade of professionals asking questions and otherwise preparing me for the events of the day. This was not to be considered a minor or even a medium difficulty surgery. I have been informed that it is a technical "tour de force". It takes a very long time, a long working day starting at 8:30 AM.
Two anesthesiologists came in to install an epidural for purposes of controlling pain after the surgery. They had me sit on the edge of the bed and poked me with (local anesthesia) needles as they probed between the vertebrae in my back and ran a tube into the epidural space in my spinal column. I only felt one minor tickle/twinge as they did it.
Later, after the surgery, this was where opioids were infused whenever I pushed a button. I stashed the button and its cable in one of the convenient (maximum access) holes in the chest of my gown. After a few days of rolling around in the hospital bed after surgery the epidural tube came loose and they had to switch back to infusing me with analgesics via an IV. I still had the "port" in my chest, I still have the port in my chest, so they were able to eliminate some IVs and use that device instead while I was in the hospital.
There was more discomfort from itchiness with the epidural than with the IV drugs. The IV drugs I thought were more effective. I also got the feeling that the pain doctors were feeling their way with the dosages on the epidural. I did not experience a lot of pain after the surgery. The worst pain that I can remember felt like gas in my intestines, but they really messed with my intestines so it may have been something other than gas. It is not the missing organs that hurt.
Then Dr. Dash came in with a young man he identified as his "physician's assistant" (with all the correct praise for said person's skills.) They informed me that they were going to use robots to perform the surgery. My faith in technology is such that suddenly I felt much safer going into this procedure. The doctor left and I was shortly afterward rolled down the hallway trailing after them. Barb kissed me goodbye with a surprising intensity before they rolled the bed out of the room. As we rolled down the hallway, I asked the attendant how many operating rooms they had at the UW Medical Center and was suitably astounded by the answer. She also mentioned the number of hospital beds (570). Big Bob had little Bob firmly by the hand as we rolled into the operating room. The sedatives probably helped too.
The operating room was relatively large with a large number of people standing around in it. I mumbled something about robots and they agreed and pointed at huge silvery machines mounted in various corners of the ceiling of the operating room. They said that Dr. Dash would be at the controls and I tried to visual the console and the command and control system involved. It would seem, however, that I was not there for a guided tour of the premises. Things started moving quickly. There is a discontinuity in my stream of consciousness after that.
next: five days in bed at the hospital.
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