WHEN LEFT IS RIGHT, RIGHT IS WRONG, AND YES MEANS YES

I’m 6 days out from the [operation] and for the last week my pain has been managed by the Codone brothers, Oxy and Hydro. I have tried to sit down and write a blog or two, but everything I wrote came out like a Charlie Sheen narrative.

In the past 14 months I have had nurses write WRONG on my left knee, write RIGHT on my right knee; write WRONG on the on my right shoulder, write RIGHT on my left shoulder; write YES on the front of my neck and left the back of my neck blank.

They do this for a reason.

They do this for a very good reason.

1995 a Tampa surgeon amputated the wrong leg on a patient, although it was a series of mistakes made by a many of the hospital staff, it was on the doctor’s lap where the buck ultimately stopped.

2009 A patient noticed a problem when he awoke from knee surgery and saw the bandages were on the wrong leg. Sure enough the doctor had removed some cartilage from the wrong knee. The patient went back to the O.R. and had the correct knee repaired and left the hospital on two hobbled up legs.

There are hundreds of examples of right side, wrong side surgeries on all parts of the human body, but none so sad as the story about a woman who was pregnant with twins, one with a birth defect and the other was healthy and deemed fit to be born in a less then perfect world.

You probably can guess where this is heading. The abortionist slaughtered the healthy unborn baby. After discovering the mistake, the abortionist felt really bad about it. Pretty sure he got over it real fast. You can’t kill babies for a living if have any sort of soft spot in your heart.

So here it is Friday morning already and I’m getting prepped for another round with Edward Sissorshands. This one is different than the last three, this is the one surgery I really tried to avoid. The operation isn’t scheduled till 8:00 am, but I have to be there at 6:00, I know they need time to prep but 2 hours is a long time to lie there and think about what they are getting ready to do to me. At some point a nurse comes and asks me to tell her what I think I am here to have done. I’m thinking “shit, don’t you guys have a game plan yet?” I give her my take on the plan and she asks me if the doctor would be going in the front of my neck to do the spinal fusion? What, do I get a vote here?

I made a slashing sign to the front of my neck and she gets out the magic marker and writes, “yes” on my neck. A little while later the doctor comes in and puts his initials by the yes mark. Hmmmmm, we all on the same page here doc?

Finally the nurse comes in and says it’s time to go, I kiss my wife goodbye, hug my family and ask the nurse if I can take one final wiz.

As the nurse pushes my bed down the green mile I look up at the wall to see what time it is, it’s almost 8 o’clock.

Random thoughts keep popping up in my brain like, why do they call it o’clock? Why not just say, it’s almost 8 clock? Who came up with the O, was time invented by the Irish?

She wheels me into the O.R. and I think, man there are a lot of people in here. My eyes scan all the tables in the room and they are packed with scalpels, needles, tubes, CHISELS, HAMMERLIKETHINGS. BLACK AND DECKER CORDLESS DRILLS.

The O.R. looked like a cross between a Church Brothers Collision center and A Little Shop of Horrors.

In the center of the room there was even something that looked like a huge C-clamp, they told me it was a type of x-ray.

I see millions of dollars worth of medical equipment and I think my life could hinge on a nurse with a 69-cent magic marker.

They slide me over to the operating table and slide out arm extensions on each side and strap my arms down to them, they put a strap around my waist and secure me to the table and my feet are strapped down also and I think “shit, it looks like I’m on a Lethal Injection table!”

I start thinking about Timothy Mcvay and wonder did they use a magic marker on him too?

Did they write the words “terminate with extreme prejudice” on his arm? Or did they just draw a picture of the Fonz with his thumb pointing straight down with him saying “woe”.

All the people in the room are making jokes trying to loosen me up, a nurse is trying to adjust the strap on my left arm and she tells me put my hand where it’s most comfortable, my hand is almost touching her bosom, everybody in the O.R. laughed and started making cracks about that. Normally I would rely on my rapier like wit and join in the fray with a quick comeback, I’m thinking boobs, hand, comfortable,  uuhhhhhhh damn, I got nothing.

My sense of humor has abandoned me just when I could have used a good chuckle.

The anesthesiologist injects his liquid pixie dust in my .I V. as I look at the surgeon who is about to go all O.J. on my neck, I am glad as hell the he is wearing a surgeons cap and not a turbin.

 I feel the cold travel up the vein my arm and the scene starts to pixilate like Dish TV just before a rainstorm and we fade to black.

While I slumber 

Two hours pass by in the O.R., but it’s only been a few seconds by my clock and I’m back with the living.

Been feeling pretty rough, but the good doctor sent me home with some serious narcotics that helps take the edge off, I just don’t want to end up on the next season of Intervention. Little by little I’m getting back to normal, kind of weirds me out the fact that I have some dead guys bones in my neck where the 2 discs used to be. Well I don’t think he will miss them and maybe if I get caught turning my head and looking where I’m not supposed to be looking, I can blame the whole thing on my bone donor.