Mack the Knife

By now, the surgeon has removed one painful joint and replaced it with an artificial one and I’m ready to start rehab.

As an RN, I have helped many individuals prepare for surgery but this is my first time going under the knife. The cutting doesn’t worry me but anesthesia does. Someone is making sure I take in oxygen. The last time that happened I was too small and undeveloped to check up on the quality of care I was receiving. I remember one patient reading Robin Cook’s COMA as he waited in the corridor to go into the operating room.

I learned what can go wrong in surgery and during recovery. However, I can’t operate on myself, give myself anesthesia, or develop a physical therapy plan. When I fly, I don’t spend time worrying. I’m not flying the plane and no one in his right mind is going to ask me to do so. I can be a first class neurotic driving a car in rush hour or on a highway during a snowstorm but then I feel responsible for not causing a disaster.

I have friends who enter into any medical treatment with suing on their minds. Their radar is tuned in for errors, especially ones they have seen in ads on TV. I think that’s a little like fighting with the cook. Not that errors aren’t made but I hope not to me and, if one does, I’ll deal with it then.

Most of all, I miss reading and commenting on the blogs on Writerswhokill and all the other interesting blogs out there. I enter the hospital, dreaming of the day I return home.