Post op musings

[generic photo of an OR; the one I was in was blue and a lot smaller and cluttered]

After my brief foray into the maws of the medical juggernaut at the little house, I spend a little bit of time today unpacking it. [Click here to see the page of the Garden Room where Naomi first met her kitty, Gifford — who has become a terror.] Go down two posts and you can see my current set-up masquerading as a boa constrictor.

Naomi was very present for me throughout since she spent so much time in that place. Most of her surgeries took place at the big house but I think she had to have ended up in the same part of the hospital as I was yesterday. The same day surgery is on the third floor, you enter on the second floor and the patients' rooms are on the first floor; the hospital is laid out in an odd fashion since it is built on a hill.

In any event, the last time I had any sort of surgery was in 1969 so yesterday I looked on this whole process with fascination. I had the luxury of dealing with something incredibly simple and minor — no threat of cancer, not major surgery where the medicos would be chopping into my vital organs but on an extremity. Perhaps, too, fifteen years of visiting people in the hospital and entering into Naomi's journey as I did also have taken away some of the mystery and scary aspects of it all since I can at least recognise some of the machines and beeps.

So as I waited and waited, I thought back to the people with whom I would wait when I was doing CPE at Jersey Medical Center 16 years ago: my beat was same day surgery, surgical intensive care, the geriatric wing and a general med floor. I would head up to the same day surgery family waiting room (it was dismal) but more important, the holding area for the 20 some-odd patients where their anxiety was off the wall, and their hunger and thirst escalating. On a couple of days everything would get backed up and these poor people, isolated from their families, would be miserable. Some days the last person wouldn't go off until 4.00 in the afternoon. How unlike yesterday where, even though I think we were at least an hour late, I was by myself but I am sure Compa could have been with me if I had wanted.

I thought as I waited that while it's an expensive proposition (e.g., I hate to think of how much I will get charged for the magic marker that was used just once for the PA to initial my arm that indeed they would be operating on the left side), it is good qua pastoral care giver to be in the bed rather than alongside it, to deal with one's own feelings, anxiety, uncertainty and all the rest. It is good to be reminded of one's humanity, vulnerability and individuality. Perhaps it helps with compassion and empathy. I hope so.

This said, I am not advocating going under the knife for pastoral givers. Hardly. But if one has to, let it be a teaching moment.

[Nice... the hospital just called up to see how I am doing today. There are benefits for going to a small place for simple things like this.]