The mini chainsaw masacre

The things I do to get a blog post.

Yesterday I had the operation (you can read about the ‘what’ and ‘why’ here). I had to be in hospital at 13.00 hrs. and so I was. Hubs dropped me off and would pick me up again later that afternoon. I didn’t see any point in him having to spend an entire afternoon in the hospital where he had spent far too much time already this summer.

A friendly nurse led me into a private hospital room, one bed, a table and two chairs and asked me to sit down. She opened my file. “Not something to look forward to”, she empathized.
“Not really, no.”
“So, the result of your smear test wasn’t good and now they are going to take a bigger sample”, she said, looking at my file.
“Uhm, no? My smear test was absolutely fine. I do hope you have the correct file there.” ‘What the…?!’ She checked my file again: ”Oh? What are you in for then?”
”I’m in for the removal of a polyp from my cervix. And I do hope that that is clear to the gynaecologist who’s performing the operation. That I don’t have to come back next week for this particular operation again.”
”Oh, okay. Don’t worry. You see, they do use the same description for that (‘diathermische lisexcisie’ in Dutch), but I will add ‘removal of polyp’ just to be on the safe side. Now, if you’d like to put on the outfit that is ready for you on the bed there and then get into bed, I’ll come back in a few minutes and will take you to the operating room. Oh, and I have two acetaminophens here, 500 mg each, that you have to take. You’ll be getting a local anaesthetic and unfortunately they won’t help you for the pain you’ll feel from those shots, but it will help for the pain afterwards.”

‘Oh gawd, I don’t like pain. Don’t mention ‘pain’ so often, just give me the pills, bitch.’

She left the room and I quickly swallowed the 1000 mgs of acetaminophen and changed into one of those hospital dresses that is closed at the front and very much open at the back, and climbed into the bed.

After a while the perky nurse returned. “Okay, ready? I’ll take you to the operating room.”

Now, this is a big hospital. It is so big, that visitors can opt for a ride in a golf cart to be taken to the elevators or to their destination if it is on the ground floor. And I had to be taken from the third floor at one end of the hospital to the ground floor at the other end. A brisk walk of about 10 minutes. Logistically not the best organisation, but hey… it keeps the nurses fit.

Imagine that you're healthy, but yet you are lying in a hospital bed and a nurse is taking you on a tour through this huge hospital, with visitors and everybody else who’s for some reason walking around in that hospital either openly staring at you, wondering what is wrong with you (it’s not something obvious, but she’s not lying in that bed for nothing, so whatever could it be?), or trying to hide their curiosity and just glimpsing at you quickly, which is almost more disturbing. I was wondering how to react. Should I pretend to be horribly ill, close my eyes and lie down moaning, just to not disappoint the public, or should I raise the head end of the bed, just nod and smile politely and enjoy the ride? Of course I could’ve also hopped out of the bed and walked to the operating room, but as I was wearing the peekaboo hospital dress….
So I stayed put and chose the second option. I nodded and waved and enjoyed the sort of surprised look on the faces of the curious people, who were probably thinking that I was putting on a very brave face. Which in all honesty, I was.

On arrival, the nurse parked me in the hallway leading to the operating room, where I had to wait my turn. She brought me a magazine to read and after a while another nurse, dressed from head to toes in a green surgery outfit came to collect me. She pushed the bed further down the hallway, parked it in front of a door with a sign on it that said: ‘operating room’ and said: ‘Just wait here, we’re almost ready for you.’ She disappeared behind the door. I was going nowhere in the peekaboo dress and patiently (no pun intended) waited.
The door opened again, the same nurse appeared and said: “Okay, you can come in now.”
”What? Isn’t someone wheeling me in? Do I have to get out of the bed and just walk into the room? Have I been taken in this bed from one end of the hospital to the other, so I can just walk into the operating room?”
”Yeah, well, the door isn’t wide enough for the bed to go through”, she giggled. “And besides, you have to get out anyway, because you have to go on that thing”, pointing at the half-a-bed-with-padded-stirrups-at-one-end.

‘Oh gawd!’

I hopped out of the hospital bed. There was no one else around, and the people who were waiting for me (the gynaecologist and two nurses, all with their loveliest welcoming smiles) were about to see everything and more of me anyway so there was no point in trying to cover my arse, so to speak, and reluctantly hopped onto the bed-of-torture.

So, there I was. “I’m here for the removal of a polyp”, I nervously said, “I'm just mentioning it, because upstairs they thought I was here for something else.”
“Ah yes, easy mistake for them to make. But don’t worry! I know exactly what you’re here for. And it will be alright”, he smiled. “Sorry for the confusion.”

Meanwhile nurse two put a huge plaster on my thigh. “To earth you”, she said, “because he’s using electricity to remove the polyp and we don’t want you to be electrocuted, haha.”
’Yeah. Ha bloody ha.’
”And in just a moment we will ask you to cough, because you will get four shots for the local anaesthetic and coughing will ease the pain of that.”
’I wish you would all stop mentioning the PAIN word.’

“Would you like me to tell you what’s going on during the procedure?”, nurse two asked.
“Sure, why not. Make my day.”
”Okay. So now he’s inserting the speculum.”
’Felt that.’
“Hmm.”
”And now he’s spreading the speculum, because he has to have a good view of what he needs to remove.”
’Mpf, yep. Felt that too.’

“Okay, cough now!”
I coughed.
”Right”, gynaecologist said. “That was the first shot.”
’I didn’t feel anything.’
”Okay. Good. Cough again please.”
I coughed again.
”Second shot”, gynaecologist said.
’Again, didn’t feel anything.’
I coughed four times for the four shots and felt neither of them.
”This coughing thing really works!”
”And when he has removed the polyp, he will insert this – holding up a small sized paint roller, without the handle fortunately– tampon to absorb the blood.”
”Really?”
”Yes, really. I know. It does look huge, but it’s okay and it will dissolve in time.”

And then gynaecologist picked up his chainsaw to fell the polyp.

Didn’t feel that either.

“All done. Went well”, he said when his head appeared again.
”Well, I don’t know about you, but I thoroughly enjoyed it”, I exaggerated the whole experience. Which they thought was very funny.
“I’ll call you in two weeks with the results of the polyp-test”, gynaecologist promised.

And then they helped me off the bed-of-torture, showed me the polyp (wasn’t huge at all) and escorted me to the hospital bed that was still waiting for me outside the door of the operating room. I climbed in and nurse one pushed the bed back to where the other nurse had left me before and promised me that the other nurse would come to bring me back to ‘my’ room. And indeed, soon the ‘tour-nurse’ appeared to wheel me back to the third floor.
“Would you like something to eat or drink?”, she asked when I was back in ‘my’ room. “Well, I would like a cup of tea”, I said. “I might just as well make good use of your hospitality.”
She agreed and brought me tea. “Now, you just rest and I will check with you in an hour or so, to see if you’re fit enough to go home again.” And off she rushed.

I wasn’t really planning to stay in that bed for another hour, so I drank my tea and sat up to see if I felt good enough to get out of bed. I did. So I got out of bed and put on my clothes. And I still felt good. I went out into the hallway, but there wasn’t a nurse in sight. Then I phoned hubs and told him I was feeling alright and that he could pick me up again.
Still not a nurse in sight.
So I walked to the reception desk and said to the receptionist: “Hi, I’m going home, I thought I’d let you know.”
”Oh!? But have they given you a letter yet? And I’m pretty sure you also have to make a follow-up appointment. Tss! What’s your name?”
I told her my name.
She picked up the phone, whilst keeping an eye on me, ready to warn security if I tried to escape: “I have a Mrs. …. here who apparently can’t wait to go home, but she doesn’t have the letter yet, and…. Okay. I’ll send her back again.” She sounded positively annoyed with me.
She put down the phone and looked at me as if I was a naughty child. “The nurse is just preparing your letter. Past the blue wall, second door to your right!”, she pointed back into the hallway. So I walked the whole three kilometres back, past the blue wall and went into the second door on my right, where the perky tour-nurse was busy preparing paperwork for me to take home, with instructions about which painkillers to take and what date the gynaecologist would be calling me with the test-result. And then I was allowed to go home. I walked past the angry receptionist towards the elevators and then the 10 kilometres to the main entrance of the hospital where I arrived at about the same time as hubs did. On the way home, we stopped at the chemist’s to buy a box of 500 mg acetaminophens, the recommended painkiller. Because, even though I wasn’t feeling any pain then, they had mentioned the word so often that I expected to feel something when the local anaesthetic and the effects of the first dose of 1000 mgs acetaminophen had worn off.

But the box is still untouched in the medicine cabinet.

So it wasn’t all that bad.

Really. All this for a blog post. I must be mad.