Friday,February 21, 2003

By DAVID EPPS
Pastor

I had my first surgery a couple of weeks ago, a gall bladder removal. It's amazing how narcissistic one becomes after one's body has been violated by sharp knives, penetrated by long needles, and stuff removed that has been in place for decades. Here are some things I wish people had told me before the surgery:

1) You will probably be insulted by the medical staff. I admit that I am a bit overweight. Okay, I will admit that I'm more than just a bit overweight. I have, however, lost 24 pounds in the last two months but, with my weight, that's like Moby Dick losing three scales. I know whales are mammals, not fish, and that whales don't have scales. I'm making a point here. Still, that doesn't give the doctor the liberty to say, "We'll have to make some deep incisions on you!" Or the operating room nurse permission to say, "It's obvious that you don't lead an active lifestyle." All that made me very sensitive about strangers seeing me naked while I was unconscious. If they said that to my face, what did they say when I was asleep?

2) The surgical preparation won't be as thorough as you'd like it to be. The prep people will shave enough area so that the doctor will be able to make the incisions, but they will make sure that, when they tape they wounds, they cover enough hair to make the removal of said tape as painful as the incision itself. I don't know why they can't just go ahead and shave an extra ten square inches. It's probably something about the HMOs. Next time, before surgery, I'm taking a bath in Nair.

3) They will lie to you. The nurse in the O.R. prep area said that, before I woke up following the surgery, I would receive pain medication so that I would wake up "comfortable." Bull pookey-dookey. When I woke up, I felt like the guy in the battle scene in "Braveheart" that got shot in the abdomen by five arrows in the gut and was left wriggling in the dirt like a worm in a hot skillet. Something about low blood oxygen levels during surgery, they said. They wanted to make sure I wasn't going to die as a result of something or the other so they didn't give me the medication until they were certain I was safe, they said. I don't care. Give me drugs! Daffy Duck once said, "I'm not like other people pain hurts me!" Daffy and me (Oops! Daffy and I) are a lot alike. A friend laughed and said, "I thought you were a Marine!" I growled, "Marines inflict pain, they don't like to take pain." He backed off.

4) You will not care about basic human dignities. Skip this paragraph if you are easily offended or if you don't believe that clergy persons are human. I remember when I was a teen and, on a youth retreat to Buffalo Mountain Camp, wandered into the boy's rest room and saw the minister well, using the rest room. It was the first time that I realized that ministers used the rest room like normal people. It sort of took Moses and Elijah (and my minister) off that high pedestal and made them more approachable. Anyway, they gave me a choice on going to the bathroom. One was a bottle on the table next to my bed. The other was the prospect of dragging my violated body out of bed, risk forgetting about the I.V. that goes everywhere with you and pulling the thing out of your arm, and walking the 200 miles to the rest room that is seven steps away. And then going back the other 200 miles seven steps away, holding your abdomen so that your guts don't fall out in the floor and make the janitor mad. The bottle, and the possibility of visitors walking in on you, wins out every time. Always knock before you go into a hospital room. You may see your minister fall off the pedestal otherwise.

5) You will have weird dreams. My first night home, I had a dream that someone was on my back trying to choke me to death. I woke up wheezing and couldn't get back to sleep. I sat up in a recliner all night and kept an eye on my wife who pretended to be sleeping. Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean that they are not out to get you!

6) They don't warn you about sneezing. Coughing and laughing hurt, though you will find nothing funny for a day or so. But when that first sneeze hits, you will pray to die rather than sneeze twice. You will feel like the car in the car bomb scenario. Be warned.

7) The real pain comes later. You think that the pain of the surgery was bad? That will pass in just a day or so. Just wait a few weeks until you get the bill and see what your insurance company did NOT pay for. That's the deepest cut of all!

[Father David Epps is rector of Christ the King Charismatic Episcopal Church, which meets Sundays at 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. in new facilities on Ga. Highway 34 between Newnan and Peachtree City. He may be contacted at FatherDavidEpps@aol.com.]

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