Just Showing Up

The best advice came at the eleventh hour. My Aunt Andrea and my friend Joanne both got wind of my anxiety and sent me messages:

"All you have to do is show up."

My therapist essentially gave me this advice on Tuesday as well when she said, "You know, it's not your job to know how anesthesiology works."

Someone should make a bumper sticker.

It didn't keep me from being nervous but eventually I reasoned I couldn't be the only Nervous Nelly showing up for surgery at 6 in the morning. Everyone gets nervous, it's normal, so it's ok. I'm like everyone else and everyone else is like me! (How comforting). When I looked around the waiting room no one looked particularly nervous, however, and I seemed to be the only one doing any clutching - clutching my husband's arm, my bag, my head, my face. There was a young redheaded woman who was going in for something but she was just chatting away with her sister and didn't seemed phased by anything at all. I envied her completely. She was at peace. She saw it for what it was - a surgery that happened every day, many times a day, all across the country and in other countries and there was no reason to think that anything fateful would happen. I was so heartened by her. I was bolstered by her confidence. My eyes followed her, to take her in. I watched her as she walked to the nurses' station to answer questions, including her birth year, 1988, and my world shattered. She was not at peace, she was just in her twenties. Dingbat.

Michael and I were finally called from the waiting room to go into the waiting room. The second waiting room was slightly larger than a crib, with two chairs and a computer. I was given a purple robe in a purple bag and told to refer to the purple chart on the wall for how to put the robe on. I was given a cup to pee in. "Why isn't this purple?" I asked. But no one had any idea what I was talking about.

Nurse #2 came in and asked me the same list of questions I have been asked for two months. The list is extensive and I could probably answer them in my sleep, but it begins with "Do you have any metal in your body?" and ends with "Any removable teeth?"

The plastic surgeon's assistant came in, the plastic surgeon came in, the breast surgeon came in and marked Lefty with an arrow, and finally the anesthesiologist arrived. I told him I was nervous. He told me that was normal and that when we got to the operating room he would give me a little something to take the edge off. I was going to ask if we could do that presently, why wait, but my friend Joanne warned me about being an interactive patient so I held my tongue.

Finally it was time to "go through," as they say in Downton Abbey. Though they mean something entirely different, it's still nice to pretend. I kissed Michael goodbye and as the nurse walked me down the long corridors, we talked about where she lived in Queens because I know absolutely nothing about Queens so I thought that would make for a good lively and distracting conversation.

Then the doors opened to the operating room and I almost pissed myself. The room was HUGE and BRIGHT and WHITE and there was a table for me to lie on in the middle of twenty people in scrubs and masks and two huge lamps hanging overhead and wires and machines and trays and I tried to breathe. And I tried to meditate. And I tried to think of a joke but nothing at all was funny. I tried to pretend I was a patient in a play. I tried to pretend I was having breast cancer in a Nora Ephron movie. None of those things worked so I moved onto ignoring things the way my children do. But an operating room is simply too hard to ignore.

Then the funny happened. When one of the nurses discovered I still had my underwear on, the room came to a halt. Complete and utter silence. No one knew what to do. They all just looked at each other. So I asked "Do I have to take my underwear off when you are operating above my belly button?" And no one knew what to say. "Would you like me to take them off?" I asked. The men were beginning to leave the room and I felt bad so I said "You don't have to leave. I'm in theater. I can take my clothes off anywhere." Silence again. But at least I knew that I was in the hands of professionals.

Once the black bikini thong was in a sterile plastic bag, the IV went in my hand, something went through my veins, and Mr. Anesthesiologist asked me if I was feeling anything yet. I said "No," woke up, and someone handed me a popsicle.