Ode to surgery

After plastic surgery,  we went topless.

So, I’ve made a list of observations this week in honor of my first plastic surgery and outpatient surgery experience and thought I thought I’d share my top 10:

10.   There is but one goal in the outpatient surgery center - to get you out as fast as possible.  It is not about comfort, people.  It is about turnaround.  Are you breathing?  Can you lift your eyelids?  Please walk to the bathroom and change your clothes.  The car is outside.  

9.  You will be asked if you have any questions no less than 42 times the morning of surgery.  You don’t have any questions because you don’t know what to ask.  There is an explanation of what so-and-so doctor/nurse is going to do followed by, “Do you have any questions?”  It is confusing.  Should I ask a question or is this rhetorical?  I have been asked so many times that I’m wishing I came with a list.  Am I missing something here?  Is this the time to be sarcastic?  It’s my nature, but I’m still trying to get that gold star.  

8.  You will not know or remember the kind people who spend those 5-10 minutes with you prior to surgery.  As a medical professional, I personally enjoy the connections I make with people.  I find it so odd that these people spend their days meeting and greeting half dressed, half-asleep people in shower caps.  They are probably very under-appreciated for their efforts because no one can remember their faces or names, yet they help keep you alive and comfortable for a good 2 hours of your life.  Enclosed in my discharge papers was a card with autographs of all the people who came in contact with me so I can write their names on the survey that I will get in the mail.  Nice touch. I will.  They deserve to be recognized for their heroic efforts.  

7.  You will have no idea what medications you’ve been given but it will darn sure take a long time to wear off.  After 6 hours I was still a loopy loopster and Kate was yelling at me for falling asleep on the floor while playing polly pockets with her.  

6.  There is a list of instructions that you will be given to follow which in spite of all the times you were asked if you had any questions and didn’t, you and your husband will not be exactly clear on what you can and cannot do.  For example, when leaning down to get a trash bag out of the cabinet, your husband will yell freakishly at you because of some brief recollection about not bending over. 

5.  “Swelling peaks at day 3” does not mean that it starts at day 3.  It means that there for darn sure will be swelling on day 3 and maybe after that it will begin to slowly diminish to the point where your nostrils are similar in size and the bridge of your nose gains definition.  Prior to that, there will be throbbing pain from the sinus cavity to the tip of your nose.  Maybe this was when I was supposed to ask the questions.  I was thinking that I should have been more inquisitive about the details of the “cheek lift” and the cutting and pulling of the skin from my ear to put on my nose.  Yes, I do hear much better out of my nose now.  

4.  I am not as good at wound care on myself as on other people.  I used to do burn care and I’ve seen dozens of skin grafts.  I never loved it but found it intriguing - the healing process, the dressing changes, making it look pretty, until this experience.  The magic is gone.  I am totally unintrigued.  Sutures around and through the nose, then some more pulling on the ear are not cool.  I get queasy looking at it, touching it, and because the nose happens to be smack dab in the middle of my face, it is somewhat consuming of my thoughts, especially with the twitching shooting sensations that I assume are from damaged nerves and whatnot.  
It’s like this: 
I need to do laundry. 
MY NOSE.  
“Mommy I’m hungry.  Can I have lunch?” Yes, what would you like?  
MYNOSEMYNOSE
Is that a booger?  
NOIT”STHESTITCHESINMYNOSEMYNOSEMYNOSE
Is my nose running?
MYNOSEMYNOSE 
I hope I don’t sneeze...
something is pinching
IT’SMYNOSE
My earring is pulling, I’ll take it out. 
Wait, that’s my ear stitches.  Shoot...

3.  Tape is sticky.  I always hated tape on the face.  Especially on little people with tubes in their noses.  I felt so sorry for them and in hospitals sometimes they put socks on their hands to keep them from pulling the tubes out.  They just want the tape off!  I flat out hated it.  Guess what?  It is bad and evil.  I still hate it.  It is itchy, especially when it’s 93 degrees.  It makes the already pulling skin crawl.  I spent 24 minutes trying to remove tape residue in order to replace the tape.  The good news is it’s almost the exact color of my skin so people don’t notice.  In a dark room.  

2.  There is good news.  Some of the stitches will probably come out this week.  This results in less tape, the ability to accessorize - I get my earrings back, and less pulling.  One more step forward for the beautification committee.  It is a relatively short amount of discomfort in comparison to the magnitude of what I could endure, already have endured, and what others endure.  Inconvenient, annoying, uncomfortable, yes.  Permanent damage - hopefully minimal.  I have told 5 new medical people my story this week and once they lifted their chins off of the floor, they may have walked away with at least a tiny glimpse of the magnitude of God’s miracles.  It is also estimated that about 100 of you will read this, laugh, and maybe pass it to your friends to prove my insanity which will only serve me better the next time we act a little crazy around here.  And, when it’s all said and done, I may look 27 on my 37th birthday from all this skin pulling - you will all be jealous. 

1.  Lastly, I consider myself pretty comfortable in my skin, metaphorically and otherwise.  This has not come easily or without a price.  It has been a long process of swallowing my insecurities or airing them out in the wide open public or whichever the situation calls for.  I have discovered that there are days that I’m not going to look that good but in order to function in the world, I have to be in the world.  And, besides that, someone is going to tell me out of courtesy that I look good.  I love those people.  So, day 2, I ripped off the bandage from my ear and aired out the stitches and paraded myself in straight-up public with the bandage on my nose.  I find myself analyzing other people’s thoughts, watching for double-takes, and staring back.  It’s just a band-aid, people.  What this has made me appreciate and be more aware of is 2 things:  

1.  I have spent 14 years of my life with differently-abled and sometimes differently looking people.  I love them.  I love who they are and I want the world to love them like I do and like their families do.  People are curious, people are ignorant to who you are as a person, or who someone is different from you actually is, people are human.  People have no idea what any of us have been through or are going through at any moment.  This has been a gentle reminder and public service announcement I have no idea what people are going through at any moment so I have no right to judge and have even more incentive to empower the families that I know that they do not owe the world an explanation.  

2.  My own children are watching.  They are watching to see how I react to people, how comfortable I am.  If it’s no big deal to me, it’s really not to them. They are impressionable little sponges.  Here’s a few quotes:

• Man honks at me at a red light. Kate yells, “Hey, quit honking at my mommy!  She has stitches in her face!”
• Kate is on Facetime with her BFF from school (um, yeah, this happened), “My mommy can come get you for a playdate as soon as she’s finished with her stitches.”  I explain to said child’s caregiver that statement.
• Doorbell rings, just finished removing the tape adhesive and I answer it, full out uncovered stitches, hair wet, wound in my nose.  Bailey: “You really need to cover that up before you answer the door.”
• “Mommy, I really don’t like your ear or your nose.”  Neither do I, Kate. Thanks.
• Kate breaks off toenail and says, “It doesn’t hurt.  I’m just like my mommy and if I’m going to be brave like my mommy, then I’ll just have to get in the bathtub.”
• Yesterday.  “Mommy, your ear really doesn’t look all that bad.”  Thanks, Bailey.

I’ve been given a small opportunity to show them how I deal with different, how to accept people’s differences, and how to react or un-react.  I shall use it as best as I know how.  

It’s just a band-aid.  

I leave you with this very lame tribute to my experience:

Ode to Outpatient Surgery

by, Kimberly Jessop

We’re all here early

No food or drink

That means no coffee

Too hard to think

About signing the papers for directives, consent, next of kin,

oops, I just stole your pen.

You owe us this much and sign the HIPPA,

Could I please have a sippa?

Wear comfortable clothes

No earrings, no make-up, bed-head galore,

PJs and sweatpants?

She really should have worn more...

EVERYTHING off. Gown opens in back.

Follow directions and no one gets hurt,

Gripper socks on.

 You won’t need your shirt.

Possessions in bag, 

you can climb onto the bed

under the warm paper blanket

shower cap on your head.

Let’s review history, 

You don’t have much, right?  

More than you’d think-

Do we have all night?  

There’s a stick in the arm

Everyone’s in a hurry

A syringe full of drugs

You took my glasses so it’s blurry...

A cold OR 

then out like a light

woke up to strange lady 

Did I sleep here last night?  

She hands me a bag 

of my worldly goods

Stand up and walk.

 

If I could see, then I would...

“A gold star!” she exclaims.

For what? I am thinking 

I have tape all over my face 

And I feel like I’ve been drinking.

Car is waiting outside

For them to shove you in

Thank goodness for him - 

My next of kin.

Into the car

I leave in a haze 

Home to sleep it off 

for the next couple of days.

Yes, surgery’s over 

I’ll check this one DONE

Another scar to prove

This battle I’ve won.