Surgery Mistakes

Newsletter 2023-04-21

Surgery. It sounds so easy. Okay, maybe not to normal people, but it does to a returning scalpel junkie like me. All I have to do is blink once and it’s over. It’s like an ’80s montage, except I’m unconscious for the workout part and wake up just in time to fight Drago and establish world peace. Fun fact: That’s really how the Cold War ended, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a communist spy. General anesthesia is great as long as you’re not the surgeon or their staff, who have to stay awake the whole time to do the hard part. Personally, I’m more than happy to lie down on the job and let somebody else do the real work for a change. In fact, I wish more businesses featured the sleep-while-you-wait model. My trips to the mechanic would be way more pleasant if they ditched the waiting room popcorn machine and invested in some knockout gas instead.

Perhaps that’s why I underestimated my most recent procedure. I had my appendix out last August. I knew that one was a big deal because I almost died. Shout out to the initial emergency room doctor who turned what would have been a routine procedure into a major crisis by sending me home to go into septic shock on my own. That’s one way to upsell the customer. Just don’t delay too long or the funeral home will swoop in and steal the bag. Still, I left the hospital days later with a positive impression—and a drainage tube in my side—because I was still alive. Recovering from surgery hurt less than having a ruptured appendix pumping toxins into my body. Plus, I spent the first few days of my recovery on the good drugs. I was halfway back to normal before my pain receptors worked again. Say what you will about the service I got leading up to my surgery, but fentanyl and morphine never get bad reviews.

My second surgery went even better. This time, I wasn’t dying at all. Well, no more than usual. Every day, I squander a little bit more of my time on earth. For surgery number two, I had the pisiform bone in my left wrist removed. It’s a pea shaped lump leftover from evolution that no longer serves a purpose, except in my case, where it existed to cause pain. I damaged it at some point in my life, likely by planting my hands when I fell backwards. It spent the subsequent years "healing" by growing jagged spurs of bone and cartilage that caused a sharp, stabbing sensation when I did anything extreme like, you know, bending my wrist. That procedure was scheduled during normal business hours. I showed up in the morning and was home by lunch. Afterwards, I didn’t even take any pain medicine. I was getting pretty good at this surgery thing. Bring on operation number three.

That’s when I discovered that perhaps being cut open isn’t a skill you get better at by going through it over and over again. This time, I needed to fix a triple hernia. Apparently I was born with multiple holes in the spot where my abdomen connects to my legs. When working out, I managed to squeeze some subcutaneous fat through one of those gaps like Play-Doh through a mold. The only possible treatment was surgery. Sign me up. I’ll take a quick fix over one that requires a long-term habit change any day. I showed up to the hospital Monday with about the same level of apprehension as when I go to Walmart. It was a similar dress code, too. I went with an elastic waistband and no zippers or buttons to make getting dressed afterwards easier. Not that I would need the help. I was a pro at this, after all. I’d be back on my feet immediately after surgery, if not sooner. Well, hopefully not sooner. I’d like for the surgeon to finish his work before I get up. I was ready for anything, as long as "anything" was super easy with no adversity whatsoever.

Then the cutting started. Nothing has been the same since.