Belly Up

Today, I arrived at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center at 9AM for a slicing.

At 11AM, I was brought into the pre-op, quickly attached to a saline bag. (I actually like the drip. I think it’s the only time my body ends up with the proper electrolytes. That weird, endless LA headache seems to go away.)

The surgery was supposed to be at 11. It didn’t happen until 12:30.

So I had a lot of time to listen. I was lying across from the coffee station in that pre-op room of a thousand movable curtains. I heard a woman getting ready for a second knee surgery to reduce the pain, “But,” the doctor said, “the clicking might still be there.” Another girl, next to me, very young, was getting ready for something or other. She told the nurse that she drinks heavily, socially, only had Tylenol III yesterday and Nighttime Tylenol last night to get to sleep and that she has Gilbert’s disease (turns yellow with jaundice when she’s sick or stressed, just like her father) and in general, sounded a bit silly. Across from me, I could hear the conversation of another patient...getting ready for an abortion. It must have been a bit late in the term and the young woman sounded sad about having this procedure. She talked about seeing a thread that she thought was the umbilical cord in some picture. The doctor told her that there was no cord yet, that it was just the yolk sac. There was mention of a stoma in the cervix through which the procedure would take place, that it was going to be quick. Was this pregnancy entopic? Unwanted? Good baby gone bad? Who knows!

But how weird to listen to all of this. And, how glad am I that I cannot conceive. So much to think about!

I was there for a very simple operation. I had this umbilical hernia. Basically, if one has any hernia at all, one is born with it. It’s, as they say, congenital. It’s just a matter of time before something protrudes. In my case, that happened very young, though I didn’t know it. I basically had a normal inny with a teeny outy in there. That outy wasn’t supposed to be. Who knew? Then, about six years ago, it all started getting quite ugly. And it hurt. And the doctors kept saying, “Just wait. It’s not an emergency.” Eventually, it kept pinging and even turned a bit purple. I made an appointment. The doctor said I should go for it.

Soon after I planned on making a date for the surgery, our electrician who was doing our kitchen, the estimable John Bennett, had to cancel an appointment with us because he had to have emergency surgery because part of his small intestines had protruded through his umbilical hernia, strangulating its blood supply and killing the section. This is apparently very painful and quite deadly if untreated and one of the possible hazards of having an untreated umbilical hernia. They have to go in and cut out that part of the strangled hose.

That did not sound like something I ever wanted to have to face.

So, all the more reason to go under the knife for the simple job of pushing in a little blob of what-not, and sewing up the crevice in the lining.

Done.

I woke up nicely from surgery. Why, I don’t know. But it’s one of my skills. And the day was spent traveling the Vicodin Highway. A very pleasant road trip, indeed.

Boy, am I going to look hot in my bikini this year.