Arthroscopy 2 - The Big Day

5.55 am. 
I stood on the street, cellphone in hand. "Hi, I want to confirm a cab to Assaf Harofe Hospital…". The cab turned up at 6am, the driver apologising for being late.

I got in.

"Going to hospital for surgery?" asked the driver. "What a coincidence, I am going to Kivrot Tzaddikim today, the graves of righteous rabbis. What is your Hebrew name, I will pray for you". 

How nice.

On hearing of my Australian background the driver insisted on sharing his dreams of big business and importing garden furniture from Australia, hoping to convince me to join him. But instead of convincing me he lost his way, and we took an unexpected detour. We only arrived at the hospital at 6.50, much later than I had hoped. Frustrated, I handed him some cash and bolted as he called after me to keep in contact.

Paper Chase

I found the hospital admissions desk. 

"ID card and payment approval from your Health Insurer" requested the attendant. I had been careful to make sure that all my papers were in order and with good reason. I have had much experience throughout my life with the notoriously bad handwriting of doctors. The procedure I was going in for was called a partial meniscectomy. It just seemed too easy for this word to be misread by the hospital admissions officer, who might refer me to a vasectomy. I wanted no mix-ups. The woman took my documents. 

"Sorry," she said, looking up at me, "these are the wrong papers".

Do you know that feeling of cold sweat that hits you in a moment of helplessness or awful realisation? I sure do.

"What do you mean?" I asked. Apparently my fears were not so much wrong as misplaced. I had been approved as an outpatient, not a surgery case. Still, this could be a disastrous development. "So what now?" I asked, bewildered. 

The first step, I was told, was to enquire with the operating theatre when my procedure was scheduled for and whether I had time to fix my paperwork. The theatre would not open for another 10 minutes. I had to wait, and that 10 minutes felt like an hour. 

"Come when you are ready, as soon as possible. You will be treated on arrival". The clock showed 7 am. I looked to the admissions’ attendant again, pleadingly.
"Now we wait for your Health Insurer to open at 8am. Just 1 hour away. (1 hour!) Relax, wander around". I thought about how glad I was that I had decided to spend a few hundred sheqels taking an intercity taxi to get to the hospital early (Not!)

Killing Time

What would I do during an hour of nervousness? I was fasting under doctor's orders, so passing the time over a coffee in the cafeteria was not an option. I sat at the entrance of the emergency ward, watching as people of all shapes and sizes, in various states of distress, came through the doors seeking help. A woman in tears of pain begged to see a dentist. A couple walked in with their 14 year old son who moaned hysterically, hit his mother, walked a few steps like a normal kid, then screamed and moaned again. The staff handled everyone with a calm efficiency. I rifled through my bag for the newspaper, when I hit upon an idea.

"Can I deposit valuables with you?" I asked at the emergency desk. I spent 15 minutes pulling out my valuables, repacking them and itemising them on a safe deposit slip. With that done, I looked at the clock. 7.55am "See you in 5 minutes" I said to the attendant before I went to sit down and count the minutes.

8am. I returned to the admissions desk. The attendants were already on the phone calling my insurer. After 7 minutes of recorded messages and being put on hold, the call got cut off. We tried again. This time the phone was handed to me. I got through to the switchboard, which put me through to the payment authorisation office, but no one answered. Eventually the switchboard operator came back on the line and told me to call back later. 

"No, please! I am here in hospital, the surgeon is waiting and you have given me the wrong document, I am fasting and have taken the week off work. I can’t wait or call back!" To her credit the switchboard operator was sympathetic and said she would call me back. 15 minutes later my cellphone rang. I would need to fax through some documents. Without putting too fine a point on it, things continued in this fashion as I sat patiently but nervously biting my fingernails – a habit that is normally foreign to me. Then, finally, approval for surgery was faxed through to the hospital. I looked up at the clock: 9.15am.

Time for Bed

My big fear was that the surgeon would finish his other duties and quit the grounds without attending to me, leaving me to another doctor. I raced like a madman through the hospital grounds until I reached the operating theatre where I was buzzed in, huffing and puffing and tired from fasting. The calm, quiet, clean, air-conditioned atmosphere was wonderful. 

"Relax, take a breath. Here is your bed and some clothes to get into" said one of the nurses comfortingly. 

"Is my surgeon still here?" I asked with excitement. 

"Oh, don't worry, you are second in line for that surgeon. Anyway, he won't get here for a while…" Indeed, the surgeon didn't arrive until after 11am. Why in God's name was I told to be there by 7am?

So at 9.30 in the morning I put on pyjamas and  climbed into bed with the newspaper I had brought from home. A body lay still in the bed next to me. Suddenly a head poked out from the sheets. 

"Hello" he said. It was a bald headed fellow about my age whom I had seen at the outpatients clinic a week earlier. He was ahead of me in line for surgery. We chatted for a while about life, the universe and everything. A senior military officer, he was coming up for retirement next year. He was occupied with thoughts of what to do and had just finished studying for a law degree. I found it amusing – here was a guy my age about to retire, and I still had no clear idea what I wanted to be when I grow up.

We joked around, and the nurses found the two patients in the corner to be quite convivial. I was certainly impressed by his military pull. I told about my 2 years of knee pain and 8 months trying to arrange surgery. 

"I first felt pain 2 months ago" he said. "I had an MRI scan and the military specialist told me this surgeon was the best, and so I made an appointment." Wow – and it took me 2 months of screaming just to get the MRI done !

We watched and waited for our surgeon to arrive. Initially we were told he would come at 10am. By 10.30 the anaesthetist came over, and at 11am my friend was taken away. "Come back safely"I said as he floated away, accompanied by guards of green.

The head nurse came over to shave my leg. I told her a dirty joke about shaving that my grandfather had told me in Yiddish as a boy, and to my delight she spoke Yiddish fluently. Of course, this resulted in her telling me some jokes of her own. The friendly banter continued until my friend came floating out of the operating room, his eyes closed and his head flung to one side. It was like being in a science fiction movie, where we had been kidnapped by aliens who were conducting experiments on us. Or maybe like the final scene in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", where the main protagonist is wheeled out of surgery, catatonic, presumably having undergone a lobotomy for misbehaviour.

They're Coming to Tale Me Away Ho Ho, Hee Hee, Haa Haa

Two nurses surrounded my bed. "It's time" they said, and I requested a quick reprieve to call my sister and update her. That done, I put the phone away and addressed my assailants. 

"Ok" I said with resignation, like a dead man walking. They wheeled me through some sliding doors to a sterile corridor. 

"Off the bed" they suddenly commanded and, wearing little disposal booties and a shower cap, I walked into a room full of instruments of torture and a table in the middle. I hopped on the table. Although I don't smoke, I felt like someone should have at least offered me a last cigarette. No-one was smiling, and I was annoyed at that. Lying on my back, I was required to extend my arms out as if being crucified. While I only heard Hebrew being spoken around me, everyone was speaking in a Russian accent. An IV needle was poked into my arm at the elbow and the pain was excruciating. The sour faced perpetrator ignored me when I protested. I will be asleep soon anyway I reasoned, and all pain will be gone. Another Russian fellow fussed around me. 

"What do you do for a living?: he asked, and I wondered if he was genuinely being pleasant or just trying to distract me. 

"I am a translator. What about you? What do you do for a living". I was hoping for a silly smile, some recognition of the stupidity of the question. The lack of any response told me the answer; there was no pleasantness in this room. A mask was put on my face. 

"Breathe deeply" ordered the anaesthetist, "it's only oxygen". I still don't believe them, because that's the point when things always start to go fuzzy. And indeed, the room started swirling slightly. After a minute I spoke up, 

"Are you sure this is oxygen – whatever it is, nothing's happening". 

"Stop talking!" I heard someone squeal as two attendants lurched forward to slam the now slipping mask back onto my face.

If only these people would smile, I thought. How can I entrust them with my body? It didn't matter any more anyway, because that would be the last time I ever see them.