I say good bye to Nancy at around 2:40. What a long day. Got here at 10am. Nancy and I read, chatted, managed through the various interviews. We even played pitch which we hadn’t played in years!
The operating room was unimpressive. When I first was wheeled in I had no drugs, so I chatted with the team. The room looked like a extra large stornage closet (Didn’t see any Grey;s Anatomy interns hooking up!) Two very large parabolic lights, metal racks along the edges and me under the lights. A monitor with a test pattern. My CT scan on a large flatscreen. Mood was relaxed except for me, a bit tense.
Then the anesthesiologist came in. He was mildly pissed that I had entered before him. And while we’re talking he injects something into my IV line which hit me. But i was so focused on what was in the room and learning…that I never assessed what the drug did mentally. I never got the: “count down from 10″, he must have given me something else…next thing I knew, I was awake in recovery with one less kidney.
Dr. McGeagh spoke with me briefly saying everything went as planned. 2 hours later I’m wheeled into my room and see my family. Yeah! Nice to hear everything well. It was smiles all when Nancy, Liz and Emily saw me post-op. My smiles at waking up and pumped up on morphine and of course seeing them.
