The devil has been taking up residence amid my carpal bones since November, so I decided to have him exorcised.
Layman’s terms: Too much time with Tony Horton and Shaun T gave me a cherry-sized cyst in my wrist that I decided to have surgically removed. Gross, I know.
On some occasions, I ask Joe to accompany me to appointments and act as a second pair of ears and help translate, when needed. Such was the case when I met with the hand surgeon. This turned out to be superfluous because the doc walked in and asked (in English), “What language should be speak today?” Well…English of course!! In my book, there is no need to be a language-hero when it comes to having my bones and ligaments exposed to the light of day.
I wish I could say the rest of my surgical experience in Germany continued so smoothly. But then we would be left with a boring story. Where’s the fun in that?
Feeling guilty that I was consuming Joe’s paper-writing time, I opted to attend my appointment with the anesthesiologist alone. Here is where I would decide whether to receive general anesthesia or have a local anesthesia injected with a very large needle “somewhere between the neck and clavicle, with ultrasound guidance.” Yikes! To top it off, the anesthesiologist wouldn’t budge with the German. I opted for the general and walking home after the appointment, I actually felt a sense of accomplishment having explained my entire medical/surgical history in my second language. However, I wasn’t totally confident that I had checked the correct box for, “please wake me up when you are finished.” Since I am awake and coherent enough to write this, I guess I chose correctly. Yay me!
Come surgery day, the nurses wouldn’t let Joe past the waiting room, so I had to go it alone. Everything was fine until I was lying down in the operating room and the anesthesiologist arrived. She told me I was in the “schönsten” (most beautiful) operating room and asked me where I was from. Then, she stood over the table in that suspicious type of anesthesiologist I’m-doing-something-secret-that-I-don’t-want-you-to-know-about way and told me to dream about going to Chicago. My response: “Chicago has too much snow. I would rather…”. In my head I told her something about going to the Maldives instead. In reality, I have no idea what came out of my mouth. I actually hope I was asleep before I got to the Maldives part. Talking about islands in German requires ridiculous contortions of prepositions and cases, even when totally conscious and coherent. I’m sure whatever did (or would have) come out of my mouth while halfway to dreamland was a grammatical train wreck!
When I came to and realized where I was, I looked down and saw that my hand was all wrapped up. When the nurse came around, I was still really confused, so I asked her (in German) if we were finished. Apparently that came out accurately because she chuckled and told me that we were, indeed, quite finished. Then, I told her that I had a lot of pain on my forehead. She took off my hair net, which did not relieve the pain.
I spent the next 90 minutes “getting right with the world” and then walked myself out to Joe, who was reading in the waiting room. I was welcomed with, “What the f*#k?” I’m not kidding here. That is exactly what he said, then he spit on his thumb to wipe the blood from my forehead, which stung like hell. I love you too, darling.
At home, I looked in the mirror to find a lovely raspberry right in the middle of my forehead. The doctor had no explanation* when he called to check on me that evening. The next day I found another behind my ear.
They strapped you to the table. They used the rope from gym class to tie down your flailing limbs. They were bored and decided to have some fun while you were sleeping. These were all ideas from family members regarding my mysterious forehead malady. Thanks all, love you too.
My hypothesis: sometime during that original appointment, I inadvertently told the anesthesiologist, in German, that I wanted as many scars on my skin as possible to mark this momentous occasion. Whoops! I guess I missed the “instructions for becoming unconscious” lesson during language training!
*Thanks to a friend who is a PACU nurse, the two rug-burns on my head were from the electrodes used to measure my level of sedation. Phew! No gym-class ropes involved!
March 26th update: My dexterity is slowly returning and the face-raspberries are gone! It only took Liv a few days to be tired of our quality time on the couch.
