Anesthetized

I'm wheeled into the operating room on a gurney. I am on my back and looking up at the lights just as in a movie. People walk about talking, arranging things. I'd met the anesthesiologist the day before. He is there now.

"Remember what I'm here for," I tell him. "I don't want them taking out a kidney."

"Don't worry," he says. "Heart transplant, right?"

"Is this anything like the movie 'M.A.S.H.'?"

"No," he says. "It's more like 'Hospital.' Now start counting backwards from one hundred."

And I'm gone.

I wake up in pain, not where I was cut, but in my shoulders. I can't seem to move my arms. A nurse comes over.

"Hello," she says. "How're you doing?"

"My arms hurt."

"I'll get you something for that. Do you want any ice?"

"Why do my shoulders hurt so bad?"

"I think they had trouble controlling the bleeding. They gave you shots to help you clot."

Even anesthetized, that didn't sound good.

Soon my parents walk in and ask me the same thing.

"My shoulders hurt," I tell them. And then I am back under.

Later, they wake me up to move me to my room. 20,000 leagues under the sea, I move to the new bed.

"You need to let me know when you pee," the nurse tells me. "If you don't pee, we will have to give you a catheter."

There is some sort of mush for dinner. I eat it. I ask for more. I am determined to be strong and healthy coming out of this. Eat. Drink.

My parents stay around until dark, and then they say goodbye. "We'll see you tomorrow," they tell me.

"Tomorrow's the Super Bowl," I say to my father. "I'll be awake by then."

When they were gone, a young nurse comes in. "Here's your pain medication," she says handing me a small paper cup with two pills in it. "I can get you more later tonight if you want." I have the feeling that she means "more" as in she is doing me a favor. She stays and plumps my pillows and chats with me for awhile. She is really pretty in her white nurses uniform and the little halo of a hat.

Then she is gone. I lie and listened to the sounds of the hospital, whispering, far away sounds like something coming across the water. They are gentle and sweet and comforting. I reach down and pull the blankets up over me and snuggle slowly down. The television is on, the volume low. The world is small. There are people to take care of me.