Just Following Procedure

For the n-teenth time I recently found myself with an IV in my hand, a blood pressure cuff on my arm, an oxygen monitor on my finger, and my bare ass in the air awaiting yet another "procedure."  I got to thinking about a few things (good drugs can do that), my long medical history, how healthcare delivery has changed, and just when did surgery become  merely a "procedure"?

I always thought a procedure was a series of things you did in a certain order to accomplish something.  (To make a cake you must assemble the ingredients, follow the recipe, bake the thing, and at the end of all that effort you have a cake.  FYI - If you do any of that out-of-order you will NOT get a cake.)  There are procedures flight attendants follow for take-off, there is a procedure for building a house, and there is a procedure for doing your income taxes.

I believe the insurance companies got together and decided if they stop calling it "surgery" and start calling it a "procedure" it wouldn't sound like a big deal and they could kick people out of the hospital on the same day - or if it involved amputation, maybe the next day. Better yet - don't even go to a hospital at all! Let's do it all in the doctor's office -  it's just a "procedure" after all!  For anything involving anesthesia....we'll invent a surgical suite thingy where doctors can see patients in one room and go across the hall to the surgical suite for the "procedures." Bonus - let's not call it "anesthesia"  anymore (because you'd need an anesthetist for THAT) - let's call it "sedation".

See how they did that?  Who says health insurance needs reforming?

I would like some reform.  A  little.  An effort? I don't deal with any kind of anesthesia well, although I have been told I am a whole lot of fun when I am coming out of it. This time around  I was waking up in the "surgical suite" when I heard someone knocking on the door.  My response?  "Penny? Penny? Penny? PENNYPENNYPENNYPENNY?"  I thought it was hysterical.  No one else did. Apparently they felt the fact that I was laughing like a hyena meant that I was well enough to be put in a car and driven home.  This is Joe's least favorite part of "procedures" - the nausea fueled race to get back to Gloucester before I throw up in the car. (Sorry, graphic content.) It's awesome. It keeps our romance alive, baby.

I have come to believe we will soon see mobile procedure trucks coming to our

[caption id="attachment_2476" align="alignright" width="268" caption="We Were Trained For This in Our Youth!"][/caption]

homes (like those dog groomers) where they  fix you up in the truck right there in the driveway.  After you are finished you can get your mail and walk up the sidewalk right back in to your house (with the entire neighborhood seeing your bare ass sticking out of a procedure gown.  (They won't be called "hospital gowns"  because.... there won't be any hospitals.)

In addition to the Big Bang Theory, we watch a lot of House Hunters (hey, it's good comic relief). There are a LOT of people out there who think they can't buy a house if the color of the rooms isn't to their liking. ( I am not making that up. )  Can you imagine what that show will be like in the year 2019 when people have to look for a house that can accommodate a growing family and all of their "procedures"?  "I like the space, but I just can't see myself getting a pap smear /  knee replacement / appendix removed in a room that needs so much updating - and the wall color (eyeroll) ewww!"

Waiting for Randot

Remember the Samuel Beckett play, Waiting for Godot? This one rhymes, but his last name does not have the "t".  I spent almost all of last  Monday at Mass General Hospital in Boston while a friend was in surgery.  I have done a lot of time in hospitals as a patient, but not as the patient advocate/support buddy.  The ensuing days were full of commuting to Lowell to work, commuting to Boston to bedside-sit, and then back home late at night. It was a remarkable week, full of insights on the human condition and a reminder of the suffering going on all around us 24/7 and 365.  Overhearing conversations in waiting rooms and hospital cafeterias should be mandated about once a month for all of us - it puts so much into perspective and  allows us to realize not all of our problems are so terrible.  It also gives us the opportunity to enrich our own  souls by praying for the health and well-being of  those lives  briefly glimpsed and overlapped with our own.

Knowing I would have a lot of  time on my hands I packed up my little cathedral window table runner blocks to bring with me,  thinking it would be a good time to finish up the project. (This picture shows it when it was a  work in progress.)  I'm more pleased that it is finished than I am with how it actually looks.  It is one of those projects that looks pretty simple on the surface, but matching those exacting intersections and seam allowances is entirely another matter. It was very therapeutic to be in a stressful situation with some hand sewing.  I found it made me calmer and - in turn - a better patient advocate. I had a few moments when I wanted to go postal and  make like Shirley Maclaine in Terms of Endearment (GIVE MY DAUGHTER  THE SHOT !!!!!) but managed much more successful methods of requesting medication and attention for my friend.  After  a  couple of trips to the nurses desk, the nurse informed me I could just use the call button and request what I needed.  ( I already knew that, but I wasn't going to tell her.)  I just smiled and said it felt good to get up and walk around a little.  While I have enormous respect for the work nurses do, I also know that things happen faster when you request nicely and face to face.  I did not bust chops,  I wasn't a pain in anyone's ass, but I'm not allowing anyone to be a pain in mine (or my friend's) either, and the previous night we politely  waited two hours for a simple  sandwich that never did show up for my very, very hungry patient. I am a reasonable person, but that is the kind of thing that makes  me change gears and ramp it up.  Aside from the fact that I could make Shirley Maclaine look like a piker by comparison, it just isn't necessary to get ugly.    I think anything we do, sew, create, cook or tend to for another person should be done with compassion and love. Judging by what I have seen and heard over the past week,  we could all make an effort to make someone else's life or job easier.  In turn, ours will, too.

Contemplating Ceilings

I feel like indulging myself in  some really selfish whining so if you can't handle it just  bail right now. It's my blog and I'll bitch if I want to -- and I want to.

I have spent an unfair amount of my life staring at ceilings, namely the drop  ceilings found in doctor's offices.  I have had  a LOT of surgery over the years so I am something of  a connoisseur of ceiling construction, examination garments (paper and cloth) and the accoutrement that goes with yet another trip to the doctor to see what-the-hell-is-wrong-this-time.

My most favorite ceiling was in the OB/GYN offices of my beloved and much missed Dr. Rose Osborne.  Rose was not only a hell of a surgeon, but for a "cutter" she had a great sense of humor. Rose always had pictures on the ceiling so you had something to enjoy and contemplate while your feet were in the stirrups.  God I loved that woman - and I miss her dearly.  Cancer often takes the best from this earth and I'm getting a seriously bad attitude about the "why" of it all.

Most hospital or doctor's offices have dropped ceilings with or without the little black dots.  I have counted those dots many times while waiting for a doctor, physician assistant, EMG, EKG, MRI, X-ray,  or any one of the endless round of procedures I seem to have on my chart.  A few ceilings have that textured popcorn stuff that is pretty droll and gives you nothing but endless craters to contemplate as you prepare yourself for what comes next.  I'm surprised that no one has thought to put a flat screen on the ceiling so you could watch a movie or take in a sitcom - have a few laughs while you get tubes and electrodes stuck into places where the sun don't shine.  It sure would make a difference. Hell, it would make a huge difference. The pharmaceutical companies should cough up some serious bucks for those things instead of the wine-and-dine golf outings and  BS they pay for now.

I feel at this point I have earned my own examination  gown (they call them a "johnny" out here) that I could whip out of my totebag and put on with some aplomb.  I'd certainly make it out of some attractive print, maybe a Kaffe Fassett, so I could at have something  pleasurable to wrap up in for the duration. (The bleached out drab greens and blues are  surgical and so depressing.  I'm just sayin' . )   As for the ceilings - well, hell - would a little something up there bankrupt your practice?  I don't think so.   I'm not asking for the Sistine Chapel (although a poster of it up there would be a pisser)  but is it really asking too much to tack something up there so those of us trapped in a tarp with three armholes can have a little something to look at while we ponder what  orifice or vein is next to be violated?

I have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon this morning at a sports medicine clinic.  I can't wait to see what they have on the walls.   Judging by the age of the building,  I can  tell you right now the ceilings are going to have fluorescent light fixtures with  those cracked ice lenses.   There will be pictures of patients shooting a basketball, or back on their slalom skis swooshing about with "thanks Doc!" penned across the bottom.   I'll bet anybody $100 that  their ceilings are bare of any posters, much less one of a  50- something  female with a spinal fusion from scoliosis gone to hell-in-a-hand basket.  Any takers?

I didn't think so.