POST-OPS FOUR
Spiritually lonely people like me most often are standoffish. I think that anyway; nothing much else to go by except myself, and I think that stands. This new situation was, for me, like a sledgehammer to the head. Not a person who ever lived did NOT die; mostly in short, brutal, and grotesque manners of death - disease, slaughter, starvation, poison, or some mishap too difficult sometimes to even believe a retelling. What was I looking at? Death in a comfortable situation, uninsured; not running from creditors but paying out now huge sums of money in increments agreed upon to forestall crisis. My doctors were all finely educated and exuded a bright confidence. Bethesda Naval one week, Honesdale, the next. 267 miles; a 4-hour ride. What medievalist would understand that? The 'overlay' of our lives now, currently, has altered and re-routed even the very ideas of the manners by which we live. 7-hours of operation, heart and lung machines, transfusions, the handling and cradling of hearts? I was told I would be receiving a 25 mill. cow valve. 25 millimeters, when I looked it up, showed a .94 inches? Almost an inch, I guess. Made no sense to me. First they used mechanical valves; then, for many years, pig valves; now - in today's use - they use cow valves. What do they mean?
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The worst day of my life, I suppose, was Weds., the 18th of Dec. I figured it to be my last day on Earth. My tears were running. I watched the day go by; saw people's faces, watched the clock, checked my schedules. I saw everyone, and felt as if I knew them all - though of course I knew no one. The Moosic Mountain ski resort, just out behind our motel, was having opening day; in the distance I could see some snow-making operation blowing snow into the sky; plus it was snowing out, Little figures could be seen on the lifts and slopes; serious, the ski-season was barging down its own doors. I was distant from all that, being fixated merely on my own fate - or destiny? Whichever it's called. I had pre-op tasks to do - I had to take a medical disinfectant shower at 11pm, and then another one, same thing (they had supplied me two little jugs of the soap to use). After that final shower, by 4, I had to be at the hospital, (10 minutes away), for pre-op registration, final instructions, getting my body shaved, (I'd already cut off all my hair, and my long, scraggly beard, and then gone to a Honesdale barber to have it properly cleaned up. It was a big nothing to me, and I was glad to be rid of all that dated, bothersome, and doughty-mountain-man look BS. Now when I see those guys, I chuckle, and do not wish to go back). The people I was with (wife-Kathy; sister-Donna; and friend-Donald), wished to 'dine' - so Weds. night, about 6, I splurged (figuring dead-men maybe don't need to sorry about incurring debt). We dined. They had pleasure, while it was all difficult for me; I kept falling back into lethargy of last moments : I watched lights, and cars. I watched how people moved, and all the inane
motions of the Christmas season and all the rest.
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There was to be no fine-tuning of this episode. It was about to happen, and I was headed right for it: 4am at the hospital; one or two other people also entering. I left everyone (temporarily) so I could be processed and admitted; it took about 20 minutes. I was told to say my goodbyes to my compatriots, and I'd see them again in maybe a half-hour. The nicest nurse in the entire world, about age 50, and swept me away; completely well-versed in the earliest-morning heart-patient rituals. Completely, somehow, managing to put me at ease, we walked the corridor to the prep room and she informed me of everything about to happen. As twisted and averse to all this as I was, she brought me through as if she was a guiding angle. Commands: 'Strip down, catalogue my pockets, bag my belongings, count my cash. Put on the hospital robe. Lay down.' Another nurse came in with one of those little shaver things - arms, chest, groin. I thought they'd remove the rest of my beard, and later was told by medics that they wished it have been done; but no one did it. It later proved an obstacle to adhering sticky-backers and such to tubes and hoses. I received a first, slow, dose of 'something.' Sedative, I figured. My 'companions' were let back in for the final 'see Ya's!' It was painful and sad, but I was already zoning out. Thankfully.
Life as I knew it was about to be over. An anesthesiologist came in, introduced himself, said HI to everyone, and set to work on me. In a few minutes, all was a blur. Just before total blur, my surgeon entered. Greeting me, he squeezed my toes, pushed on my feet, and introduced himself to everyone. As I was wheeled away he stayed with them, to explain, they said, wonderfully and clearly, what he was about to be doing to me. Pretty much that's all I remember, until much, much later re-awakening post-operation, and with the shakes and no means of speaking coherently, I was told.
What happened next was the beginning of another episode - 5 days duration. I can't say I 'recall' coming back to, but I'm told it happened gradually and I was awake. In the immediate cardiac post-op area, there are rooms for ten or so beds; monitors everywhere, and attendants monitoring screens and attachments. I had been wheeled into an isolated though central section; I was still all hooked up and being watched and cared for through re-entry. Two male attendants, it appeared, had been assigned to me. They were each totally capable and fastidious in their work. When I 'awoke' - finally and clearly - it was deep into the first night, maybe 10 or 11pm, when I came fully to. The overnight attendant's name was Dave. Short and stocky, bald (a crack or two also, he made, about hair). We got on well; Dave, that first night, began telling me of things that had happened, my operation, the room we were in, how I was doing, etc. My biggest concern, was thirst. I was famished and in a drought - Dave said that was the anesthesia making me thirsty. He kept shoveling cracked ice into my mouth from a deep ice-cream type spoon, but also said that the feeling of thirst would not leave me, no matter how much I drank or chewed water or ice. He kept up with me, for the two days of demands anyway. Dave then went over his work and his life, telling me things about himself, and he reviewed the recent snowfall and road conditions, etc. It was all an overnight sort of nice banter, near to the bed. When he wasn't near, or at another area, it all stopped because it was too painful for me to talk loudly for the distance.
Sometime about 7am each day, it seemed (2 days), that shift changed and the daytime guy, John, came in. John was a different kind of guy, entirely - much more eagle-eyed, onto everything, and - it seemed - able to take the scope of the entire area and room. The first thing he did, after meeting and greeting me, was to move the position of the bed I was in, with all its tubes and connections, into a different configuration - out of the hidden corner I had been in with Dave, and into a more visible and centralized location in the room. That allowed for two things: I could now see out, and out, as well, to John's monitoring station - from which vantage point, in addition to all his monitoring work, he had a
constant and steady in, of me and where I was and of my activities and needs. One of the first things he did was to come in, about mid-morning of our first day, to tell me he had ordered me a lunch tray. I hadn't thought about food at all. Nor did I care or know what he had ordered for me. That tray arrived about 12:30, and it was OK. John came over, and we talked a little as I ate. He was tall - regular tall, not overwhelming. He wore an odd, gray-patterned head cap. Each of these fellows, as well, wore masks (Covid). John removed his mask, for the duration of our conversation, and getting to see his full face was nice. I never saw Dave, nor any of the others, without a mask. John and I got on well. He talked to me often - and it was funny how, in a few instances, our lives sort of intersected. I forget how it started, but he asked about me, what sorts of work I'd done, etc. When the subject crossed over to books, and the Princeton University bookstore,etc. he asked about my book interests. Medieval history came up, and he said his brother was a Professor of same at UPenn, or Villanova, or somewhere I forget. He asked why I was interested in that, and I said that it was because I found the underpinnings of much of today's society and civilization(s) to be erroneously based on old Chruch takeovers of early society in the most secular of fashions, and how I viewed nation-building and Society to have gotten off wrongly and by basing itself on church and religious assumptions, while totally denying it had been done like that, both the church, and the developing secularization of society, were left with no choice except betraying themselves. It was all downhill from there : duplicity, greed, exploitation, capitalism rapaciously done, etc. John seemed very interested in our talk, and said I really ought to meet his brother someday. Impossible to forecast, of course, I said yes, that would be nice. Then John said he'd had plans to be a priest; but it didn't work out and he joined the Army instead, and did his Afghanistan tours. Early 90's, from where he'd picked hp his nursing and medical training and took it back stateside with him, ending up here. I told him I'd had some priest-time intentions once too, but it was long ago, 1963-era. He was surprised.
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