Magic Carpet Ride

I awoke more than an hour before my alarm, afraid that it wasn't going to happen. But I was also nervous about what was to come.

I had been stressed all week. On the weekend before, as the list of things to do mounted up, a head cold struck. Sore throat, congestion, coughing, sneezing, chills, sweats, and fatigue. Above all else, my health was paramount, so I rested, drank plenty of fluids, wrapped myself in blankets.

I was able to go to work on Monday, but my voice couldn't conceal the cold. I drank lots of liquids, avoiding coffee, and used sheer willpower to get through the day. When I got home, I took some NyQuil and went to bed.

I worked from home on Tuesday, popping DayQuil capsules, guzzling grapefruit juice, and wrapping myself in blankets while huddling over my office laptop.

Wednesday was a repeat, with more cold capsules and liquids, though I stopped taking meds 12 hours before I was scheduled to arrive at the hospital. The sore throat was abating and my sinuses were clearer. I wasn't supposed to be taking anything so close to the surgery, but I had no choice.

At about 3:15 on Thursday morning, I awoke thirsty. My mouth was so dry that my tongue had stuck to the roof of my mouth. I knew that I wasn't supposed to take in any liquid after 4:30, when my alarm was due to sound, so it was safe to drink the half cup or so of water from the bathroom sink.

Swallowing, I was relieved to discover that I had no sore throat. My sinuses were clear, though as the water hydrated me, I could feel a slight mucus buildup deep down my esophagus.

I returned to bed, closed my eyes, but couldn't fall back to sleep. I spent the final hour before my alarm trying to sense how I felt. Was this going to happen?

Oh yes, this was going to happen.

The alarm told me to take a shower. I had had a full one before bed, taking a sponge of chlorhexidine, to cleanse myself from the waist, down. My morning shower would repeat that process with a second sponge. I would wrap myself in fresh clothes, and then wake DW.

"Time to go," I whispered. My voice was all but gone, dried and cracked. Just great, I thought, they're going to know I'm sick as soon as I open my mouth to check in.

DW drove me in the dark to the Civic Campus of the Ottawa Hospital. We were equally surprised at the amount of traffic before 6 am. At Hunt Club and Woodroffe, we encountered more cars than I usually see on my commute along Colonel By Drive. But we pulled up at the Carling entrance just a few minutes after 6, plenty of time before my 6:15 check-in time.

The day-surgery reception room was more than half full, and I thought I would be waiting beyond 6:30. There was a queue to the receptionist in addition to those waiting in seats, and I was fourth in line. The clock said 6:10 by the time I could tell the receptionist my name.

I gave all three of my names. I know the hospital goes by the first name on my health card, so I stress my second name, the one that I use. It doesn't always work, but I do it all the same.

"Did you have a name change?" the kind-faced receptionist said.

"No. My full name is Gregory Ross Brown but only computers use my first name."

"My name's Ann," she said, pulling my file. She wrote ROSS in large letters and surrounded it with quotation marks. "I don't need to see your health card, so go ahead and have a seat and we'll call you in a few minutes."

I took a seat as even more people piled in. During my interaction with Ann, other patients had been called, and I saw that many people who had been there when I arrived were already gone.

At precisely 6:15, a nurse called my name. She called me Ross. I smiled and followed her. "How are you?" she asked.

"Tired," I squeaked, then added, "I sound worse than I feel."

The nurse led me to a room with many beds encapsulated in curtains. She gave me plastic bags and told me to take everything off and place them in the bags, to put the bags on the floor beside the bed. She showed me a hospital gown and reminded me how to put it on, and pointed out slippers with which to cover my feet. "Then climb on the bed and pull the sheet over you to stay warm. Someone will be with you in a couple of minutes."

Once comfortable, I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing. I hadn't realized until this point that I was nervous. I could hear that other patients had a loved one at their side, and I was alone. Though I kissed DW goodbye, it would have been nice to have her with me with all the strangers who surrounded me.

Another nurse arrived and asked me how I was feeling. Unable to conceal my feelings, I admitted, "Nervous."

She heard my dry, crackling voice and asked me if I was okay. I told her that I was getting over a cold but that I felt fine, felt better than I sounded. Unconvinced, she took my temperature.

"You're a little warm," she said when the thermometer read 37.3 degrees.

"That's not warm to me," I said. "I always run a little warm. My wife calls me her little furnace."

The nurse continued to take my vitals. Everything showed normal. "You haven't eaten since before midnight?" she asked. I hadn't. "When did you last have a drink?"

"Between 3:15 and 3:30," I said. "Water. I could really use some now."

"I'm going to get you some water. You need to take some meds." She gave me a half-cup of water, some Tylenol, and "Something to mellow out your anxiety."

I like to dream, yes, yes
Right between the sound machine
On a cloud of sound I drift in the night
Any place it goes is right
Goes far, flies near
To the stars away from here

Well, you don't know what we can find
Why don't you come with me little girl
On a magic carpet ride

The nurse covered me in a thin plastic sheet that she connected to a tube and a small, silent generator that inflated the blanket and warmed me from shoulders to feet. As soon as I was warm, an orderly wheeled my gurney down the hall, through a set of doors, around a corner, and into an alcove, where a young woman in her 20s, wearing scrubs and a hair cap introduced herself as one of my anesthesiologists.

She placed a cap that matched my slippers over my hair as she explained that the main anesthesiologist would be with us soon. She also lifted the left side of my sheet and examined my leg. "We're doing your left foot..."

"Yes, left, left, LEFT!" I felt the need to stress which side but I didn't mean to be so loud and aggressive. I dropped my voice. "Left."

She smiled. "We're going to insert a pain blocker from the knee, down. It'll numb your foot for a couple of days."

"Numbing is good," I said. "Do you know if my surgeon will be harvesting bone from that shin? Will the pain blocker help that, too?"

"No," she looked at a chart. "I understand that Dr. M— will be accessing bone from your pelvis or from a cadaver."

The head anesthesiologist joined us and introduced herself. When I greeted her, she looked at me and said, "Do you have a cold?"

"It's fading," I said. "The other nurse took my stats. I'm fine."

She looked unconvinced. Her assistant was already wrapping a blood pressure band around my arm (my blood pressure was taken only 5 minutes earlier) but she placed a thermometer under my tongue.

Thirty-seven-point-two degrees.

I reached out, took the anesthesiologist's hands in mine, looked her in the eyes. "This is happening today," I said, almost as a plea.

She paused, continuing to look in my eyes. "Okay," she finally said.

The younger anesthesiologist came back to me. "Now, there are three ways we can..."

"Knock me right out," I interrupted. "I want no part of this."

She laughed. "Plan A it is."

They rolled me onto my stomach. I could feel a ballpoint pen making marks on my body. The drugs were starting to calm me down. Looking around, it was as though I was looking through water. My arms were above my head, so I closed my eyes and let them work.

It was about two hours of prep time, but to me, time was irrelevant. Time had no meaning. I was at peace.

Well, you don't know what we can see
Why don't you tell your dreams to me
Fantasy will set you free

Close your eyes girl
Look inside girl
Let the sound take you away...

My surgeon visited me and the three anesthesiologists working on me. He asked how I felt but all I could say was "This has been one long ride." It had been about two-and-a-half years.

He explained the procedure but it was too technical for me. He confirmed that he was looking for enough cadaver bone but would probably have to extract some of my bone from my pelvis. "I'm sorry," he said, compassionately, like he knew of the pain that I would be experiencing. "I've booked four hours in the operating room but I think it shouldn't take more than three. We'll have you out of there by lunchtime. We start at 9."

He's a good guy. I feel indebted for the arthritic pain relief he's given me. He told me that he would follow up with foot injections for my right foot, which would be carrying my weight, with crutches, for the next three months. "We don't want to put undo pain on that foot," he said.

I looked him in the eyes. My dry throat choked out words. "Brad," I called him by his first name, "if you open my foot and the bones and arthritis look like one complicated mess, just cut the fucker off."

He laughed. "I'm not taking your foot off today."

"Don't forget about that loose piece of bone."

"I'll get it. It'll go straight in the garbage."

I almost wanted to ask if he could somehow preserve it for me. Put it in a vial in a solution. A reminder of one of the many issues with this foot.

I must have fallen asleep. When my anesthesiologists woke me, they rolled me onto my back, wrapped me so I was good and toasty. The operating room awaited me, and it was going to be cold.

My left knee was taped in gauze, a thin, plastic tube ran from the bandage to a fanny pack with a miniature pump. An IV tube was attached to my right hand, fluids keeping me hydrated.

I felt nothing.

My bed was on the move again. We went down the corridor. I was surrounded by at least four people. I couldn't tell. I didn't bother to count. Into a bright room where my surgeon was set, where unrecognizable people were moving around my periphery.

A mask came over my face, a disembodied voice said, "Just a couple of deep breaths, if you please." I complied.

I thought I would try to count to see how long it would take before I forgot everything, but it was too late...

Last night I hold Aladdin's lamp
So I wished that I could stay
Before the thing could answer me
Well, someone came and took the lamp away
I looked around a lousy candle's all I found

Well, you don't know what we can find
Why don't you come with me little girl
On a magic carpet ride

Well, you don't know what we can see
Why don't you tell your dreams to me
Fantasy will set you free

Close your eyes girl
Look inside girl
Let the sound take you away...

I couldn't open my eyes. I was warm, comfortable. A song played in my head though I only vaguely knew the words. The rocking beat was all that mattered. Where had I heard this song before in a movie?

Everybody knew this song. I knew that Steppenwolf was the band.

I had heard it in a Star Trek movie. "First Contact"?

Well, you don't know what we can find
Why don't you come with me little girl
On a magic carpet ride...

(To be continued...)