Nurse number three enters the scene. She is here to transfer me from the sticky bench to the operating arena. The sound of my suctioned butt pulling free from the bench is quite audible in the quiet of the waiting room as I hop to the wheel chair. Just out of curiosity, I ask the nurse, "Tell me, what ankle does your chart indicate is the ankle of concern today"? She grabs the chart, scans it over and replies with "The right one". I respond with the same question poised back at the beginning of all this and she says she must have an older copy of the requisition issued earlier this morning. She assures me that the computer must have been updated by now. Of course I need ask "what is the possibility that the surgeon is working with a less than up-to-date copy of the chart"? She assures me that doesn't happen. I wonder if there is any value in pointing out that it seems to have happened three times now and it's not even ten AM.
I am positioned out side two very large stainless steel doors in a very large cold and bare warehouse like room which, it becomes apparent over the next fifteen minutes of sitting there, that I am in the anti room to the operating theatre. I know this 'cause I can hear very clearly, chains a clanking, buzz saws a buzzing, and grinders a grinding. There's no one else in the place. Just me and the sound effects, all of which serves to up the anxiety level to an amber alert.
Nurse Four wheels in a gurney and approaches me and my chair. She's all smiles an cheery and tells me it's time. I am to transfer to the roll away, begin sedation and the surgery should be underway in about fifteen minutes. I once again ask the required question and once again the chart revels that there is no change to the hospitals understanding of what is really going on here. I begin to freak out. Not only might I have to have my Achilles tendon disconnected, it now seems possible that I might have both disconnected once they figure all this out.
"Mam, I am very reluctant to begin sedation until somebody around here can definitively assure me that the foot requiring our attention today is identified as the proper foot which is, once again, the left foot. Not the incorrect, wrong, right foot. But the left foot. That one right there". I point. "Very confusing I know". Abandoning all equipment, she smiles and says "I'll be right back".
More buzz saws and chains a rattling for the next ten minutes as I try and calm. Sedation sure would be good for us all at this point, but I think you can appreciate my concern. In comes the doctor. My surgeon. All smiles and business like in his scrubs with a mask hanging from his left ear. "Good morning Mr. Dufus, I understand we have some confusion here".
"Well actually Doc, there is no confusion here with me. It seems however, all of the nurses I've seen so far this morning believe you are going after the incorrect, right foot, not the correct, left". He whips out his black magic marker from his pocket and replys "Let's clear all this up, right here, right now. Leaning over he puts a big black 'X' on my left foot and steps back smiling as he admires his solution. I look at the 'X', and then look the doc in the eye and say "I'd sure feel a lot better about all of this if you put a big black arrow on my right with a wee note saying 'See Left Foot'.
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