The hospital makes all surgical patients check in at O’Dark-Thirty a.m., no matter what time you are actually going under the knife. This is so you can hurry up and wait, but I figured it was best to stake my place in line early, right? Weird thing was, about 2 dozen other people were there that day for some sort of surgery, too. It was like a casting call for the World’s Most Pathetic Chorus Line in that waiting room; the lady who didn’t even bother to get out of her pink bathrobe before coming in was undoubtedly the most comfortable, although I wondered what she was going to wear home. Luckily, it got less weird after that, unless you want to count the warm-air blower they hook into the hospital gown you wear in pre-op, which I’d call kinkily pleasant. And everything they put you in is purple. I suspect this is to match their purple Nitrile gloves, but I digress.
Pre-op is where I finally met the entire primary cast of characters that was going to occupy my operating theater while I was unconscious, right down to the intern surgical tech. Meeting the anesthesiologist was vital; but even more important was having my own surgeon there, marking the appropriate place to cut. They do this with a purple marker (obviously to match their gloves). Once that "X" was in the right spot, I could relax. The "X" was right in the middle of the ankle joint being replaced…front and center. I anticipated a lovely 6-8” scar at the end. Having done this multiple times, I always ask for stitches to reduce scarring (staples being torture inside a cast).
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