The Mood for Surgery

At some point I'll move on to another topic other than my father's hospital stay, such as the finale for Stargate Atlantis which I watched a week before it aired, because I'm just that guy. But for now, quite understandably, it's the main thing going on in my life, save for the few hours I go to work or stop home to grab a quick bite, peruse the internet, and sleep.

On Saturday my mom called him to let him know we'd be there as soon as we took care of a few errands. I had Noel candles and Christmas lights to bring in, as he requested, and I had to refuel my mom's car. When we finally got to the hospital around noon, he was sleeping in a chair. He awoke after a few minutes, utterly disgusted. The shoulder doctor had apparently visited my groggy and grumpy old man shortly after my mom had called, and told him he could get him a surgery slot on Sunday. Hearing from a doctor on the weekend let alone having a procedure done is almost unheard of, so what was my dad's answer?

”Ahhh...I'm not in the mood for surgery!”

The doctor apparently nodded, said “okay”, and left.

I can understand my dad's apprehension, and I know the lengths he went to in diet, lifestyle, and alternative medicine to avoid a bypass operation. This is the same man that told me my massive internal bleeding was a “stomach flu” that I could shake off, and advised me not to have the surgery that ended up saving my life. Surgery is a scary word at any age, but it encompasses many different things. When pressed further about the nature of what the doctor wanted to do, my dad couldn't really answer. He didn't ask questions. He was tired, he can't hear very well, and he was cranky. We reminded him that we're paying for an outgoing phone line, that should anything like that happen again we were just a phone call away. As I outlined some of what I'd read on the internet about surgical procedures where an infected limb was involved, he slowly became more rational and more receptive.

If an infection spreads to bone, the material could necrotize, and the dead tissue would need to be manually scraped away before it spread further. As painful and horrifying as that sounds, losing a limb or dying would certainly be worse. I pointed out that they'd numb the area and sedate him, and that they wouldn't knock him out completely. I compared the procedure to dental work, and some of his fear subsided. “Okay, maybe I should have it done.”

My mom located a nurse and explained the situation, and while she checked the charts for us, an on-call doctor came to check him out. He explained that my dad's arm was full of an infectious material that was making him sick and slowing down the healing process. They could aspirate the area with a needle, but that wasn't a practical way to get all the bad gunk out. Their best bet was a controlled incision in a proper environment. As my dad's memory of the morning conversation became clearer, he did remember the shoulder doctor telling him he could “pull through” with that procedure.

As I wrote not long ago, ”...there's no situation, real or imaginary, in which panic won't make things much, much worse.” This applies to fear as much as full-blown panic. If my dad had asked the right questions, he might not have gotten as worked up. It's tough to judge the doctor without actually being there, but he probably could have been patient and explained better. Maybe he did and my dad just didn't hear or understand him. When the nurse got back to us, she told us that the doctor wrote that the patient refused surgery, and advised that they continue with antibiotics and treat any swelling with steroid injections. By Saturday night, we still hadn't seen any doctors, and with a snowstorm pummeling some parts of Long Island worse than others, I think the odds of getting the surgeon back on Sunday are slim to nil. So we're looking at Monday at the earliest, and stressed to my dad to put us on the phone if anyone comes to him while we're not there. We let the staff know as well that we'd wish to be contacted for any consent.

My mom gets superstitious about dates on which bad things have happened, from injuries to deaths in the family. Since she tragically lost her cousin on January 11th a few years ago, I knew she'd be worried about my dad having any procedure done, no matter how routine. She admitted this to me when we left him for an hour to go to mass and get some dinner. I reminded her about the mole on my back that would have been removed in my childhood had the doctor not scheduled the operation on the anniversary of her father's death. Mind you, it's something I worry about from time to time, but it hasn't turned into anything nasty, at least not yet. But if it had, that's something that could have been prevented. With my dad, I tend to go with car logic. He told me he wanted to come home and think about it before having any surgical drainage. I asked him if that's the approach he'd take if my car was leaking brake fluid. He was never a wait-and-see mechanic; if there was a problem, he went after it aggressively. I know he's having a hard time feeling like an invalid, like one week he could lift heavy things on his own and now we need to help him into bed and wrap blankets around him, but he needs to snap out of it and fight if he's going to get better.

For once, I could draw on my experience to give him advice. No one is ever in the “mood” for surgery, but sometimes it's the only way to solve a problem and get on with your life. I hope I gave him the right advice, but we'll definitely ask more questions before he has anything done.