Part 2 - Back surgery - photos of Guy Lee, MD; nurse Patti, and the kids

This is me, a couple of minutes ago.

I can stand.

For sciatica patients, standing is usually the most painful thing we can do. When I had sciatica (two days ago) I would brush my teeth while pacing up and down the hall.

Now the extraordinary pain is limited to the incision and its environs.

For this, I take Codeine w/Tylenol, plus Phenergan, every 6 hours.

The pain is controlled.

What you can't see in the photo is the Back Brace I'm wearing. I even sleep in it. It's another way of diminishing the pain, but its purpose is to keep the sutures together.

Yesterday I was exhausted. I said to Sarah, who is staying here until Friday (today is Thursday) that I would really like to TALK about the surgical procedure but I don't have the strength.

Toward the end of the day, when Dan joined us, I was able to p'pate in the lovely art of conversation.

We must have several brain parts with which we communicate. Writing, of course, is vital for me. Since I really had no one to talk to in my childhood, I began communicating thru pictures. I still have pictures of birds I drew from our backyard in Cleveland Heights.

When I learned to write in the first grade, I began writing about my teachers in a Spiral Notebook. I kept track of them, and their idiosyncrocies, until I went to junior high.

I also began writing short stories. Why not? Our textbooks at that time consisted of fairy tales from other lands, such as East of the Sun, West of the Moon. I decided to try it myself and made up foreign names for the princess-in-distress and her antagonists.

So, writing is very important to me. But so is talking.

I needed to talk about my surgery to people who understood.

Lucky for me, Dan and Sarah were here.

Sarah made Dan some delicious ice tea. We talked about this and that before I began telling my tale.

B/c I'd had prior surgery at Einstein, I wanted to compare the experiences. My main concern was: What will my last memory be before I "go under."

Basically I remembered everything.

Everyone at AMH worked as a team to help me, the patient, feel comfortable, relaxed and hopeful.

Their care was extraordinary!

So Derek wheels me from the Pre-Op room, where I removed my contacts and put my Kay Ryan Collected Poems into a bag to take home.

I can't refrain from talking to Derek....remember Talking quells anxiety. I asked him where the OR was.

Right around the corner, he said.

And where are we, I asked.

Second floor Lenfest Building, he said.

He steered me into the OR and parked me flush to another table, which I didn't notice until Nurse Debbie pointed it out.

Derek wished me luck - everyone is trained to do this - and it really pays off - the patient who is about to undergo the Scalpel - feels very good about the operation.

Debbie tells me she'll be my nurse.

What sweet words: My nurse.

Sort of like Virgil accompanying Dante in the Divine Comedy. Some experiences are so profound, they require a guide.

After Debbie introduced herself and took my vitals, she held my hand.

Later, I thanked her. "I never realized," I said, "how comforting it is to have someone hold your hand."

Whenever she would leave my side for a moment, she'd say, "I'll be right back."

They do not leave the patient alone for a second. Tres importante!

She put leggings on me, which keep your circulation going during the operation. I told her I remembered the stockings from Einstein where I got my kidney t'plant. The whole OR heard me mention my kidney transplant in April and were pretty darn impressed.

Tho everything was a blur, I saw something which beggared description.

What's that strange-looking thing that looks like a slab of meat, I asked Debbie.

She lay it on my lap. It was very cold.

She explained the ingenious operating table to me which was two feet from my bed.

The patient lies face down on a surface which has rungs like a ladder.

My head goes in a hole so I can breathe.

My knees are propped up on the roast beef.


Steve, the nurse-anesthetist, had his hand on my right shoulder. Then he would fiddle with some of the anesthesia equipment, which I couldn't see.

It just occurred to me that Dr Atkins, the anesthesio'st, would not appear until I was ready to "go under." Or, he may have appeared at the very end, and that was my last hazy memory.

I'd met both Steve, the nurse anesthetist, and Dr Atkins in the pre-op room.

Atkins made sure I knew that he considers Steve his colleague, his "bud."

I take note of people's last names. Jewish people like myself often have funny ones - Feigenbaum, Shesol, Lefkowich - funny, that is, when compared to the pure English came-over-on-the-Mayflower strain.

Atkins. Patterson. Sinclair. Lee.

So simple. So easy to spell.

Here are some of my Einstein Kidney Transplant doctor surnames:

Zaki, Campos de la Torres, Kung, Khanmoradi.

Dr Lee told me he would mark the proper site on my body so he wouldn't accidentally operate on my toes.

Here's the mark denoting my herniated disc at the approximate location of the herniated disc at Lumbar 5, Sacral 1.

Every time a nurse or someone important approached me in the OR they asked me the four big questions, Name, Birthdate, Why are you here, and what's on your WishList at Amazon.com.

Steve put a thick plastic mask over my nose and mouth.

Oh no! They hadn't done this at Einstein. Would panic ensue?

Steve, I muttered under the mask, what's this for?

To help you breathe, he said.

Then he told me he was gonna give me something to make me sleep. This was before Dr Atkins, the anesthetist, would come in.

I hoped Steve would not say another word. One time, an anesthetist asked me to think of somewhere nice I'd like to go.

I had a small panic attack. I was in mental turmoil trying to decide which of the Caribbean islands I liked best, or, then again, I do like my green backyard.

Sarah and Dan waited on the mezzanine. Surely, mezzanine must be one of those beautiful words, conjuring up stage plays, little apparatifs between acts, clinking glasses.

An aside, I take codeine and Phenergan every 6 hours. They're really starting to kick in now and I'm becoming exhausted.

I never read side effects of meds or I'd get em all. Accidentally, tho, I noticed on the bottle, the word Dizziness.

The kids waited and amused themselves by working on their laptops. Sarah also went downstairs and had a good breakfast at the commissary, fresh strawberries and a so-so omelet.

Finally Dr Lee came out.

The operation was a success, he said. Your mom is doing great. She should see a lot of relief. It took a while to get the disc off the nerve. Your mom might feel the pain return in a week b/c the nerve might swell b/c it had been so compressed by the herniation.

When he came to see me in the Recovery Room,I was seated in my street clothes by the window that led out onto Highland Avenue.

Dr. Lee, I exclaimed. My sciatica is gone.

Of course, he said, smiling. You should've done this two years ago.

Surgeon Guy Lee in the pre-op room. He gladly let me photograph him. Told him I'd use it on my blog.

My wonderful pre-op nurse Patti Patterson. "You mean," I said, "of all the guys out there, you married a Patterson?"

She was extremely helpful, seeming to anticipate my every need.

Dan Deming, awaiting the big moment: his mom's back surgery.

Of course, he got to sit in when Baby Grace was born last August.

We said our last-minute Goodbyes before surgery. I'd actually forgotten I had my camera w/me until Guy Lee came in. Then I remembered: Photos Photos and more Photos.