Copyright 1998 Del Edwards (a nom de plume)
I was already lying face up on the operating table wearing just my briefs when Joan Higley, the nurse who had gone over the paperwork with me, reappeared at my side.
"You were right. There are three sites to be excised, not two," she said as she held up the clipboard with the release form attached. "I just listed the third one so now I need you to initial the form beside number three."
"I can't see the form without my glasses," I told her.
"You can trust me, I'm a nurse," she said.
"Yeah but you're a woman too," I replied. My remark brought verbal responses from all three women in the room with me.
"Wrong thing to say when you are outnumbered three to one and flat on your back," said Marsha Dunn, M.D. dressed in a white lab coat over her street clothes. She had short very dark brown hair framing a nice face and little round glasses with black steel frames. She was a small boned woman and quite trim based on the slim ankles and shapely calves showing under the lab coat. Also there was no excess flesh in her chin-throat area and she didn't have the beginning of chubby cheeks like the ones the lady surgeon was growing. Of course she was at least fifteen years younger than the surgeon. Dr.Dunn, I decided was compact and strong for her size and probably alternated weight work and jogging six days a week.
I was playing a little game with myself, maybe to beat back the anxiety of knowing that the third woman in the room would soon be carving skin cancer off my face in three different locations. I call it the Remember Names Game. I was doing well so far--Nurse Joan Higley; Marsha Dunn, M. D., the anesthesiologist; and of course the surgeon, Doctor Christina Cage.
There was another automatic game going on at another level in my head. I call that one Scope, Compile & File. I think a lot of men do it ... like I said it's automatic. Christina Cage, for example, was a little overweight with the excess stored in her hips and thighs, had a well supported bustline under the green silk blouse she was wearing the day I went to her office for a consult prior to the surgery. She had nice light brown hair done in a sort of a Heddy Lamar do. A nice small nose, I call it a chicken nose because it had a little raised portion about two thirds of the way up from the tip. It was the central feature of her pleasant face. I never got to scope her ankles that day because she was wearing slacks.
Nurse Higley was wearing those baggy green scrubs so I had to work with a minimum of data. Based on her high cheekbones, the absence of excess flesh in her face and neck and the slim angular appearance of her wrists and hands, I was ready to bet she would look pretty good without her clothes.
Someone put a very hard little pillow-more like a sandbag under the back of my head. Dr. Dunn was on my right tying my right arm outstretched to the armboard she had slid under the pad of the operating table. My own body weight was holding it in place. Next she attached several leads to my torso with adhesive pads and clamped something around my right ankle. I was being wired up. The last attachment was clamped to my right index finger. I enjoyed her touch as I felt her work.
"Great veins," she commented. "I could put an IV in you from across the room. You're going to feel a little stick," she advised. She stung the back of my hand with her IV needle and taped it in place. "Don't be alarmed if your arm suddenly feels cold, I am just going to run a little saline as a double check--no drugs--want to make sure our lifeline is operating." I felt the coolness in my forearm for a few seconds and then it went away.
Nurse Higley was pulling the sheet tight between my body and my left arm. I felt her wrap it snuggly over my left arm and push it under my back pinning my left arm to my side. Now both my arms were immobilized. I felt like I had become a captive of these women, vulnerable, defenseless. I fought with that imaginary monster while I listened for whatever was coming next. The brightness from the huge overhead light hurt my eyes so much that I had closed them.
"This is the part that I don't like the most," I heard Dr. Cage say. "You're going to feel some sticks." I felt six or seven cool swabs and smelled the alcohol before each stick. "Okay, we're done with that," she said. "If you feel any pain during the procedure, let me know and I'll give you some more," she added. I was truly touched by her compassion but said nothing.
"I'm going to swab the field now, make it sterile. Keep your eyes closed," I heard Nurse Joan Higley say. There was the strong odor of betadine, sort of like iodine with something added. She firmly scrubbed the areas on my eyebrow and cheek where the surgeon would soon be carving on me.
I went into myself and found that I was both enjoying and was embarrassed by the attention I was getting from these three women. A perfect paradox, I thought to myself. Sometime later Dr. Cage was back. "Feel that?" she asked.
"No," I told her.
"Feel that?" she asked again.
