In Which Here We Go Again

Well…for the second time in less than six months I am less than a week from returning to the St. Paul campus of Gilette Children's Hospital to have the bones in my leg meddled with. I wish I could say with certainty what number surgery this is for me, but the truth of that matter is I can't say for sure. At some point the exact number and exactly what happened—those are meaningless tidbits of information. What's important is that I've had a number of surgeries and they've made my body more usable now than it would be otherwise.

Anyhow. I'm getting off topic.

Before December, my nightmare smell was the smell of anesthesia. If on edge or nervous or maybe both or maybe neither, I'd catch a faint whiff of anesthesia and just feel less secure. These days it's the scent of hospital saline. Six days in the hospital does wonders.

At dinner tonight, I was sitting at the table and there, at the edge of my perception, was a trace of saline in the air. It came back and I excused myself to go to the bathroom even though I didn't need to. I just wanted to get up and move. I knew the smell was in my mind, but there was something cathartic associated with motion. Running away, it turned out, worked. I wasn't bothered the rest of the meal.

Anyhow. At present I am sitting on the bed with my computer on my lap, typing this entry out. Here in Minnesota, the past few days have been unreal in the best sense possible. We went from snow earlier in the week to temperatures in the seventies on Thursday with calm blue skies. I spent my entire day yesterday cheering for my teammates and just enjoying the weather. I recently started reading Stephen King's It (yes, yet another 1000+ page King novel), which is basically a thousand pages of coming of age story with some monsters thrown in (the book is, in other words, wonderful). While my academic workload isn't really decreasing yet and, despite everything I say, I'm still too driven to slack off, I only have two weeks of classes left and, after those, two AP tests and, after those, three weeks of translating Latin and trying to write a novel. I should be relaxed.

Here's where the other shoe falls.

When I was at this point in December, staring at a surgery less than a week away, I was mostly calm. It had been almost two years since my last trip to the operating room and besides, since the procedure this time was so different from anything I'd had before, I couldn't really anticipate anything except from some quotes which turned out to not describe the experience I was headed into.

I am starting to get really nervous now.

I've got a better idea of what to expect now. I know exactly what it's like to be administered anesthesia through a gas mask before, I've had a few littler surgeries before, I've had the leg go without its friend the frame in the past (as hard as that almost is to imagine these days). I've seen pictures of legs which have recently lost frames. I've spent lots of time on the couch (months, actually) with limited mobility and my brother plugging through episode after episode of Top Gear.

So here we go again.

Anesthesia through the gas mask—though, as much as I hate needles, I'm going to try to persuade them to give it to me intravenously. A smaller surgery—and I devoutly hope it stays that way; the last thing I need now, so close to the end of high school, is another hospital stay. The leg without its friend—and even though the leg will be sporting some bloody holes for a bit, and even though Dr. Sundberg has assured me this will not be painless, and even though I'll be partially immobilized, and even though I won't be able to switch to normal not-extra-large-to-accomodate-destructive-metal-brace pants for a few days, and even though I won't be allowed to run or jump or ride roller coasters for a long time more, I think I'm excited. At this point I really need to focus on the long term.

You see, in the long term, while the scent of anesthesia (and saline) will still haunt my nightmares, my leg will be straight and free from its brace. In the long term, the smaller surgery will be barely a blip in my memory. In the long term, my only physical reminders of the frame will be a couple faded scars. And in the long term, if there is pain, I'll forget what it feels like, and even though I may be partially immobilized for a few days, I'll be fully mobile, and I'll be able to wear pants that are actually my size and run and jump and ride roller coasters.

This doesn't mean that I'm not more than a bit apprehensive at the concept of going into the operating room. Trust me, I am.

But this time I am not approaching the beginning of the long, slow-but-sure process of straightening the leg. This time I'm approaching its completion.