This might surprise you, but I’m not a big fan of having surgery. I know most people are, but going to a hospital really early, getting naked, putting on a gown, laying in a bed, being stuck with a needle, going to sleep, having a person slice open my body and waking up in a pain just isn’t my thing. I’m strange in that way.
But Thursday morning, a man will do just that. He will slice open my left arm, cut my triceps, peel it back, scrape away scar tissue that’s been sitting in there for two years and making my life moderately miserable, file down my bone, drill a hole in the bone to promote bleeding and good scar tissue, whatever the hell that is, re-attach my triceps with the aid of a screw, then make me spend a month in a sling and 6-8 weeks rehabbing the elbow area.
My doctor calls all this, “a simple procedure.” I call him an, “a-hole.”
But he swears it’s not a big deal, that people have this done a lot and I’ll be as good as new.
That hasn’t stopped me from thinking about it for the past three weeks. I’ve done all kinds of Googling on surgery, and I found out that the first modern surgery was performed in England by Sir Gery Blankenship in 1349. He was a nobleman and a doctor and some religious figure who was really sick had him operate on his heart. It’s amazing the stuff you can find when you do some research and just kidding on Sir Gery that’s not true.
I’ve pretty much envisioned every single way this surgery can go wrong, and in an effort to reverse jinx it, I will list all the scenarios here:
1. I die. That would suck so hard. But any time you get put under, there’s a chance you won’t wake up. People die from anesthesia complications all the time. It happened to Ricky Gervais once in that movie with the guy from Talk Soup. But then he was revived by Kristen Wiig, which might be worse than death. The point is I could die, and I’m not in favor of this. Also, please don’t have Kristen Wiig standing over me when I wake up. Thanks.
2. I lose the arm. This is where my free time to think hurts me. Who goes in for surgery like this and thinks they’ll wake up without an arm? But what if they dig in there, find a tumor and have to amputate? I’m asleep. I can’t say no to that. Personally, I’d rather go all Sam Elliot in Tombstone and let my dead arm hang in a sling forever. They should have that as a form you fill out before you go under the knife.
IN CASE OF ARM TUMOR, MAKE A CHOICE
- Amputate Arm
- Sam Elliot in Tombstone
I would grow a mustache and carry a gun everywhere I went. People would say, “That’s a sweet Sam Elliot in Tombstone costume.” Then I’d show them my dead arm and they’d run screaming. It would be so bad ass.
3. They operate on the wrong arm. This had me worried until Tuesday when a woman from the hospital called me to run through what I needed to do Thursday. It was the standard speech I’ve heard 6 times, but she added something to it. I thought she was checking to see if I was paying attention.
“OK, so when you come here, no jewelry, no piercings, no contacts, if you need to wear them, bring solution and a case, no food after midnight, no liquid, no mints, no gum, after you get here in the morning, the doctor will write his name on your left arm, bring your ID, insurance card…”
“Wait, the doctor will have his name written on me?”
“Yes.”
“You mean metaphorically or he’s actually going to write on me?”
He’s actually going to write on me! He’ll put his initials on my arm as to avoid confusion. That’s thoughtful. Too bad I’m going to mess with him by writing his initials on my butt. Operate on that, buddy!
4. I slip into a coma. That’s interesting terminology. Slip. It makes it sound like I’m clumsy when I’m highly coordinated. “What happened to Dave?” “Oh, he slipped into a coma during surgery.” “Oh that Dave, he should’ve been more careful as to avoid slipping.”
If I go into a coma, it’s going to be hardcore. I plan on crashing into a coma. No, I’ll dive into the coma. That way it sounds like it was my choice. Also, if I do dive into a coma, don’t pull the plug if my nurse is hot. I’m pretty sure that despite the coma, I’ll have an idea of what’s happening during the sponge baths. Let me have that for a year, deep sleeps and sponge baths. After that, pull the plug.
5. The surgery doesn’t work. Hey, it happens. The only thing worse than surgery is more surgery. Look at Kendry(s) Morales. Breaks his leg, has surgery, finds out months later he needs more surgery and has to miss an entire season of baseball. If three months from now I’m still hurting, I’ll just cut the thing off. I’m not left-handed, so I can still do a lot of stuff without complications. Pushups will be a lot harder, but way funnier. I’ll have to give up clapping and start fist pumping. I’ll never have to stand on public transportation ever again. I’ll always be the first guy on a plane. Then there’s the ladies who are into amputees, a world I can’t enjoy currently.
There’s all kinds of other stuff you don’t think about that goes into a surgical procedure, like the ride home. The hospital requires a responsible adult to drive you home, but I don’t know any responsible adults. I know adults with cars, and that’s good enough. It’s not that I don’t trust my friends, but I’ve seen them drunk way too many times in my life to ever look at them as responsible. Just off the top of my head:
- I had one friend take a shower with his clothes on instead of talking to a gorgeous blond.
- I had one friend intentionally puke not into one of the two garbage cans in front of him, but in between them.
- I had one friend pee on my refrigerator, then try to blame me the next morning.
- I had one friend ask me to hide his porn collection because his wife closing in on it.
All of these people have kids now, but I don’t know how responsible they are. I feel like when it comes to their kids, sure they’re responsible. But a ride home from the hospital for a groggy me? Pretty sure I’ll wake up in Central Park at about 8 p.m. on Thursday naked and not knowing my name.
There are other rules too, but the big one is no food after midnight. A lesser man would make a Gremlins reference here. What happens if I eat after midnight? Will I turn evil on the operating table and attack Phoebe Cates? I am a lesser man.
So I’m looking at a last meal about 11:30 p.m. tonight. Not sure what it’s going to be yet, but it’s going to be heavy. I’m thinking about having a massive meal from Five Guys, but if I died, it would leave me open for the best joke in the history of death jokes.
“Dave died like he lived, with Five Guys inside of him.”
