August 27, 2003
YOU PUT YOUR LEFT HAND IN
Sorry about another day with a dearth of postings, but I was busy shepherding my mom through the bureaucratic maze that is day surgery.
Mom needed a prosthetic joint in her thumb to replace the arthritic one that was giving her a case of the vapors every 45 seconds or so that she tried to use it.
Now, I have nothing but love for the surgeon who spoke with almost monastic efficiency when describing the surgery over the phone: "It's over. Went well." Click.
And I adored the sweet nurses that tended to her needs. As a former healthcare employee, I can testify that nurses are the bedrock of a hospital.
But what the hell does it say about the assembly line nature of healthcare and the overwhelming fear of a surgical fuckups that I had to take a purple marker and write on my mother's aching limb (pictured above) just so the monosyllabic surgeon would know which one to work on?
That was a rhetorical question, by the way.
A post-surgical note: my mother was most pleased in her after-surgery narcotic stupor that there was no need to mangle the French manicure she got yesterday. She obtained said treatment just for the surgery.
"A girl's gotta look her best, even at the worst of times,'' she explained to Nurse Sue.
Go get 'em, mama.