Just about all surgeries these days are outpatient. This means that spouses are involved. They have to get the patient there, wait for a long time in a waiting room with a group of other spouses, drinking vile coffee and watching the office TV on a loop of Antique Roadshow reruns.
My husband had a red thing (actual medical term) show up on his nose suddenly. The dermatologist biopsied it, which removed the spot, but not enough of it, because the spot was cancerous. Basal cell. The kind that doesn’t kill you but keeps coming back if you don’t get it all. And this biopsy didn’t get it all. It looked like she got it all, but the margins weren’t clear.
So the day of the surgery came. I had my Kindle loaded, my NYT games at the ready, and I was looking forward to sitting in the waiting room doing nothing for about two hours. Doing nothing is something I am good at, but I usually feel guilty about doing it. This was a day of required doing nothing, and I was looking forward to it.
I opened Spelling Bee. It was going to be a hard one, but I got vandal and diva right off the bat. My brain cells were all firing, and I didn’t even notice that I was the only person in the waiting room without a walker. I was starting to have fun out there. Just as I was contemplating vector, but damn, there was not an e on the board, when my husband returned to the waiting room. He stood in front of me and said, “Molly, they need you back there.”
Of course, I do know a LOT about medicine. I know what COPD is. I know the best treatment for hiccups is to drink water backwards from a glass. I know that if you have an upset stomach or heartburn, you can dissolve about a teaspoon of baking soda in a glass of water and drink it; this is very effective. And I know that very few surgeons want the patient’s wife in the operating room. So I rose to my feet, still keeping my game turned on, thinking they just needed me to tell them something Charlie forgot–like if he has ever had whooping cough. Then I could resume. Maybe vice would work…
We got back there, and Charlie said, “Hey, they don’t know where to operate.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah. They can’t find the spot where the cancer is/was, because the dermatologist forgot to take a picture of it.”
I was stunned. “What did they do in the olden days? Use permanent marker that you wore for the month before your surgery was scheduled? Or did they just not bother with face bumps? Or maybe the dermatologist just took a knife and cut the nose thing off during the office visit, taking surgeons out of the loop altogether?”
“Molly. This isn’t about history.”
“But why am I back here?”
“Because the surgeon asked if maybe my wife knew where the cancer was located.”
I felt a surge of something. Power! Importance! “You mean if I can point to the spot where this cancer is, they will go ahead and operate on my word alone?” What if I point to your ear lobe? Will they remove it on my say-so? Or your eyebrow? I can just say Off with his eyebrow! Like in Alice and Wonderland? What if I have them take your lips off?”
The surgeon interrupted my fantasy by coming in and introducing himself. Then he asked if I could point out the spot. I felt pretty sure I knew where it was, and pointed to a small red scar on Charlie’s nose. The doctor said, “Well if you just sign off on this, we can go ahead. They were willing to operate based on where I told them to do it.
Both Charlie and I, having the same vision of Charlie with a big scar on the wrong side of his nose, both demurred, despite how flattered I was that I had sudden powers over a surgeon, for heaven’s sake.
So we were sent home, and Charlie had to go back to the dermatologist for some nose photos.
I have never in my life felt so powerful. I had lunch and absolutely ACED the Spelling Bee.
