Paradox

There’s nothing dignified about surgery.

“Quite different from House, eh?” Chris remarked nonchalantly as we tried our damndest to stay out of the way of the surgeons.

It was a pretty straightforward operation. They were widening the femoral profundus artery, by grafting part of the saphenous vein onto it. Pretty straightforward stuff, as far as surgery goes.

It was our first day in the wards, and I couldn’t believe our luck at being able to get into the operating theatre the very first day. I didn’t even know how to scrub up, and there was no one else in the changing room for me to ask. I put on my scrubs and wandered down to the theatre, where the nurse kindly asked me if it was my first time.

I replied in the affirmative, and she smiled, and let me know that scrubs are not meant to be worn over clothes.

Embarassing but true.

Regardless of my little faux pas, I was more than ready to head back into the room. I walked in the same time they wheeled the patient in.

The lady could have been anyone. Elderly, a little bit sickly. She had the slightly worried look people wear in times of stress. I smiled at her reassuringly, as she squinted at me through her glasses. I doubt my optimism helped, and she continued to look suspicious, even as they anaesthetized her.

Once she was unconscious, the real process began, the process of preparing her for surgery, and I was struck at how undignified the whole process was. She was stripped of her white gown, and lay naked stomach down as the team carefully painted the leg to be operated on with iodine. The yellow was bright in the light, and the unhuman colour reminded me of the yellow man in Sin City.

It was surreal, looking at the exposed yellow leg and the fat stomach, with the rest of the body swathed in green sterilized cloth. As they started surgery, the Jackson 5 started blaring on the radio.

When they made the cut, the incision bled, and Chris and I watched the blood drip into the vacuum canisters with interest, blood so red it had to be arterial blood, but mixed with white, which we later assumed to be lipids.

The team had hooked up the television so we could watch, and we spent half the time with our eyes stuck to the screen and half the time craning our necks over the surgeons’ shoulders.

It was strange, but I saw the surgery almost like a story was being told.

Sometimes it seemed cruel and unrespectful, the way the surgeons handled the body. As if it was mere flesh and blood, nothing more than, rather than a human being. Being poked and prodded and cut. I hoped never to be in the position. It seemed painful, the way the flesh was being cut away from its natural state.

Then the flesh was finally parted, and the arteries were revealed, pulsing ever so clearly. The grafts were made, and the surgeons were more relaxed, more natural. It was clear that they loved what they were doing, and they took pride in teaching us to be part of their world. The patient was no longer a patient, but a patient with a medical complication that they could help.

Then, in the final moments of surgery, the surgeon stitched up the wound so carefully, so reverently, with such care, that I found it difficult to reconcile the image of the seeming callousness that happened. It was a transformation, from cold professional, to the tenderness that I saw. It was a paradox, but I dare say it was a paradox that needed to co-exist.

It was an important moment for me. It was only two hours of the day, but I believe I learnt more in that two hours than I did for the rest of the day.

I am feeling decidedly optimistic.