Time to open up the hood and have a look inside
Originally published in July 2005, The Daily Sentinel, Grand Junction, Colo.
After four decades of mostly reliable service, some important parts of my body have demanded maintenance work.
The list of requirements isn’t complex. Eat healthier foods. Find a way to get more exercise, every single day. Have a few mystery parts checked out and, if necessary, repaired. Expect to pay – possibly a high price – if you refuse.
Problem is, when one part of me says it needs something, another part starts shouting objections.
My tongue doesn’t like going more than 12 hours without cheese. It enjoys cheese, it’s used to cheese, and it doesn’t give a rat about cholesterol. Fatty foods make it happy, and it’s used to being happy.
So it was indignant when I collaborated with other body parts to introduce nasty things like whole wheat to my daily intake, and it’s flat outraged by current attempts to replace cheese with vegetables.
In principle, my feet are all in favor of my heart’s demand for more exercise. They spend a lot of time dancing and kicking under my desk, anxious to get up and get moving, so they responded enthusiastically to the initiation of a daily family walk.
Then they started hurting. Throbbing, even, and complaining of scraping around too much inside my shoes. We can’t walk today, they complained after less than a week. If the heart wants to walk, let it walk. Leave us out of it.
From its throne at the top of my body, my brain looks down on my parts’ squabbles and laughs. I am above such things, I hear it saying inside my head. I am here to THINK and not be concerned with the foolishness of lesser organs. That’s why I’m separated from the rest of you by a neck.
Last week, my oh-so-cool brain just about jumped out of my head in a moment of panic. I fear only sedation kept it where it belonged.
That’s the first time my brain, working with my eyes, got an up-close-and-personal look at the table side of an operating room. It had been in on operations a couple of times – both of my daughters had to be delivered by C-section – and had seen my wife’s discomfort, but made it through by keeping the eyes focused on faces and newborn babies … not at the area where the actual work was happening. That area, my brain figured, was the responsibility of the midwife and doctor.
But last week it was my turn to be on an operating table. After way too much time ignoring an extra bump in my stomach, I’d asked a doctor about it and confirmed it was a hernia that needed to be repaired.
It’s not a big deal, the surgeon told me. In gentle terms, he explained that he’d basically cut me open, push everything back where it belongs and sew in a piece of mesh to keep it there. My brain sat on its throne, nodding my head and not worrying about it. Not even thinking about it, really.
My brain stayed cool the morning of the operation. It hates needles but paid little attention when one was inserted for an IV. It frowned at the hospital gown (modesty issues; for the sake of others, my brain is always concerned about keeping me covered) but figured it would all be over soon.
Then, the whole collection of me was wheeled into the operating room. My brain, looking out the eyes at the darkening edges of the bright, cold room as the drugs took effect, grasped the reality of what was about to happen and didn’t like it one bit.
Get me out of here, it ordered my legs. Do it NOW.
And that’s the last thing I remember before waking up at the end of the operation. I guess I didn’t really try to get up and run, but I’m not certain. I’m afraid to ask.