The Anesthesiologist's Daughter

In an earlier post, I wrote about how my anesthesiologist was a super weirdo the morning of my surgery. Like, weird enough that he actually freaked me out. Granted, I was in easy freak-out mode, but still. I usually try to give medical folks the benefit of the doubt, but man.

Anyhow, I went into full freak-out mode when he was putting the epidural in me while I was fully conscious. He ran his finger up and down my backbone, commenting, 'I see you have scoliosis.' Why yes, yes I do. He asked if I had ever had surgery for it. I told him I had not, meanwhile freaking out thinking OMG, is it so bad that it looks like I should have had surgery for it?! My scoliosis was discovered in a routine, elementary-school screening, but I was always told it was not severe. Then again, I was also told I had 'mild' hip dysplasia by an actual hip doctor who really should have known better. So while the anesthesiologist appeared to be fumbling around, walking his fingers up and down my vertebrae, trying to figure out where to put the epidural in, I of course started crying. I know I write a lot of entries the involve me crying, but something you should know about me is that I rarely cry. On the surface, I am - or at least, I've been told that I am - very stoic and unemotional. So if I'm crying, I'm in a really bad place mentally.

It was about that time that he barked at the nurse to give me some Versed, also known as 'happy juice,' and I honestly don't remember much after that.

So on Tuesday, when he came strolling into my hospital room, I honestly had no idea who he was. First of all, all these surgeons look the same to me in their surgeon outfits with their head covered. Second of all, I'm, like, blind as a bat without my contacts in (20/900, in case you don't believe me), and I obviously did not have them in pre-surgery. I do have glasses, but they aren't the greatest, just because I'm so very dependent on contacts, and have been since I was 10 years old.

'Hi!' he said very cheerfully.

'Um, hi?' I responded, thinking it was some surgeon in the wrong room or something. Or maybe it was Christian, the PA, who is also a very generic looking white dude?

'Do you remember me?' he asked.

'Yes,' I lied. (WTF, why did I lie? What if it really had been a surgeon in the wrong room? LOL.)
Fortunately, right about the time I was lying, he was re-introducing himself as Dr. S, the anesthesiologist. He was very pleasant, not weird at all. He said he was there to check on my epidural and see how my pain levels were. I told him my pain levels were creeping up, but that I was anxious to get the epidural out so that I could have the catheter removed, because it was VERY uncomfortable. (Honestly, I don't think it was put in properly.) Also, the epidural made both legs numb, which basically made me unable to move, which was uncomfortable once the drugs started to wear off and I became more alert mentally. Christian, the surgeon's PA, had made it very clear that the epidural had to come out before the catheter, and had made both me and my husband repeat E comes before F; EF - meaning, epidural first, then (Foley) catheter. I guess in the past, the reverse has happened, leaving the patient with no way to pee, and he wanted to be sure it didn't happen to me - so, you know, I could advocate for myself if anyone tried to take out my catheter too soon.

Dr. S understood my desire to get the epidural out, and cut back the amount of meds coming through the epidural and said that he could take it out the next day, at which point I could transition to oral pain meds.

Then he commented, 'You look like you're in a lot of pain.'

I couldn't deny it.

'I've heard this is one of the most painful surgeries there is,' he added.

I couldn't deny that, either. Not that I've had every surgery that exists, but I did tell him I could certainly believe it.

He lingered a little longer, sitting down on the edge of the bed, or on a chair, or something. Making himself comfortable. Different from everyone else who is constantly on the go, go, go. It was evening, my husband had gone back home to tend to our kiddos that morning, so the company was welcome. Then he explained, 'I guess I'm interested in your experience because my daughter has hip dysplasia, and I'm not sure what to do.' He went on to say that she had been diagnosed as a baby, and spent a year in a cast, which is what they do to babies with hip dysplasia. (Google 'cast for hip dysplasia' if you need a visual. It's not pretty.) The goal is to force the head of the femur into the acetabulum at a different angle to cause the acetabulum to develop deeper. It helps, but it's not always enough. Lots of the people who end up having PAOs in their teens and 20s were treated as babies with a cast or a brace. I didn't need to tell Dr. S this. Obviously he knew already. I told him that must have been very difficult to deal with, and he admitted that it was. Then I asked how old his daughter was now, and he said she was 12. I asked if her hips ever bothered her, and he replied, 'No, but...' and trailed off.

No, but...

But they will. It's coming. It's very likely coming. He didn't have to say this. He knows. I know.  I also understood his concern for me was more because he was imagining his daughter in my place, trying to wrap his mind around going through this with his daughter. Honestly, I can't imagine. As much of wreck as I was, I would have been infinitely worse if it had been my daughter instead of me. And honestly, after educating myself about hip dysplasia, I am very worried my own daughter may have it as well, and that one day soon, her hips will start hurting, and I'll find myself in the same place as Dr. S, knowing what will happen if you don't treat it, but also wondering if it's something you want your teenage daughter to have to go through.

Throughout my hospital stay, the nurses commented on how tough I was, even when I was screaming and howling and not feeling tough at all. More than one of them mentioned that most of people they see who are having this particular surgery are teenage girls, 'and they have no coping mechanisms.' LOL. But in all seriousness, I can't imagine going through this surgery as a teenager, nor can I imagine going through it with my daughter when she's a teenager. Obviously Dr. S couldn't imagine it either.

We chatted some more, about how it was incredible I was never diagnosed earlier, and that my hips never bothered me a whole lot, and how it was probably better that I wasn't diagnosed as a baby because I'm not sure my parents could have handled it. It was actually a fairly intense conversation, a heart-to-heart from a parent to another parent, over a shared experience - both of us struggling with choices, worrying about the same thing, trying to do the right thing.

After a good 5-10 minutes, Dr. S said, 'Well, I should go. I'll see you tomorrow,' and sauntered out.

Later, one of the nurses told me that she was pretty sure he had never done this before, not for this type of surgery. So this was his first experience with PAO, a surgery he knew in the back of his mind his daughter might need someday. That must have been a tough experience for him. And it was a good reminder that we're all just... human. Flailing our way through this weird experience we call life, by putting one foot in front of the other. That is, if we're lucky enough to have the luxury of two working legs.