The Lost Grey's Anatomy Episode

You think I could have a simple surgery to repair a broken ankle and all will be well. You tell me I watch Grey's Anatomy too much and I'm over thinking things. Well let me tell you the tale of how even in real life somethings can feel like they are straight out of a television drama.

I'm at the hospital early, as I'm always worried they have given me the wrong time for any procedure they have to do. Surgery of any kind makes me nervous and my anxiety is through the roof, but these doctors and nurses are trained and know what they are doing, right? It's just my ankle, it's not something important like my heart or my brain. I'm taking deep breaths and trying to distract myself with my cell phone like it's my life raft and the only thing able to save me from going insane. My husband is there and trying to be reassuring, but my brain is screaming from the borderline personality disorder that anything that can go wrong will.

My pre-op nurse shows up to admit me and I don't want to tell my better half how terrified I actually am, but if I could get up and run I would. The nurse tells me to leave my purse, phone and crutches with him, is she serious? Not having my phone my only connection to the outside world could be my undoing. Yet I mange to put on a brave face as she wheels me into the first interview room to take my blood pressure and ask me a series of questions I will have to answer over and over again while trying not to freak out that I'm messing up, but the staff don't understand that they are over loading my stress centres. I just keep smiling as the nurse takes me to the next step, away from the man I love, my safe haven and ways to distract myself.

The part that my husband doesn't get to see is me changing out of the comfortable clothes I had struggled into this morning. I painstakingly chose these clothes so I would be relaxed and fought with my broken ankle to get into the yoga pants and one sock. Now everything but my underwear must go into a plastic bag, tucked away into locker number three and the admittance nurse reassures me with a smile that it will all be returned when I wake. I am now in the soft blue hospital gown, with friendly bubbles all over it reminding me to wash my hands and it's on to the bathroom to pee in a cup.

I'm used to this as they always seemed to make me pee in a cup. When I used to get blood work done in Ottawa to monitor the effects my Fibromyalgia medication was having on my kidneys every month, they also made me pee in a cup. Another tidbit people really don't know about me. I mean I talk about my health conditions, but I do not really talk about all the tests, therapy time, hospital visits and why I'm no longer a fan of being in these facilities if I can help it. My lovely nurse gets me from my wheelchair to a stretcher bed and then it's time to insert my IV.

Of course this is where all the minor annoyances start, my veins won't cooperate. So the nurse keeps tapping at me, rubbing my arm harshly, having me squeeze my hand open and close, anything she can think of to get the veins to pop up. I never have trouble with lab techs finding my veins. Why on Earth are they acting up today? Why veins why must you hate me so? Finally the nurse is satisfied she can find the right place to get the IV in and with a slight pinch and a few more deep breaths we are all set up. She places a warm blanket out of a heated closet on top of me and tells me if I"m feeling up to it I can take a siesta if I want while I'm waiting. This is my favourite part of the day, bundled up in a toasty blanket, just taking in the Operation Room waiting area and finally starting to feel calm about everything. That's when the horrendous squealing noise starts.

At first I'm sitting there thinking to myself, that is some really noisy IV equipment or monitors, but as the noise gets louder you can see the nurses getting concerned. One of the younger, part time nurses, who lost a day's pay recently as her child was sick, (yes I'm a horrible eavesdropper I know,) but this nurse figures out the noise is coming from the ice machine in the nurses station. This is not a noise an ice machine should be making, this is not a noise any kitchen appliance in a nurses station should be making. Me being me I joke out loud, 'I've watched Grey's Anatomy, this is where the ice machine blows up causing emergency surgeries.' No one is paying attention to me though so I go back to eavesdropping and taking in my surroundings.

A maintenance guy shows up to return a stretcher where the plastic bed rail barriers had been impeding the wheels. It's all fixed up now and ready to be put to use again. I watch him talk to the only male nurse on the floor about the stretcher and notice the staff all seem to get along well. The nurses ask about the ice machine, so he puts a call in down stairs to have someone come look at it. Just as he leaves the ice machine starts to get louder and the sound of metal grinding against metal becomes very apparent. One of the other nurses says it sounds like it's going to blow up and they call down to maintenance again. The young part time nurse seems very concerned and asks if they should shut it off until someone can look at it. The male nurse makes the executive decision to unplug it and staff and patients all sigh with relief that the ridiculous noise has stopped. I however instantly go back to being bored and feel my nerves acting up again.

I now turn my attention to the scrub nurses running to and fro. They are busy taking patients to their respective operating rooms, helping them to the bathroom with their IV bags, one scrub nurse has to grab juice and a cookie for her anesthesiologist. All the other nurses joke about ti, asking if she needed to do the anesthesiologist's job too, which gets them chuckling and seems to keep them in good spirits. A scrub nurse comes to take the guy who damaged his arm in the bed beside me away. You can tell she's used to pushing stretchers around these halls with ease. Even though we weren't talking to me I'm sad to be by myself in my little part of the waiting area. Silly thoughts slip through the corridors of my mind and with 20 minutes until my scheduled surgery time I realize how bored I am and how much the ice machine debacle kept me distracted. Before I know it though the scrub nurse is back joking that she should of just taken me too and we are off down the corridors. To my surprise she parks me right next to my old bed mate, places my chart beside my left ankle and says the surgical team will be there to talk to me soon.

So it's back to waiting in silence and boredom for something, anything to help me past the time. I look down at my chart and notice a sticky note stating the doctor needs to sign the consent form. 'That's really odd,' I think to myself, ' I know my surgical doctor signed my consent form.' I am now very curious about what is on my chart and what other information is in it for the doctors and nurses to read. I try to reach for it several times, damn I need to work on my core muscles, stronger abs and I would of had it in no time. Alas I am not meat to read my chart it seems, which is probably a good thing, considering a page goes out over the intercom asking my admittance nurse to come back to the pre-op desk.

I mean she could be being paged for any of her patients or any of the doctors asking her a question. It's not like the world revolves around you Jennifer dear. Then doesn't my scrub nurse reappear, "I'm sorry dear, I have you in the wrong spot. I should of checked your bracelet, this isn't your chart." I'm being whisked away to another operating room, while she explains the patient she mixed me up with was born in 1957 and that she had to page my admittance nurse to describe me because they all thought that I had run away. I giggle at her joke, because...broken ankle....run away, anyways you get it. She talks to me about how it's been a weird Monday and she almost called in sick. I appreciate the small conversation and the acknowledgement that she doesn't usually mix up patients. We get to Operating Room 3 and the scrub nurse has a hard time figuring out where to park me.

After maneuvering another stretcher out of the way, she settles on parking me beside the scrub sink and leaves me to await my actual surgical team. I'm now allowed to put my seasons of Grey's watching to work. Looking at all he scrub caps, surgical towels, face masks, gloves and one gigantic sink to wash up in. I notice most of nurses were opting for the sanitizer instead of good old fashioned soap and water. This slightly triggered me because as part of my bio-tech dreams I used to read up on articles about super bugs and how the sanitizer kills good bacteria too. So in essence we are becoming weaker as our immune systems do not know how to fight bacteria and viruses as we never get the chance to build up the antibodies, but I digress.

It's at this time another sticky notes catches my eye, this one is yellow and on the wall. I take a closer look at this note and notice it's attached to an intercom with a bunch of buttons on it. I've seen this before, this is the emergency intercom system that my lovely show Grey's would have you believe is in every hospital. This is what the doctors are supposed to use if I go into cardiac arrest (code blue), if the doctors have an emergency or if equipment is malfunctioning during a surgery. I gain this knowledge by reading all the pretty little buttons while I am waiting. And what pray tell, does the sticky note say, but disconnected due to system malfunctioning. Friday, September 6, by maintenance. So this piece of equipment that could get my surgical team more help in an emergency has been broken for months, thanks maintenance!

I don't have much time to dwell on it as the surgical team approaches and asks me the same questions three different times. The anesthesiologist informs me the surgery will be performed with me in prone position, so I'll be put under and then they will role me onto my stomach. Finally an hour and twenty minutes after my scheduled time, (which isn't bad for a surgery delay), I meet my surgical nurses and the surgeon comes in. They start the procedure and the anesthesiologist has the nurse put the gas mask on me. She tells me to take deep breaths and think of a happy place, I follow her instructions and try to relax staring at all the stainless steel and white tiles around the room. Out of nowhere I hear the anesthesiologist exclaim, "oh this is not working right!"

She was referring to the gas machine I was currently connected to. Luckily my surgical nurse seemed to know what to do and fixed it quickly. As the surgeon was going over the plan the other nurse says, "oh we are missing the number 7 plate for the right side of this kit."

The surgeon quickly replies, "it's ok we will use the 6 or 8 instead." I want to scream can any other little thing go wrong today, when a thought pops into my head, 'did she say they are going to roll me onto my stomach. Oh no! They are all going to see the cute emerald green panties I decided to wear, why didn't I go for something practical?'

At this time step one of the anesthesia is injected into my IV and I'm out like a light. I don't know how much time passed, but I finally come to as the last day surgery patient to wake up. Fibromyalgia, when I'm not feeling any pain I can sleep like the dead. I am assuming everything went well as the surgeon didn't come to give me any extra instructions. The last three nurses on duty really wanted to go home, so they kept giving me doses of the pain medication to get me to a level four, which left me really groggy, but I managed to get dressed and in the wheel chair. A pain medication prescription was given to my husband who called a cab to pick us up and then we had to deal with a grumpy nurse because it took a while for them to get there.

I didn't want to argue with anyone because you could tell they were all tired and frustrated, but I felt like bed side manner should be top notch until I was in the cab. I got home after picking up my prescription and didn't listen to the nurse's advice about eating light. I wanted tacos and tacos I would have. The poor hubby at least had the fore site to give me a bucket which taco number one and my first dose of medication ended up in. He wasn't happy having to clean that for me, but taco two and three stayed down, man was I ever determined to eat tacos. Then I watched an episode of You on Netflix, got a few more fluids into me and took the medication again. I was so tired I couldn't keep my eyes open, so I didn't fight it anymore and drifted off into much needed slumber. Needless to say from start to finish, add a little more excitement to my simple surgery and you'd swear it was a lost episode of Grey's Anatomy.