⇦Previous Event
Before I woke up, my parents were in my hospital room. The hospital machine was already working, quickly preparing me for the operating room. I was on a forced fast, but nervousness kept me from dwelling on the hunger in my stomach. Maybe the blessing from the night before helped me stay calm. Maybe my parent’s prayers helped me stay calm. Certainly the Valium shot into my thigh with a stinging prick helped me stay calm.
My parents stayed in my room, but Dr. Sundwall walked along beside me as I lay on a gurney being rolled towards the surgery. In the elevator Dr. Sundwall delivered a monologue of small talk, trying to keep me from getting nervous. Looking at him I was no longer shocked by the beard, but drawn to the intense compassion in his eyes. In contrast to the soothing presence of Dr. Sundwall was a couple sharing the elevator with us. I sensed my pathetic state by the way they repeatedly glanced at me and then quickly looked away when I looked back at them.
Dr. Sundwall left me at the entrance to the operating suite. “Brian, everything is going to be OK,” he said as he squeezed my arm.
Wheeled into the operating room by the orderly, I was struck by the room’s coldness. “Good morning, Brian,” Dr. Middleton greeted me, leaning over my gurney. “We’re getting everything set up here. I’m going to hand you over to Dr. Avery who’s going to take care of you during the surgery.”
With that comforting greeting, Dr. Middleton went off, and the orderlies proceeded to move me from the gurney to the operating table. A constant flow of people purposefully swirled around me.
“I’m going to put this mask on you now. The gas is going to taste like chocolate. Just breath in and relax.”
I breathed, looking the anesthesiologist in the eyes, clinging to this human connection as everything around me—the sounds, the sights, the cold—faded away.
My parents had not been told that my pre-operative diagnosis was a Wilms’ tumor; it would not have meant anything to them if that name had been used. They did sense, however, that my condition was serious and were expecting a protracted surgery, perhaps five to six hours, according to a nurse who was filling in details for the tight-lipped surgeons. They soon left my hospital room for the surgical waiting room, where the greater comfort of the chairs and sofas was offset by the amplification of their anxiety by the worries of the other waiting people. My father, in particular, was having a hard time coping, and fidgeted in his seat, his mind racing without anything being able to calm him.
“Earl, you really should get a blessing,” my mother told him, repeating the advice she had given him several times since I had first seen Dr. Sundwall.
“Well, it’s too late for that now,” my dad retorted with irritation as he popped out of his chair. “I can’t wait here for hours doing nothing. I’m going to go home and replace the alternator on the car.”
My mother didn’t oppose this. She felt reasonably calm and didn’t feel she needed my anxious dad for support. As he walked out he turned to my mother. “Barbara, I’ll be back before the surgery is over.”
So while I was splayed, unconscious and paralyzed on the operating table, and my dad was hunched over our Galaxy 500 disassembling the parts so as to remove the old alternator, my mother sat alone in the waiting room, an unengaging novel in her purse, with only the walls and chairs to keep her company.
Surgery
My mother was shocked when several hours before he was expected, Dr. Middleton walked into the waiting room. My mother could immediately sense a difference in Dr. Middleton, a relief that expressed itself in an increased openness and communicativeness.
“Mrs. Chapman, the surgery went much better than expected. Contrary to what the radiology exam on Monday had indicated, the tumor was completely contained within the kidney and not at all involved with the large vessels, so the vascular surgeon wasn’t needed, and the surgery went much quicker than we had planned.
“You know, I tried not to show how concerned I was about Brian. Usually, when there is blood in the urine it is too late to successfully treat the tumor. Considering how hard it was to feel or see that tumor, it was really fortuitous that Brian started passing blood so that we found the tumor before it got any more advanced. Really fortunate!
“It looks like the tumor in Brian’s kidney was what is known as a Wilms’ tumor. Of course, we can’t say that definitively until we get the report back from the pathologist. But in the meantime we’ve started Brian on the standard chemotherapies. We’ve contacted the pediatric oncology team who will take over Brian’s care.”
“Oh, that is great news, Dr. Middleton. When will Brian be back to his room?” my mother asked, trying to control her exuberance.
“An hour or so, but he’ll probably be groggy for quite a while.”
After Dr. Middleton left, my mother found a pay phone and called home. My dad had strung a phone line out from the kitchen to our garage, so he could hear the phone in case my mother unexpectedly called before he made it back to the hospital. Picking up the phone, he was startled to hear my mother, and assumed with this early of a call the news must be bad.
“Earl, the surgery went well. The cancer wasn’t as advanced as they had feared, so Brian is already in recovery.”