Letting Go

Chapter 4

Of course Dr Jones thought I was soundly asleep when he said, "you may flip her over Barbara, and Mary can you please get me the entire cart."
All of a sudden, I felt tingly around my hips. And sure enough she was flipping me over so he could work on my spine. I cannot explain how scared I am at this very moment. I could not wait any longer, I just wanted him to start so I would be done sooner. Finally, I felt a weird tool ripping my back and to make matters worse I could hear it ripping. Now I couldn't feel a lot but I could still feel pain that was rushing through my body. Then he said to Mary, "will you please hand me the rod for the left side of the vertebrae."
Now I felt traumatized from all that I have heard, felt, and seen. Next, my teeth crunched down because of all the pain. I knew right then that he was putting in the rods. Then of course the doctor has more orders so he says to Barbara, "Barb will you please flip her over."
Now I was really confused. Why would he need to flip me over? But before I could think long about it, the door swung open. A group of young doctors walked in when one of them states,
"Sorry to bother you Dr. Jones but Dr. Larson had to cancel her surgery that we were supposed to watch, so she said we could watch yours since she's a partner of yours."
"That's totally fine! Come on in,"
says Dr. Jones. Now I was really getting frustrated. Of all the days to watch a surgery it has to be the one that had the patient awake! I was ready to get off the table and scream at all of them, but of course I probably wouldn't even be able to get off the table. So I just sat there quietly and pretended like everything was alright. Finally, he started to explain to the young doctors what was going on. In this case it helped me understand what was actually happening. I don't know if that was a good or bad thing. Barb finally laid me back down onto the table. Dr. Jones started to explain what he was going to do next, "make sure you are ready to take notes. Now, Lizzy has a severe scoliosis curve in the center of her back. It is so severe that you can only do some of the operation right on her spine. You see her hip right now? Well, I'm going to start my incision right here." He then takes out same tool that he used to cut open my back and starts to cut my hip open. Then Dr. Jones says, "I am going through her hip because her curve is so severe that I can't reach part of her spine from going through the back. It will be a lot easier to go through the front, but what can you do?" He then laughs. I was tired of this nonsense that I tried to fall asleep, but it was no use. Dr. Jones looks at his watch and instantly says, "She should be waking up in a few hours we better put in the screws and stitch her back up!"
I'm not really sure what happened next because this was the only thing I didn't feel. Dr. Jones then started to speak,
"That is it. I hope you have learned a lot after watching me operate on Ms. Hilton's back"
One of the students then asked,
"Aren't you going to give her something to decrease the pain after she wakes off?"
"Why of course," Dr. Jones replies.
At that moment he inserted many shots into my back and gave me more fluids into my IV. My eyelids fell right away.