Surgery

As I led her into the operating room holding her IV fluids and trying to reassure her that everything would be fine, I thought to myself, "This can't be happening."

Monday was my first day working on my own in the operating room, and though I was nervous, I was thoroughly enjoying myself. I had mostly been running anesthesia-- giving drugs for sedation, taking vital signs, and fetching things as they were needed-- but Dr. Bond had also let me scrub in and assist for one surgery.

That night however, I was more nervous and tense than I had been all day long. This surgery was different: we were operating on Ansley, one of our fellow SMs. She had been having stomach pain for the last three days, and Dr. Bond thought all along that she had appendicitis, but waited for surgery because neither Ansley nor Dr. Bond wanted to do needless surgery. But finally, Monday night, he decided that the waiting had to end and operation was necessary.

I helped to prep Ansley for surgery, all the while feeling like it was a horrible dream that we would all wake up from any moment. Although, my feelings were no comparison for the thoughts and feelings running through Ansley's mind.

We got her sedated, and Dr. Bond began with many prayers before and during surgery. I was very glad to be doing anesthesia because it put me right by the head of the operating table where I was free to hold Ansley's hand and let her know I was there. As Dr. Bond worked, we could feel the tension through the silence. He successfully found and took out her very inflamed appendix with no problems. I was so thankful for how smoothly the surgery went.

While the whole surgery was rather intense and surreal, there was a little bit of humor as well as a large amount of blessings. First the humor...

One of the drugs I gave Ansley for sedation is something called ketamine. Ketamine is known for its strong side effects; many people on ketamine will say things that they would never say on a normal basis (sometimes bad words, sometimes they talk bad or tell secrets about people they know, etc.), or do crazy things like burst into song at the top of their lungs. It's really rather unpredictable what will happen to a patient on ketamine. Needless to say, Ansley was rather worried about what she might say or do while on ketamine, especially with so many of her close friends in the OR (Dr. Bond, Emily, Jason, and I were there along with a Chadian nurse).

Ansley did really well on ketamine, and was actually pretty silent for the majority of the surgery. However, toward the very end, she began to speak. Once or twice she said my name, mostly because before she went under she knew I was there and had made me promise not to leave. But one of the first things she said was, "Finis ici?" (French for, finished here?). We were all a little surprised that she spoke in French.

"What did she say?" Dr. Bond asked in surprise. I laughed and told him that she was speaking in French.

Once we were finished and were cleaning her up to take her out of the OR, she asked me (in rather slurred speech), "Was my appendix good? Or was it bad?" I reassured her that it was bad and that the surgery had been necessary.

Not two minutes later she said, "C'est bon, ou c'est mauvais?" (French for, is it good or is it bad?" referring again to her appendix. I kind of laughed and said, "It was bad, it needed to come out."

She must have asked me at least 20 times whether or not the appendix had been bad, because before going into surgery one of her biggest fears was that the surgery would be for nothing, that her appendix wasn't really the problem.

What was even funnier than her repeatedly asking was the fact that as she came more and more out of the sedation, she would say, "I'm sorry, I think I've asked you that before." And at one point, Dr. Bond was teasing her a little bit and speaking to her in French a little, to which she replied, "Dr. Bond, don't make fun of me, I'm on ketamine." Which of course made us all choke back laughter for fear of inciting anger.

Now for the huge amount of blessings involved in the whole deal. First of all, we were so blessed to have an actual board certified surgeon here to perform the surgery. On top of that, one of the nurses who happened to be working the night shift was Simeon, one of the OR room nurses. Beyond that, Monday had been my first day in the OR by myself. Previously, I had worked with Ansley in the OR as she was training me in to do anesthesia. If I hadn't spent that day in the OR, I would have been no help at all when Ansley needed surgery, and we would have had to call in someone else to do anesthesia. In addition, Ansley's very angry appendix was still very much un-ruptured, her oxygen saturation never went below 95%, and there were absolutely no problems through the whole surgery.

God is ever faithful.