The anesthetist told us she would be out for a couple hours. Having been to the hospital with Loo in the past I knew her to be resistant to local anesthetics, narcotics and other medicine. Vicodin has no effect, local anesthetics do not work, Novocain might as well be water. I felt like it was my duty to tell the anesthetist about this.
"I don't know if it is relevant to you or not," I said to the anesthetist, "but, she is highly resistant to anesthesia and narcotics."
The anesthetist, an older, wiry, tall man in surgical greens looked at me in a way that made me feel stupid. It was a look I might have given customers at the tire store that told me to simply bolt the spare tire onto their mid 90's corvette after the news that their tire was no good and not safe to repair. (90's corvettes and newer do not have spare tires, relying instead on run-flat tires)
The anesthetist said, "She will be under general," as if that obviously cleared everything up.
"Kay," I said. He smiled, it looked forced to me, and he walked out.
The surgeon entered the room next. She was an attractive young woman with mascara, brown hair and fair skin, straight teeth and a big smile. She asked the question we had all anticipated.
"Do you have any questions for me?" she asked. I should have said earlier that the room was occupied by Loo, her mom and myself plus the surgeon. For whatever reason Ma dislikes and distrusts our baby dinosaur Bup (a one year old Savannah Monitor) and she got it into her head that Bup would be dangerous to Loo during recovery. Something about reptile to human germ transfer.
"I have a question about pets during her recovery," Ma said.
"That has nothing to do with this," said the surgeon, "but go ahead."
"She has a monitor lizard," Ma said.
"Yeah?" said the surgeon. she seemed to search for the relevance.
"Isn't it unsafe for her to recover around that?" Ma said while nodding.
"No. Not at all. Reptiles are very clean and have few germs that are transferable to humans. Dogs are the ones to look out for. Dogs lick their wounds, and a dog will smell her wound and try to lick her to make her better. Dogs have fewer germs in their mouths than we do, but they are bad, bad guys you do not want in your mouth. So no dog kisses."
"But a lizard is bad, right?" Ma asked nodding her head.
"No," the surgeon said shaking her head, "Lizards are fine."
"See," Loo said.
"Ok," Ma said.
"But," said the surgeon, "Good question, that is an exotic pet. It's good to make sure." I agree with that, even when the sixth or seventh doctor says it, as it comes up every time it can. After that the surgeon had some information about recovery.
"Right after surgery you should go to wendy's and get a frosty and fries for her. Dip the hot salty fries into the frosty and eat it. Doctor's orders."
I think we all thought she was kidding. She continued on. "Seriously, the salt is good at killing germs, and helps hold onto water, which you will be drinking, a gallon a day," she said pointing at Loo, "And for the nerves, the temperature signal takes precedent over the pain signal. The hot and cold occupy the nerve so that it has no room for pain. So fries dipped in chocolate. Doctors orders."
They came and took her then. I prepared to wait a long time. I had my computer and my books and looked forward to catching up on some reading and writing.
Nine minutes from when they rolled her away the surgeon told us the surgery was a success and Loo was in recovery.
We prepared for the two hour wait. I got settled into the waiting room sofa chair. I mean really hunkered down. It wasn't 5 minutes later that we were told she was ready to go. I packed everything back in and walked back there.
Loo was sitting upright eating sherbet. As I walked in she waved at me. She gave no indication of feeling dopey or drugged. She had to take an IV bag of fluids before she could go. All the nurses and people were very surprised Loo was awake and ready to go so quickly. I repressed the "I told you so," I wanted to tell everyone.
She walked into the family van, and we went to Wendy's for fries and a frosty. It was surprisingly tasty.
"I feel fine," Loo said, "I think this is going to be good and easy." She pointed to her frosty dipped fries, "I could get use to this."
"doctors orders," I said. I was relieved she was healing so well. They said the pain would be bad for ten days. Day one at this point was no sweat.
2 comments:
Wow, lovely animal! so you decided to name her Bup (her or him? Sorry can't remember whether you stated the sex).
How are you able to remember so much of the conversations you have, or what you hear? Very impressive.
I would like to know more about your baby.
His name, after much deliberation, is Bup. We couldn't come up with anything. I was throwing a lot out there during the name game back when he was less than 10 inches long and less than a pound. I suggested gods, volcanoes, mythic monsters, dragons, heroes and Latin words. Reptiles to me have this timeless dinosaur quality, and I wanted a name that reflected that. We couldn't agree on anything though. Loo's brother started calling him Buppy, and we said we would use that as a placeholder until we came up with a good name. Loo said, "What a good Bup" once when she picked him up and he didn't hiss, bite or scratch. And we knew it was his name. He is a good boy.
I don't quite know how I remember the conversations so precisely. I do know that if I had a superhuman ability it would be memory, but not in the way you might think. I do not remember everything, rather I remember the things I want, or the things I decide are important, a completely arbitrary thing. I can recall, with impressive detail involving all my five senses, certain things. But not useful stuff like the dates car registration are due, or what I promised Loo I would cook for dinner a couple nights ago. But the time I walked up the biggest pyramid in Chichen Itza with my brother and looked out over the jungle in every direction I can tell you what we talked about, what clothes he wore, what he said, what I said and etc.
I will tell you more about Bup in a future post. Thanks!
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