I Was Fine Until They Started Putting in the Stitches

I went in almost an hour early for my appointment at St. Paul’s Hospital downtown this afternoon. I thought I might have time to drop my modem off at the Shaw office before or after the surgery. As the bus arrived at St. Paul’s I decided to get off and scope out the hospital, never having been there before. I figured maybe if I arrived early, the surgery would happen sooner, and thus I’d get out of there sooner.

Well it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a hospital, except when trying to take shortcuts through VGH which seems to be a lot different from St. Paul’s. There were a lot of old and decrepit people there, just like the scene in Star Trek IV when Bones gives the dialisis lady pills that make her liver grow back. In fact at one point I was seated next to a bunch of scrubs and I was tempted to dress up in them and start walking around giving patients advice and maybe doing some surgery myself.

Luckily I had brought some Doom Patrol and Tom Strong comics so that I had something to do while I waited. It wasn’t too long really before my doctor showed up and I was put into the room with him and two nurses and an intern. I was keen to watch the whole process as I had just re-watched No Country for Old Men last night and I was reasonably sure I could take it. The nurse cleaned off my foot and the intern or medical student or whatever she was injected me with local anaesthetic. The pain of the needle entering the skin is never as painful as the juice being forced into the flesh. Because of the location of the mole they had to inject me a little on the side of the toe. I put that in just for De, but I don’t know if she’s made it this far into the description as she’s a bit of a queasy one, that girl. I then watched the doctor dig in with his scalpel and cut around the edges of the mole, sawing gingerly back and forth, but his finger was in the way so I didn’t quite have a ringside seat. The final strand of flesh was cut and he put the mole on the table and immediately started sewing me up with one of those special curved suture deals. That’s when I started to feel really hot (I was overdressed but the doctor said, “he’s starting to faint, it’s not hot in hear), and I had to lie back. I felt nauseous but not enough to throw up. They kept my mind busy with chatting and in general the mood in the room was quite light as I am prone to making cybernetic laser toe jokes in the best of situations.

The next time I looked the foot had been all bandaged up. I was planning on doing some other errands in the afternoon but it became clear from my doctor’s advice and also from how sketchy my walking had become that I needed to go home and quite literally put my feet up. The anaesthetic is wearing off as I write this. I took some pre-surgery photos of my toe but as with all my photos they were all terrible. Nevertheless I know you’re all interested so I’ll take more as the drama and the bandages unfold.