Major Medical

This column, That Nature Show, is about the nature right under your nose: in our backyards, playgrounds and parks!  Stop and look around, you’ll be amazed at what surrounds you.

Husb. needed to have a head and lower extremities CT scan in preparation for a MAJOR surgery to remove an ameloblastoma from his jaw, in which over the course of TEN hours at the end of March TWO TEAMS of SPECIALTY surgeons (caps, mine) will replace the excised tumorous jaw bone with good bone HARVESTED from his fibula. The purpose of today’s visit is to decide which fibula looks more “graftable.”

I overheard the front office girls talking about getting bacon wraps for lunch and thought, Oh, girls, the distance between a bacon wrap and an autograft is slim.

I said out loud, “Go to Sofi’s Crepes.” They looked at me like, The patient’s emergency contact speaks?  I said, “Nutella, baby.”

When I heard the word “harvest” I locked eyes with Husb. who was pale in a paper dressing gown, and tried to convey with my mother dove look that Everything Would Be Alright. Call me Major Medical. I have some experience with illness.

I said to Husb.’s surgeon, “You are ‘in network’ with our insurance, right? Because after we meet our ‘deductible’ our ‘UHC PCP’ only pays ‘80% of the total cost’ of the ‘procedure.’ And that doesn’t include the hospital time.” How much do you charge for one stitch?

I want this whole thing itemized. So I can laugh all the way to a Costa Rican beach where I will live out my days weaving baskets because we won’t be able to afford to retire in the States; there will be hundreds of stitches.

Surg. told Husb. he will be in the hospital for A WEEK and he’ll need a feeding tube at first. He will feel — “like he’s been hit by a truck.” #bedsidemannerfail #thoughIappreciatetherefresthinghonesty

Husb. will be on a liquid diet for six weeks. He will need a visiting nurse, and PT to begin to chew again, and more PT to walk again on the bone grafted leg. Because the mood in the room needed to be lightened, I whispered in his ear, “Champagne’s a liquid.” “We’re going to celebrate you getting well.” The prognosis is good. These tumors don’t come back.