Category Archives: Ann’s Update

Dear People Here, There and Everywhere,

Continuing the story of next week’s skin-graft surgery: As I told you last time, they (the Medical They) were wanting to do the procedure next Wednesday, but it turned out they couldn’t get a reservation at the hospital (I assume all the surgical rooms were filled, or something), so the new date is Tuesday, the 28th of December, at around 10 a.m. Sasha will go into the hospital the night before — Monday evening, the 27th — timing his arrival to avoid the nurse’s shift change, which happens at 7 p.m. Which means we’ll get him there around 8 p.m., when the nurses are fresh and relatively non-grumpy. This state of being is always helpful when one is a new patient (also fresh and non-grumpy). Especially when the patient (in this case, Sasha Shulgin, in case you’re losing track ) has a tendency to correct people’s English grammar, as well as to create puns of widely varying degrees of acceptability. The English grammar thing is invariably the same mistake, no matter what or where the hospital, and Sasha can always depend on a nurse, or orderly, or — for that matter — a doctor, to make that mistake: “Why don’t you just lay back and relax, Doctor Shulgin (or Sasha),” or some version of the same thing. Sasha’s response is instant and enthusiastic, “LIE, not LAY!” Almost always, this exchange takes place in a hallway, with Sasha on a moving gurney, surrounded by cheerful escapees from English 101. Being fresh and presumably well-slept, these angels of mercy always thank him for correcting their error, while I do my part, lifting my voice just enough to be heard by The Professor on his fast-moving gurney, “One of these days, Sasha, you’ll correct the Wrong Person, and then, you’ll be S-o-r-r-y!!!!” What I should say, of course, is “Next time, My Boy, wait until AFTER THE SURGERY before you insult the surgeon or the surgeon’s girlfriend.”

Oh, well. (Sigh.)

The skin-graft is not guaranteed to take, unfortunately, but we hope and cross all available fingers and toes. All I know is that They will position his left leg in the air, or at least higher than his heart. This position will be held by the left leg for most of six days. Since elevating that leg under normal circumstances always causes Sasha extreme pain, the surgeon plans to do some kind of temporary nerve-block, as well as giving him interesting amounts of I.V. Dilaudid (or Dilauded? Deluded? Never mind.) This plan helps alleviate my considerable panic at the thought of what might otherwise happen. All of these medical procedures seem to be a constant battle between the rocks and hard places, an unending effort to keep the patient steady on his high-wire — particularly when the patient is an older human, beset by several quite different physical problems all at once. What may require a thinning of the blood (trying to avoid a stroke) may work directly against a tendency to intestinal bleeding — et and also cetera. And to think I actually spent several decades wishing I’d become a doctor! Holy Smokes, Batman!

What will happen when Sasha leaves the hospital, none of us know(s). We’ll cross that whatsit when we come to it.

That’s it for tonight, my friends. Stay safe, have a really happy holiday, and sleep late. Ann