Day 16: Outpatient Surgery Center

Leah and I slept through to our alarms the night before the egg extraction. At least, I know I did. Leah said that she slept well. Leah's mother Sandy came up from Tucson Sunday for the procedure. The day before, Leah and I went and got a puzzle for them to work on together: the poster for Breakfast at Tiffany's in one thousand random pieces.

Leah dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of workout pants as well as a pair of sneakers. I'd packed by bag the night before and laid out a pair of running shorts and a sleeveless running tee. Leah didn't have anything for breakfast, and I had the last of our milk to go along with a bowl of Honey Nut Kix that Leah tried and gave up on after two bowls.

I drove the three of us to the Center right on schedulue. We pulled up at the back entrance at 7:10 am. Sandy sat between Leah and I in the waiting room. Eventually an older, squat nurse came out to bring us in to the prep room. She's at least ten years older than any of the nurses at FTC, which makes me think that she was hired for her easy smile and matronly appearance.

The brought us into the first room in the building that I've seen with any real self-awareness. The room's softly lit with the kind of halogen track lighting Leah's admired at Ikea. Three chairs were on walls opposite of the door, and the nurse seated Leah closest to one of those machines that tracks the patient's heartbeat and blood pressure and beeps ominously. Sandy sat closest to Leah and I was seated all the way across the room. Behind Leah on the wall hung a triptych of photographs of blooming sunflowers. Their pistils and stamens were outstretched and welcoming, which seemed about right for the room.

Leah shares my low blood pressure, or she could have been dehydrated from her eight-hour fast. Her heart rate was in the mid-80s, which I think was impressive considering the stress she must have been under. After unwrapping the blood pressure cuff and unclipping Leah's finger from the machine, she tapped the backs of Leah's hands to bring a vein to the surface. She looks at both of her hands before streching Leah's arm to look inside the crook of her elbow. The nurse said that her veins look a little abused.

Leah signed whatever paperwork was placed in front of her without really reading it. One of the releases was an understanding that our doctor had a financial stake in the surgery center, which makes me more nervous now than it did then. The nurse took Leah's medical history, which was all well and good until they reached the part where they asked her what medications she is currently taking. Everyone in the room took a deep breath before Leah ran off the list: Follistim, Ganerilix, Menopur, Synthroid, doxycycline, cabergoline, liquid Vitamin D drops, her daily multivitamin, and folic acid. There wasn't a line on the nurse's chart for the synthroid. She ended up recording it on a margin.

After the nurse lead Leah into the changing room and handed her the surgical gown through a crack in the door, reminding her to leave the back open, she lead me into my own room to provide my part of the equation. As I worked, I tried to remember the last time I had performed so early in the morning. Everything went well. I put my specimen in the little nook where such things go and left the room.

They said that the procedure would take two hours. I have little interest in spending two hours alone with my mother-in-law in a waiting room while my wife/her daughter gets her eggs plucked from her ovaries with (presumably) some kind of catheter. I've never actually seen a patient under anesthesia in real life before--only on shows like House and E.R. For a moment, I indulged myself in the idea that Leah might look like the way that vets work with dogs under anesthesia. I imagined her mouth held open and her tongue fastened with a clip we use to close bags of potato chips. Then I slung my bag over my shoulder and slipped out the back door and to the car.

There was a moment when I wondered what I would do if something bad happened and I wasn't there. I'm am the type that's prone to panic, though. When someone at my dorm freshman year split his thumb open with the top of a can, I nearly hyperventiliated. There was no good that could come from sitting in that waiting room.

So I went to the gym and ran mindlessly for an hour. Happy and exhausted and ripe, I returned to the Outpatient Surgery Center three minutes before the nurse brought Sandy and I back to the recovery room.

Leah does not do drugs, and never has. But she was high when we came into the recovery room. She still had her surgical booties on and a blissful smile on her face when she saw us. She looked exhausted but happy. While Leah became herself, a different nurse pulled me aside and gave me the instructions for Leah's recovery that day. She was to lay on the couch and have a minimum of activity. She was supposed to drink lots of high-sodium fluids, like flat Coke or Gatorade or V-8. She should feel better the next morning. They gave me a prescription for Darvocet that never even got opened.

About 30 minutes after Sandy and I were lead in, they rolled Leah's wheelchair out to our car and we headed home--her to her puzzle and I to the recovery of my wife.