I don't know what fascinates me more about modern medicine -- the amazing ways they can fix you or the amazing ways they can get you to accept humiliation for a little buzz of relief. In the end, only
relief matteredI recently had a gallstone attack. A friend who is the mother of several children and who also had gallbladder trouble told me, "Now you know how much it hurts to give birth -- and then some."
Not long ago, I would have been looking at major surgery to remove the gallbladder. The surgeon would have had to cut me open and I would have had to stay in the hospital a week to 10 days and recuperate at home another six to 10 weeks.
But thanks to modern medicine, I was able to have the surgery done laparoscopically. The skillful surgeon made four tiny incisions in my abdomen -- one for a little camera to guide him and three for small instruments to remove the misbehaving organ. The gallbladder was out in an hour. I was out of the hospital in a day and back to work in a week. Amazing.
But before they could do the surgery that way, I needed another procedure to make sure no gallstones were still on the loose, which could have put the surgery beyond the capabilities of laparoscopy and required the surgeon to open me up conventionally.
The idea of the procedure was essentially to stick a hose down my throat into my stomach, find where the bile duct enters the stomach, shoot some dye into the duct and take a picture to see if a stone was lodged there. If they found a stone, they would make a small cut to enlarge the duct enough to allow the stone to pass.
I don't know what fascinates me more about
modern medicine -- the amazing ways they can
fix you or the amazing ways they can get you
to accept humiliation for a little buzz of relief.I wouldn't be under general anesthetic, but they promised to give me enough Demerol to make me "very comfortable." "It's probably not a very pleasant procedure," a nurse admitted. "The beauty of it is that you'll be so blitzed that you won't notice. If you do happen to notice, you won't care."
While I was waiting, they parked my gurney in the corridor across from the "endoscopy room." I noticed a long hose coiled on the wall.
They wheeled a guy about my age into the room and it soon became clear from what I was hearing through the wall that the long hose was going up his opposite end from where my procedure would take place. I counted my blessings.
FINALLY, they took me down to the x-ray room for my procedure. They asked me to lay awkwardly on my side and bite on an uncomfortable plastic mouthpiece to clear the way for the hose.
I saw them preparing the actual hose and was alarmed to see that it looked very much like the piece of equipment I had noticed earlier in the endoscopy room.
Then I remembered that my procedure was called an Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography (actually, I only remembered the endoscopic part). I began to obsess on the thought that they were possibly about to stick down my throat what previously had been stuck up somebody else's other end. An endoscope is an endoscope, right? I panicked when I realized I couldn't voice my concerns because of the mouthpiece.
Then the Demerol kicked in and I didn't care where the hose had been or where it was going. Amazing.
David Shapiro is managing editor of the Star-Bulletin.
He can be reached by e-mail at editor@starbulletin.com.
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