Five years ago -- the day arrives

It was Wednesday, April 4, 2007. And I was up early. It was time to get up close and personal with neurosurgery.

We arrived at United Hospital around 6 in the morning and checked in. Although I'd been there just a few days before, we needed to pull out the insurance card and fill out more forms. Always, always, there are more forms.

The days prior to the surgery had been weird. Even though I knew that I wouldn't really be able to pursue any job leads, I'd still made my way over to the Minnesota Job Force Center for a little while each day. Although I wouldn't be able to work for a while, I still needed to find some money, because there were going to be a lot of bills to pay. But now, on a cool, somewhat clammy morning, none of that seemed to matter so much.

We made our way to the surgical ward and found ourselves in a pre-op room. The surgery was scheduled for mid-morning and periodically people would come and go from the room. First a nurse, then another. Then the nurse anesthesiologist, then the anesthesiologist himself.

Next came the otolarynologist, who explained what would happen. After I was put under, he would begin the surgery by making an incision in the roof of my mouth. He would then do a little excavation work in my sinuses, providing the neurosurgeon a clean path to my pitiutary gland.

I was paying attention, but my mind tends to wander down strange alleys when something stressful is coming. There's always a soundtrack in my brain, with random songs popping into it. My brain is full of earworms. In fact, on more than one occasion before the surgery, someone in the family would jokingly suggest that while the neurosurgeon was in my skull, he might want to consider removing some music trivia or ball scores from 1974.

As the otolarynologist was explaining what would happen, a song popped into my head, an oldie from the 60s:

I've been trying to get you for a long time
'Cause constantly, you've been on my mind
I was thinkin' about a short cut that I could take
But it seems like I made a mistake

Yep, of all things, "Expressway to Your Heart" had popped into my head.

It's much too crowded (too crowded)
No, it's much to crowded (too crowded)

But it wasn't anyone's heart that was too crowded. It was my brain. So much to worry about. So much history. Heck, I'm still young and my kids are very young. I could hear what the cavalcade of doctors had been telling me, but the worst-case scenario, wrapped in vintage 60s blue-eyed soul, was there, honking in my brain like the car horns that resound through the song.

A short time later, the neurosurgeon came in. He told Mrs. D and I that he was just about ready to begin the surgery. It would be a complicated surgery and they needed to bring in a lot of medical equipment, including monitors and computers galore. He said he needed to review my medical record one last time to make sure there wasn't anything that might pose a problem. The files from the clinic had arrived and he would be reviewing them, then it would be time.

Shortly thereafter, the neurosurgeon returned. He had a concerned look on his face. He asked me a question:  did I recall getting a chest x-ray a few years back?

I didn't. And now I was wondering why he was asking me that. He told me, in a way that was both straightforward and a little chilling.

"The clinic took a chest x-ray as part of an exam a number of years ago. There is a spot on the x-ray. I need to find out what that is. If it is cancer, I'm not going to perform the surgery. I don't want to get you on the table and find out you aren't going to be able to handle the surgery."

Holy shit. I had no idea. I didn't remember any of this. There hadn't been any followups, so if I had had a conversation about the x-ray in the distant past, I didn't remember it.

I looked at Mrs. D. She was scared. She had been an absolute rock throughout the past week and had managed to keep the family moving forward, getting the kids to school and taking me where I needed to go. But we hadn't seen this coming.

I tried to put a brave face on. "Well, if this were something serious, I would have known about it, right?" I asked.

"You would think so, but I don't know," she replied.

We didn't know. Maybe it was nothing. Or maybe it was something and the clinic hadn't tumbled to it. I had no way of knowing. While I was grateful that the neurosurgeon paid this much attention to the tiniest details, his explanation was no comfort to me at all.

The scheduled time of the surgery passed. We waited. By now it was past noon. I was hungry and scared. Can't eat anything, of course, because if the surgery does take place I need to be ready. The random parade of nurses and aides continued, but not quite as frequently as before. And we waited, fearing that whatever problem I had with my pituitary tumor, there might be something worse.

By the time we got to the middle of the afternoon, the neurosurgeon returned. He had found the answer.

"We are going to go ahead with the surgery. I finally got the answer. The spot that we saw on the x-ray is a calcium deposit. It's not a tumor and it's not cancerous. You should be fine. We'll begin preparations again and you'll be going in soon."

I looked at my wife. For the first time in quite a long time, she was smiling, but only a little. We held hands. A few minutes later, the nurse anesthesiologist returned and gave me some medication in my i.v. tube. "This will start to put you to sleep," she said. "When you wake up, you'll be out of surgery and in post-op. Then we'll take you to the intensive care unit."

For the first time in quite a long time, I also mustered a smile. My wife gave me a kiss. We told each other, "I love you," as we had every day for many years. And then I closed my eyes.

Next: the fog of ICU and a half-ton of gauze up my nose.