Wednesday, Oct. 11 – just another beautiful October day, somewhat diminished by the prospect of Thursday’s plastic surgery to rebuild my nose after the removal of some cancerous spots. I’d already had a little chopping, but this was the real thing: general anesthesia, lots of tiny stitches and a few days of discomfort. No big deal, really – as you age and see your contemporaries experience multiple illnesses, you soon find out that your tired old body will also need occasional repairs.
I wasn’t worried, especially because my spouse Karen is a dynamic, multitasking, utterly competent and bizarrely healthy woman. She serves on multiple boards, publishes our yearly visitor mag Colorado Fun Guide, sells advertising for the Bulletin and the Independent, and takes on other gigs that might make us a little more solvent. And given that we have three rambunctious young dogs (a three-year-old Chesapeake, a two-year-old Aussidoodle and an eight-month-old Bernedoodle) and live in a rambling, maintenance-intensive 1899 Westside house, we need the dough. Veterinarians, plumbing and heating contractors, carpenters, handymen; we keep spending and the house keeps decaying.
As usual, I went to bed at 9 p.m., planning to get up at 5:30 or so and resign myself to no food and no fluids until after the operation. At 5 a.m. the phone rang. It was our friend and neighbor Yvonne. Wtf!? I answered.
“Karen called me last night and said she had horrible back and stomach pain and needed to go to the emergency room,” Yvonne explained. “You had taken a Zolpidem to sleep, and she knew you couldn’t drive, so we went to Penrose downtown. I stayed with her until just now; she was admitted to the hospital and will have to have gallstones removed today. I know you have your operation today, so you’ll have to get yourself to the surgical center. I’d help but I’m totally knocked out.”
Karen? Sick at the hospital? It seemed impossible, but I had to get going. Surgery was scheduled for 10 a.m., so I called another superbly competent woman – my daughter, a Manitou Springs resident. She dragooned her friend Sarah into helping and drove me to the Audubon Surgery Center in plenty of time. The staff prepped me and Dr. Thomas Dalsaso came by to assure me that everything would go smoothly. I knew him, and we have many friends in common – so we talked about the Broncos.
“We’ve got tickets for the San Diego game,” he said. “It’s a home game and we should win, but they’re a good team.”
I worried a little. After all, the Chargers left San Diego years ago and are now the Los Angeles Chargers. But, so what – you want your surgeon to focus on surgery, not on the vagaries of the NFL.
Wheeled into the operating room, anesthesia applied, operation accomplished and returned to a curtained cubicle – it’s a familiar ritual for most geezers. Looking in a mirror, my discolored and swollen nose was wrapped in a couple dozen tiny stitches, already gleaming with antibiotic ointment.
And while I was under the knife, Karen had a procedure under anesthesia to take a gallstone out of the bile duct and put a stent in the pancreas. It looks as if gallbladder surgery is the next step, but happily it’s not as dire and painful as removing the gallstones.
My daughter took me home, dealt with the dogs, ordered out Thai food and stayed the night, and Karen came home the following afternoon.
It all seemed like a fever dream, but here we were back in our rickety old house, reunited with our lively dogs and deeply grateful to our family, friends and community.
“You’re getting better every day, and you’re actually lucky,” Karen said. “I can see that all those stitches have actually tightened your face, so think of it as cosmetic surgery. No more cancer, no more worries and maybe we can go on a trip for your birthday (Nov. 5).”
Meanwhile, Karen is heading for Louisville to visit her sons and grandchildren, while I stay at home with the dogs, happily aware of the kind and loving community that was there for us in those strange days. Thanks, everybody!!
