CANCER SURGERY

Ronald Tobey

I park my Tacoma crew cab pickup You drive our truck
my black lab in the back seat 270 miles one tank of gas
sniffs the warm roasted salmon to metropolis medical campus
lightly sprayed with olive oil a religious university private hospital.
flavored with lemon and capers I withdraw into numbness.
on a white plastic dinner plate We pass through miles of forest and fields
wrapped under aluminum foil skirting farms villages national parks
perched on the seat beside me rest stop at Sheetz
by the curb of the drop-off portico seldom converse
of the hospital’s darkened surgery wing emotional tunnels.
waiting for you to emerge
to smile to claim your night shift meal.

Some person shuffles by GPS maps route to a recommended hotel
fifty yards away next to a strip mall of franchise stores
pushes an empty grocery cart restaurant bakery pharmacy
among the row of hospital outbuildings with no access sidewalk.
single-wide trailers without windows The inn offers complimentary coffee
filled with local servers and data storage    and breakfast sausage biscuits and eggs.
stacked in grounded metal shelving   Too late for us.
alive with red and blue LED illumination.    I’m fasting pre-surgery.

The world revolve like ancient

women

Gathering fuel in vacant lots

Adjacent the crowded ER Day begins 4 AM
A box ambulance painted orange and black bathing in the shower
lights flashing red arrives washing with antibiotic soap
Rear door is flung open that makes my skin itch
Two elderly women wrapped in winter coats hospital lobby registration
kerchiefs boots gloves at 5
a girl and a lean young woman a hundred patients' families
in black skinny jeans stylish sneakers helpers
hoodies mask their faces printed forms check-in lists
slip along brick and concrete walls electronic notification tablets
shadows identification of driver's licenses
follow the paramedics, proof of insurance
they push the dolly with wheeled folding legs cushioned plastic bucket seats and benches

the patient strapped down Few talk

curt last-minute checks

heart attack / stroke / logging complain about the parking garage

accident / drug overdose / vehicle expansion under construction

crash / suicide attempt? maze of rising declining ramps

yellow stripes guide-paths

heads nod low eyes averting arrows pointing contradictory directions
enter the neon light ER lobby on concrete floors
chairs and benches clustered banks of elevators
privacy for fear and grief
register their names to be called
when somber physicians appear
stethoscopes dangling at their necks
from windowless locked side-doors
to consult about living will directives.

Surgeons
   anesthesiologists
   third-year residents
   visit bedside greet me
   read a chart.
   Does it mean anything        I am moved by fancies that are     Am I a phenomenon?
curled    Nurses fill out checklists
Around these images, and cling:   mark the prep room screen “Ready”.     The notion of some infinitely In the surgery room

gentle        six doctors and nurses.
Infinitely suffering thing.    The da Vinci robotic surgery machine
   hovers over the narrow operating table
   an octopus.
Intravenous anesthesia.
   I am under.

You hurry back to the radiation lab Ninth Floor
solo tech tonight hospital cancer tower
to wait for ER physicians’ orders my room at midnight
computerized tomography scan red and yellow city lights below
fluoroscopy a well-insulated new building
radiographic film imaging     no street noise intrudes
you smile though you will endure a long shift funereal silence.
on-call after.        You leave at 11 PM
A teenage girl tries suicide after I wake from anesthesia
helicoptered in know who you are.
2 AM   where I am.
hospital parking lot
slashes deep across her throat her neck.

Driving home my dog sleeps. Nurses come into my room
November’s full moon a cloudless night    frequently from their station
Illuminates in profile West Virginia hills. across the corridor
I listen to songs from my iPhone to check the metronomic beeping
randomized playlist     of my body's vital functions
T. S. Eliot reads Preludes on digital monitors.
then Philip Glass Every twenty minutes other nurses
Annunciation piano quintet. gently ask if I need pain medicine
In dark mountain depths administer shots and pills
hollows along ancient creeks check the drainage tube
gravel roads hidden under fallen foliage sutures at 5 incision slits
glints of house light abdomen blown up by inflammation
blink distantly change Foley bags
behind leafless trees.    blood in discharge
                                                              blood in urine
                                                              hold straws for me to sip water
                                                              I can’t eat
                                                              vomit pushes up from my stomach.
                                                              I’m constipated,
                                                              I pull my gown up to my waist
                                                              the nurse rolls me onto my right side
                                                              at edge of the bed
                                                              knees up to my chest
                                                              lubricates the slender plastic nozzle
                                                              of the enema pump
                                                              inserts it into my rectum
                                                              streaming the watery saline solution
                                                              into my colon
                                                              enemas to shock
                                                              anesthetized intestines to life.
                                                              I trail diarrhea
                                                              splatter gown bed floor toilet.
                                                              An assistant nurse wearing nitrile gloves
                                                              strips me of my soiled robe and sock-slippers
                                                              washes with sanitary gel my entire body
                                                              as I stand in front of her
                                                              removes dried blood from my abdomen
                                                              and shaved pubes
                                                              avoiding the puffy stitched seams
                                                              sanitizes my penis
                                                              around the inserted catheter
                                                              anus and scrotum.
                                                              I should not be embarrassed.
                                                              I am.