A Little Procedure

The patient calmly awaits the call to do the procedure.
He is correctly wearing the hospital gown.

My father in law noticed what I thought was a slow healing wound on my neck. “I think you ought to have that looked at,” he warned. It was January; I was in Seattle. It would have to wait until I got back in February.

Back in England, I made an appointment for an examination, and learned that it was cancerous, but not malignant. “It will compromise the skin around it eventually, so it’ll have to go,” said the specialist.

So June 7 I got the growth removed. Joanie dropped me off at Kingston Hospital for the procedure. I had to put on a hospital gown. When the nurse told me I had it on backwards, I realized they still have the openings in the back. “I’ll be back in a minute to tie you in,” she called out. No you won’t, I thought, and figured it out myself real quickly.

How beautiful are the feet of him who wears the gown.

I wore my shoes and socks and the hospital gown down the corridor to the operating room. Top Forty tunes were playing on the radio. No classical?

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You (Isaiah 26:3), I kept repeating to myself as the surgeon did his job, which I won’t describe to you. It was pretty unnerving, to have him working on me with a local anesthetic.

That's the dressing post-op. It's a big scar now, but it's healing nicely.

Joanie picked me up afterwards and took me home. I couldn’t run for a week because I couldn’t shower. I didn’t want to get the dressing wet. Then I got the bandage off Monday. I’m getting back to a regular life, with one difference. I have started again eating apricot kernels rich in vitamin B17 that are supposed to prevent one from getting cancer. 

I really hope they work.