CHAPTER 6: The Next Morning
I slept a little better than I had the night before, except for the nurse coming in every two or three hours to check my vital signs. Just before dawn, a nurse came into my room. I have no idea who ths lady was, mostly because I wasn't wearing my glasses and couldn't see her name tag. "Okay, honey, I'm just going to put this IV into your arm," she said, wiping my arm with a cotton ball. "This won't take very long."
I'd had an IV before. The last time I'd been in the hospital, I'd been hooked up to one, so I didn't feel the pinch when the needle went into the back of my hand. After the nurse left, I went back to sleep.
I was awakened again later that morning when Mom and Seth arrived, followed by Daddy and Elizabeth. Jason was right behind them. "Jason! What are you doing here?" I asked.
"Well, your mum talked to my mum, and she gave me special permission to be here," he explained.
"I'm so glad you're here," I whispered as I reached up and touched the scar on his face. He pressed his hand against the spot, and smiled.
At that moment, two nurses arrived to take me to the pre-op area. I recognized one of them right away. "Hi, Brian!" I said hoarsely. It was great to see him! I hadn't seen him since I'd had my spleen removed, which was three and a half years ago. He still looked pretty much the same, except that his sandy-colored hair now had a few gray streaks at the temples, and he also had a big bushy moustache.
"Hi, Karen," he smiled as he and the other nurse, a gray-haired woman named Sarah helped me onto the gurney.
When we got to the pre-op area—which was also where I'd sleep off the anesthesia—the nurses helped me to the bed. "Can you stay with me until they take me to surgery?" I asked Jason.
"Sure," he said. "I'll even sing 'Soft Kitty' while we wait, if you'd like."
"Okay, Sheldon," I laughed. The Big Bang Theory happens to be one of the big-house family's favorite showes, and I'm told the Everetts watch it, too.
As Brian checked my vital signs, Jason started singing, "Soft kit-ty, warm kit-ty, lit-tle ball of furr-r; hap-py kit-ty, slee-py kit-ty, purr-purr-purr-r..." I was glad Jason considered getting ready for surgery as a kind of sick. Otherwise, we'd have a nice long debate about it.
After Brian was done with that, he put two electrodes on my chest, under my top. "We're going to monitor the activity of your heart during surgery," he explained. "Even though you're having minor surgery, we just want to make sure you're okay." With that, he left the room.
Jason patted my shoulder. "Don't worry," he said. "When I woke up after my appendectomy, I was hooked up to the same machines." Then he kissed me on the cheek. I was a litlte surprised, because he'd never done that before. I also knew that it was just the thing to help me get through this. If there's one thing Jason knows how to do, it's make someone feel better.
At that moment, two nurses arrived to take me to surgery. One had curly red hair, and coincidentally, her name tag read "Annie". She wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm as the other nurse, and man who looked like Chris Meloni from Law & Order: SVU, and had a name tag that read "Peter" added a few more electrodes to my chest.
"See you later," Jason said, patting my shoulder. I took my glasses off and handed them to him as one of the nurses put a blue puffy cap on my head. "Do you want me to give these to your mum?" he asked, putting them in the white foam case that had been provided. With that, we went out into the hall, and one of the nurses pointed him in the direction of the waiting room.
When we arrived at the OR, the nurses helped me transfer to the table, while giving the surgeons their report and covered me with a blanket as I saw Dr. Johanssen out of the corner of my eye. Dr, Johns put a mask over my face. "Can you take some deep breaths for me, lassie?" he asked as one of the assistants turned on the machine. "I also want you to count backwards from twenty."
"Twenty...nineteen...eighteen...seventeen...sixteen..." I counted, and soon felt the gas overtake me. I closed my eyes and was soon fast asleep. It reminded me a little of how Mrs. Kushel, my fifth-grade teacher, used to ramble on and on about a certain topic for hours and hours and—hours. The only difference was, not only did I not have to listen to that, but it also took a lot less time to put me to sleep. (By the way, if you see Mrs. Kushel before I do, don't quote me on that.)