Part One

I walk in to the second floor office in the hospital nearby, ready to check in for my outpatient procedure. The receptionist clicks the hospital bracelet onto my wrist and smiles gently as she reads my face. I must seem nervous because I did not think this was going to be such a big deal that I needed this bracelet on my wrist. It is just an endoscopy, right? Endos-copy. Endo-scopy. However you say it, I thought this was a quick visit.

“Please take a seat and wait for the nurse to call you back,” she gently says as she points to the empty chairs behind me. I choose the one closest to me and pull my cell phone out to text my wife that I’m checked in. It is 7:00 am on a normal weekday and I should be stuck in traffic while I take the boys to school, angry at the red lights I constantly get stuck behind while I look for the bus-rider that matches his work shirts to the mask on his face every day. Except, I am not in traffic. I am finally dealing with the stomach pain that has plagued me since right before the pandemic shut the world down two years ago.

A bubbly nurse pops her head out from behind the door I was staring at and calls my name. I follow her to another room that is essentially four pods with curtains pulled closed. She briskly walks to the one on the right, farthest from me. She whips the curtain open and gestures for me to get in there. My hospital bed is ready for me, complete with a doggy piddle pad on it and a flimsy gown that opens in the back. She begins to rattle through the identifying questions and then makes a little giggle.

“Oh, I just realized you are here for an endo-scopy!” She pronounces it fractured in a way that reminds me of Dory reading ESCA-PE on Finding Nemo. Essss-capay! “I got your bed ready for a colonoscopy so let me fix that real quick! We are going in the other end!” She rips the gown and piddle pad off the bed and bustles away. When she returns she has a new gown and allows me a moment to change into it. It still opens in the back so I’m not sure what that was about but I put it on. I get on the bed and lay back while she putters around the room preparing everything I’ll need. She leaves me after she gets some more things put together, sliding the thin white curtain slightly closed behind her. I can hear my heart beating in my ears in an otherwise very quiet area.

The curtain swooshes open again and am greeted by a man with a goofy grin. “HI!” His enthusiasm hits me like a fire alarm at midnight. “I am your anesthesiologist and it’ s a pleasure to meet you!” His volume is jarring and I imagine my face cringed because he immediately acknowledges he’s a lot. He begins to explain the endoscopy to me, which is wild because I’m certain he’s here to drug me so should he not stay in his lane, but what do I know at this point. I can’t even discern how to correctly pronounce this procedure. “So what’s gonna happen is doctor so and so is going to put this tiny tube that has a camera at the end of it down your throat and take a peek around!” He speaks in an odd cadence, like a scheezy car salesman with overwhelming excitement, ebbing and flowing his diction in an annoying way. I imagine he would use finger guns if he felt he could, he is just that jazzed to tell me about the endo-scopy. “We’ll see what he finds! Could be wild! He might even find some lost car keys in there!”

I don’t laugh and he points this out without skipping a beat. “Luckily I hardly ever have repeat customers in here so I can recycle my jokes. That one is always hit or miss, let me tell you.” Before I can even catch up to his madness he leaves and I make a mental note to remember him so I can tell my wife all about the commotional wave he rode in on. Luckily I get five minutes of reprieve before another nurse comes in.

She’s tall, blonde, and very slender, with a waist the circumference of my arm. “Okay, you ready? I’m going to take you back through this door so we can get this over with!” She gestures to a door behind her, no less than 10 feet away. With that, she grabs the rail at the foot of my hospital bed and gives it a yank to get it rolling.

IT MOVES ZERO INCHES.

She furrows her brow and takes a wider stance. She repositions her hands and tries again, giving it her all as she tries to gain momentum in the wheels.

The bed does not budge.

“Huh, that’s funny! (IS IT?!?) Did I forget to take the brakes off?” She’s muttering to herself as she walks around the bed trying to figure out why it won’t move while I’m deciding if it is appropriate to just *gesture to myself* because I’m mortified. I mean, she’s a buck five, dripping wet. She really thinks she is going to move me with her scrawny ass?? Again, gestures wildly at all of me.

After she checks all the brakes twice like Santa making his list, she tries again from the back corner rail. Nothing. She walks to the other side and tries to push with her whole body. It isn’t happening.

“Do you want me to get up and walk over there?” I ask her.

“No, no, no,” she responds while aggressively shaking her head.

“I promise I followed the rules and didn’t eat or drink anything after 8 pm last night,” I tell her because I cannot help myself. Things are getting awkward which means I’m probably two seconds away from making things weirder and laughing. I am embarrassed she can’t move my ass so I’m about to become the anesthesiologist if she can’t figure this out quick.

She is hardly listening though as she is huffing and puffing, trying to push the bed. She is now directly behind me and pushing with all her strength. I mean, this would be funny if I wasn’t the one laying here wishing someone would just come save us both so we could get me 10 friggin feet THAT WAY!

Her new tactic works (THANK ALL THE HEAVENS) and she inches me along to the door and then through it. It takes so long a damn snail could have beat us but we finally make it.

There’s a lot more movement in this operating room and jolly ole jokester anesthesiologist is back but way more dialed in now. He is working on getting my arm ready for whatever cocktail he has mixed up for me. A new nurse walks in and over to me. “Hi, I’m Fred and I’m your surgical nurse,” he begins to tell me. As he’s introducing himself and beginning my IV, his scrub pants fall down.

TO HIS ANKLES.

“OH NO!” he yells out as the IV needle enters my hand. “Good thing I’m wearing boxers today!” he awkwardly chuckles as he tries to maneuver them back up with just one hand while the other holds the needle in place. I am half expecting Ashton Kutcher to be my surgeon at this point because wow, what a show I’ve been given. I keep trying to remind myself to not forget any of this to share with everyone later because this is stranger than fiction and realize Fred asked me to shuffle onto my left side. This is no small feat as my whole right arm is almost bionic at this point, with so many wires prodding in and out of it. I slowly begin turning with my arm oddly out. I feel air hit my left ass cheek as I roll. Great. Well, it seems only fair that Fred see my ass, since I practically saw his.

AND THEN I AM OUT.