Sh*t To Help You Show Up May 27, 2022

Putting our rage to good use

The phone screen comes alive and I answer on the first ring. I have my phone set on Do Not Disturb every morning to focus on work, so I usually would be ignoring calls entirely but the hospital staff and I have been playing phone tag for days now. I need to make sure there’s nothing to know before we get in the car tomorrow to make the two-hour trip for my son’s pre-op physical and Covid test.

Nancy, whose name I only know because she keeps leaving me voicemails, runs through the usual questions about medications, allergies, family medical history, and timing around when to stop eating and drinking prior to the procedure. I am calm and business-like until she tells me that because of Covid protocols we will have to wait in the waiting area while my son goes in to be prepped for surgery.

I know that the procedure is not an unusual one and that the surgeon performing it is well regarded and has been practicing for decades. That the whole thing is so straightforward, in fact, it’s an outpatient procedure. My son will wake up in the safety of my home and fall asleep there again the same day. Yet, the thought of them leading him away from me, of him having to wait to go into surgery alone, and then spending hours marking the minutes until I know he’s entirely safe, capsizes me. I am underwater in an instant.