OR Floor

Operate. It was a command, not a request.

“The patient is on the table. Operate.”

And I would operate. It was an appendectomy, and I’d done thirty of them over the past year. After 36 hours of surgeries, though, I didn’t think it was going to happen. I hoped for her sake it wouldn’t.

“Michael, we’re losing time – she’s losing fluids fast.”

From what I could make out, there was a young female patient on my operating table who was about to be sliced like Swiss by yours truly. It’s hard not to look at the patients that way, you kind of fall into it. As I stumbled on the OR floor.

The next few moments went a little like a fever dream. I floated in and out of consciousness, and the room continued to flood my periphery. White lights overhead. They burned into my retinas, and then Dr. Cox took up the majority of my view.

“Get out of my way, she’s about to code!”

And I slept, or whatever you would call it. I’d wake up jobless, but well rested.