I had been in the hospital two days when the decision to operate came quickly on a Friday night. I had not yet eaten dinner and lunch had been about six hours earlier. The skin abscess was not improving and the staph infection was so desperate to leave my body it tunneled a few inches away from the abscess and created a blister that popped, leaving me with another open wound. The plan was to make an incision between the two and clean the entire area out. The surgeon actually said he would “power wash” the infected region. How’s breakfast going down?
I was taken to pre-op where I met the anesthesiologist who would be putting me to sleep for the procedure. After answering a multitude of questions about my health and its history, he said I would be having general anesthesia because of the burger. I wasn’t expecting any of what was happening but this last bit of news threw me even more sideways than I already was. Thank goodness for the bed rails! I had assumed an intravenous sedation and asked, ”Why general?”, and the doctor replied, “Because of the burger.”
WHAT IS A BURGER???????
I knew I had an abscess. And a peripheral blister. Now what?
”What’s a burger?”, I screeched.
”The hamburger you had for lunch”, the anesthesiologist answered.
Not gonna find that on WebMD.
