Silent Symphony of Butt Cheeks
I was off yesterday for the first time in a month. I visited the new restaurant that had just opened up across from my block. Afterwards, I went to the salon for a much-needed pedicure. I saw the disapproving glance the pedicurist gave when she saw my toenails. Ah well, I shrugged. This is my day off, and I want to be pampered. Afterward, I took a stroll and window-shopped in the mall. It was getting towards the end of the month, and I was low on budget, so I disciplined myself not to make any spontaneous purchases.
I went home, watched some TV, and glanced through my notes. I was looking forward to the theatre list I had that day. It was an Anterior Resection. I’ve assisted in quite a number of them, but what made this super special, aside from opening into someone’s abdomen, was working with Mr. Lukes. He was one of the best surgeons in the department and the most supportive. I wanted to continue being on his good books.
I missed my first alarm that morning, and that put me in a jiffy mood . I don’t like that. I was almost late getting to the theatre. The car parking spaces are horrendous. It took me a while to find a space I could safely back into and park. I had trouble finding a good pair of scrubs to wear. All the medium-sized scrubs were gone. Darn. This was not how I had envisioned my day. These warning signs should have warned me on what to expect before the close of the day. Anyway, I forced myself to be positive. “These are nothing,” I thought to myself. “I get to chat and bond with Mr. Lukes on three different cases!”
The universe was definitely not on my side because this was the day that the gloves on my left hand decided to twist on itself and get two of my fingers stuck in one glove finger. Mr. Lukes decided to scrub in at this time, and I’m sure he decided to say nothing when he saw me trying to wiggle my trapped finger out to its correct space. Everyone knows gloves and fingers suddenly repel each other when people are watching. I said that to reassure myself. It’s normal. It happens.
The first case was an EUA. I didn’t do much, observed and made mental notes of all that the consultant whom I completely admire said. The second was a laparoscopic anterior resection. A 42-year-old male with sigmoid cancer. And the plan was for an anastomosis.
It started out okay. The Weekend playing in the background followed up a song by ABBA then one of my favorite songs by Rema and Selena Gomez. It was as though I made this playlist; I sang along in my head.
Two seconds later, I could see a bewildered look on Mr. Luke’s face behind the face mask. “Did we perforate the bowel?” he asked out loud. “I’m not sure,” I stammered. He told the nursing staff to turn off the music and alerted the anesthetist that we wouldn’t be closing up soon as earlier indicated. “We may have perforated the bowel one way or the other because I can smell sh*t,” he said. He checked the staple lines first, but there was no sight of stool. Then he proceeded to carefully examine each segment of the bowel. He saw the worried look on my face, and said, “don’t worry, don’t worry. We will find it and deal with it. Surgery has surprises, you know. What makes a good surgeon is always being on top of surprises,” he continued, reassuring me. He didn’t know I knew what the cause of this sudden fuss was all about.
I felt bad that he took extra care and time to do the inspection. The anaesthetist had shuffled her feet more than twice and had already stepped out momentarily and returned.
“Well, no sh*t seen,” Mr. Lukes said out loud. “And the smell is gone as well,” one of the nurses chimed in, hiding a chuckle and murmuring something to the nurse beside her.
It was a fart.
They all realized. I quickly did a headcount. There were nine people in the OR, so there was an 11.1% chance of me being identified as the culprit. I doubted they would know. We would just blame ourselves.
The surgery ended uneventfully afterwards and we signed out. I made a dash to the bathroom. I had to make sure this incident didn’t happen in the third case.
Just as I was leaving the unisex bathroom, I saw Mr. Luke on the corridor, and we made eye contact. The ground could have swallowed me up; I could have sworn he gave me a knowing look.
“Nooooooo!” I screamed inwardly.
All I needed to do now was avoid his theater lists, and look forward to the day I leave this department. Only 43 days and 16 hours more.
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