Routine Surgery

A chapter from my novel "Lovely Girl"

Photo by Dr. Anna Maria Wolf

On a bright June afternoon, twenty-six-year-old Brianna Wood sat by the fountain outside Midvale, a top Seattle teaching hospital. She figured some architect claimed the fountain would drown out street noise or soothe distraught families. Instead, it provided a place for smokers to hide out or for children to toss lucky pennies. And for her to kill an hour before she surrendered her consciousness for what her physician called a routine procedure.

Usually, the Northwest suffered what locals called June Gloom, and on this bright, warm afternoon, it seemed wrong to go indoors.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been alone.

The final day before summer break, her students threw her a party. Jessie, first chair flautist, cried. “Promise you’ll be back,” she said.

“Of course I’ll be back,” Brianna said. “You’re my music kids. I can’t live without you.” She sliced into the vegan carrot cake decorated with figurines representing their award-winning jazz ensemble.

She forced herself to focus on the plantings surrounding the fountain. Huda, her lifelong best friend, told her that when Brianna felt stressed, she should comb through the senses: inhale the sour scent of Fragaria vesca and gaze with kind eyes at the Olympic range rising above the Salish Sea.

The light shifted, and the sky turned amber, then deep dark blue. She stroked her arms, a self-massage.

“Do you have cancer?” Jessie had asked. “Aren’t you terrified?”

“I plan to be awake.” Brianna smiled at her student. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep my eyes on them.”

Dr. Jason Park had assured her that he performed these surgeries all the time. What frightened Brianna was being unconscious. When pregnant with Sam, she planned a drug-free delivery. She and Dale toured the University birthing center, where they would enjoy a private suite with a huge soaking tub. The only problem was that she was in labor for thirty hours, vomiting much of the time, and hooked up to all kinds of monitors and tubes. No birthing tub for her. When Sam finally emerged, his temperature was low, and he was whisked away.

She’d always had more energy than most people, and when she told her ob/gyn she seemed to be bleeding more heavily and was exhausted much of the time, he told her it was normal. “Nothing to worry about. You’re twenty-six years old. Give yourself time,” he said.

Huda, who worked part-time at Midvale, told her about Jason Park. “He’s brilliant,” she said. “Patients love him.” Brianna made an appointment the next day.

Brianna’s bleeding was not normal at all, Dr. Park told her on her first visit. She had a retroflexed uterus and a large tumor. She half-listened as he explained that a hysterectomy would remedy her exhaustion. “And your complexion will improve,” he added. Brianna raised her hand to cover her face. “Your sex life will get better,” he added as he walked her to the door. “My nurse will give you a pamphlet to explain everything.”

But Brianna had already made up her mind. A June surgery would offer six weeks of guilt-free rest. She would savor delicious days to practice her flute and catch up on chores. She could walk Sam to daycare and pick him up afterward. She loved peering in the window to watch him listen to a story, mouth slightly open. By fall, when she started night classes toward her master’s, what she called the mess would be behind her.

“Trust me,” Dr. Park had said, and his nurse handed her a pamphlet that said the same thing. Trust Your Doctor.

“He likes the sound of his own voice,” Huda said. “But if I was going to have surgery, he’s who I would go to.”

When Brianna told Dale about graduate school, he was less than thrilled. “I like you to be here when I get home,” he said.

“I have to get a master’s sooner or later,” she said. “And we can use the money.” She desperately wanted to move out of their cramped apartment and into a house. Growing up, she spent summers roaming around Orcas Island. At the very least, her son should have a yard.

The night before the surgery, she and Dale had another falling out. “I don’t like how you’re acting,” he said as she cleared the table from dinner. Perched on his booster chair, arranging Legos, Sam’s eyes darted back and forth between his parents.

“How I’m acting?” Keeping her voice calm and low, Brianna followed Dale around the apartment. You never knew what the neighbors could hear. And she never wanted Sam to feel torn between the two of them.

“You’re on your own, then,” Dale said. “If you’re so smart, you’ll figure something out.” A few moments later, his truck roared off up the street.

She knew then that Dale was frightened, and it was easier for him to express anger than fear. In their early days together, she dreaded the silent treatment and always quickly caved. In subsequent years, she learned to relish the privacy his temper afforded, a break from his constant scrutiny. After she started teaching, she grew a spine. No more Brianna the mouse. No more following him around like a dog craving a loving word or touch.

She forced herself to look at each tendril of green in the plantings surrounding the fountain. Spring had offered little rain, and it seemed the vine maple was already turning red. When the sky and bay turned turquoise, then pink, and finally deep blue again, it would be time to go inside.

After Dale stormed off, Brianna called her mother. “Mom, can you take me to the hospital tomorrow and keep Sam?”

“Why can’t Dale take you?”

“He just can’t, Mom.”

“What about Huda?” Brianna texted her friend. She knew better, of course, than to tell Huda she and Dale had argued. Dale and Huda disliked each other, and Brianna refused to give either of them any ammunition.

“I know tomorrow’s your day off, but can you drop me at the hospital and keep Sam overnight?”

And so it was sweet Huda who picked up Brianna and Sam and drove Brianna to Midvale. “Be sure he brushes his teeth,” Brianna said as Huda dropped her off in front. “And don’t let him fake you out. Smell his breath.”

“Why is Mommy going in that place?” Sam asked Huda, as if his mother were already gone.

“She’ll be home in a few days, little fellow,” Huda said. She leaned into the back seat to touch his face.

“Why can’t I go with her?”

“You can visit tomorrow,” Brianna said. “Kisses.” But Sam crossed his arms, looked away, and in the end, Brianna kissed her fingertip and touched the air.

It was the last time she’d see Sam or Huda for the next three months.

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Holistic veterinarian, friend, and neighbor Anna Maria Wolf takes photographs in her gardens, while hiking with her dog, riding her horse in the wilderness, and traveling.
www.petsynergy.com