(Note: This is the last entry of a series I started earlier today.)
When the case is completed, the lights are turned on, the anesthesiologist is waking up the patient, the staff is moving instruments back from the table and unplugging hoses and electric cords and the room becomes a mess. There are linens on the floor. The garbage bags fill up with drapes and towels and bloody sponges used during the case.
The surgeon is dictating a note over the phone and calling the patient’s family. The circulating RN is calling the recovery room for a slot and the only one left with a gown on is the scrub nurse. The reason for one person remaining gowned is this: if there is an emergency where they need to re-open the patient then that last remaining gowned individual is ready to go.
The garbage on the floor and in the bags accumulates and the surgeon gets ready to put the kidney in the recipient who is ready to go in another operating room. Today the other room is O.R. 20.
The patient looks like one who is waking up in the middle of the night from a deep sleep. Only it isn’t night time and she isn’t surrounded by people with masks… and her stomach hurts. She is barely audible and if she could have a conscious thought right now I bet she would wonder what made her choose to donate.
The anesthesiologist makes sure the patient can breathe on her own and has good hand-strength (i.e., no longer paralyzed). I.V. lines are bundled and pieces of equipment that will go with her are placed on the cart. The patient is asked to cross her arms while we log roll her onto a roller and finally we get her onto the cart.
As the O.R. door closes behind her, the room that was once a center of concentration, focus, and order is nothing but a box of junk with two tired souls dressed in blue. In about 20 minutes the cleaning crew will do their thing to restore the room’s usefulness and it’ll be ready for another go… tomorrow.
