I have a deep distrust of such phrases as “This won’t hurt” and “You might feel a little discomfort.”
With good reason, too. They’re usually BIG FAT LIES.
“This won’t hurt” came into play when I was a kid, and subject to the usual kid injuries. My mother would hustle up brandishing a bottle of merthiolate, a bright red concoction made of gasoline, pickle juice, and Tabasco, once believed to have strong medicinal powers for injuries of the miscellaneous boo-boo variety. “This won’t hurt,” she’d say. Then she’d dab the little wand from the bottle directly onto your injury, you would either (a) begin jumping around the room, screaming for someone to call a real doctor, or (b.) faint.
“You might feel a little discomfort,” came from the lips of the dentist (who shall remain nameless) who convinced me, at the age of 13, that I was far to grown up to have a tooth filled while shot full of that sissy novocaine. For years I have fantasized about saying “You may feel a little discomfort” right before I drove over his foot.
These came to mind earlier this week as I lay on a hospital bed, waiting to have a cataract removed from my left eye. And not feeling too happy about it.
Here’s the deal: I haven’t eaten since the midnight previous, as instructed. I haven’t had my morning tea, either. I am, to put it mildly, grouchy. Besides, I’ve already felt “just a pinch” from the nurse who drove a railroad spike into my arm for a blood sample and installation of a spigot in my arm.
So I’m lying there, under those conditions, wondering what’s next, when the anesthesiologist comes in, all bright and chipper, to give me something relax me, and to numb the area of the eye in question.
“You might feel a little discomfort,” he says.
Warning bells and sirens are clanging in my head. I am straining with what is left of my eyesight can see if this guy looks anything like my old dentist. I’m thinking he does, because he’s wearing a mask. I start to think ... and then find I have lost the capacity to think. I can’t form a coherent thought.
That relaxer stuff they gave me was really, really good.
He gives my eye one last shot. “This won’t hurt,” he says. No warning bells this time. Oh, it hurt all right. I just didn’t care.
Then I’m off to the emergency room, where my ophthalmologist is waiting with a bunch of very friendly nurses. They cover my face except for the eye in question and then they do something to it that they say is going to fix everything. I can’t really say. I wasn’t paying close attention. I was too relaxed. And wondering where I could get some of that stuff.
A few minutes later I was in recovery, and a few minutes after that I was in the car coming home. And home is where I am now, with a patch over my eye, most of the numbness gone from my face, and lots of music to listen to.
I’m supposed to relax the rest of the day. Noooooo problem. That is GOOD relaxer. I’ll be fine.
Unless Mom comes over with a bottle of merthiolate.
— © 2009 Mike Redmond. All Rights Reserved.
