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Anesthesia?

What surgeons talk about while you are asleep.

by Jim

“I apologize for the smell. I got a little behind on the ride today.” I volunteered to break the ice and preemptively alleviate concerns about my cologne. It is about a 50 minute bike commute from home to the hospital and the last mile is about 700 feet elevation gain. I’m always damp by arrival at the hospital even when it isn’t raining and right now, it is late June and excessively warm by Portland standards.

Cool and dark much of the year in the early morning when I leave our home on Mt. Scott and coast the first mile down hill, this Thursday was pleasant. The summer solstice is a delightful time to ride into surgery. In the winter on a bike with a 33 degree rain at 5:45 in the morning really makes one wonder about their sanity. Then again, there are duck hunters that sit out in water in the winter just to kill a bird. At 42, at least I have the excuse of trying to remain fit and practicing what an Oregon liberal preaches by using those new bike lanes and leaving the petroleum guzzler in the garage.

“I’ll tell you Jill, it was a glorious morning and I took a few different roads today just to add some variety.” I added.

Jill inquired, “How long does it take you?”

A good anesthesiologist will get the conversation going after the intubation - some take a verbal stab at the surgeon, others with a “How is the weather?” approach. Some, like Jill are just plain nice, but expensive as we’ll learn. “Less than an hour and when I’m in really good shape, under 45 minutes. It is the same amount of time as driving during rush hour. It was only a 25 minute drive when we moved here ten years ago, but now… you know with three bridges under repair and the growth in Portland…” I was leading into my current connundrum - how to address those issues surrounding growing kids.

I actually get to the bottom of the hill, “Pill Hill” it is called, in 25 minutes, Then, since the Shriners and University Hospitals in Portland are midway up the hill overlooking the city it is a climb. After coasting and flying down the east side of the Willamette riverbank - I can get up to 40 miles per hour at the steepest spot - then it is back up to get to work. That rather steep climb to the hospital usually has me drenched by the time I get there. On occasions like today when I ran out of time for a shower upon my arrival to the hospital, I just throw on the green scrubs and get started.

“Do you really like the ride?” she wondered.

“It’s good for the body and in the summer it’s great.” I proposed. “It probably lowers my cholesterol as well.” - another middle age confrontation.

“Did you ever consider living closer?” Jill asked.

“Off and on, Susan and I think about it, but for the price of our current home, we wouldn’t get much near the down town. We looked a few years ago and every home in our price range that we checked out seemed to have major problems, plus we have a view out over the city, a newer home without any significant problems and we’ve upgraded a lot of the home. However, there are some seemingly down sides to our current home. We don’t like the local school, so we drive the kids to a Montessori school, it is a longer commute than when we started, especially since I moved my practice downtown. We go to church downtown now as well. We had two architects over and for a couple hundred thousand they could do a little addition adding a guest room, study and garage. However, if we add that cost to the present value of our house, it probably will exceed the price of other homes in our neighborhood - not to mention stripping us of a lot of money. The girls have started first grade and so now we have the option of public school and eliminating a tuition that is equal to my medical school tuition.”

“You should take a look at Dr. Vincent’s home - it’s for sale and just down the road.” Jill described a rather nice home that the Vincent’s were reluctant to give up but since they were moving to Arizona, it would no longer do.

“He’s an orthopod, I can’t afford his house.” were the first words out of my mouth - we all have stereotypes about each medical specialty.

So, you can see, it was just another day in the operating room - the usual, make conversation to pass the time. Except… I drove by the Vincent house that evening. I liked it - a bit of a ranch style house, big, something my parents might have chosen, but awfully close to work, a half acre yard and a view of the city, an excellent school district, a great looking neighborhood. “Hmmmm.”

Susan and I drove by the next day - walked through the house, had pizza out in the back yard - and really liked the home.

The Thomas house - oaks, Douglas Firs in the back, Japanese Maples up front, orchard to the right of the house - a little paradise

I spent the night in my bedroom with Quicken looking at income, savings, tax issues etc. I placed a few calls on Saturday morning to those people one trusts when a big decision has come up. After all, the cost for this new home is more than I have ever spent at one time. My few stocks were in the trash except Apple which was up in the previous week. If we could sell our old house, borrow against my life insurance, sell the stocks and if business remains good, we could do it. It seemed like a lot of “ifs”.

I drove to the Vincent home again - and bad sign, now I loved it. We sat down outside, went over the details and a check was written. The next morning, Sunday, the banker met us after his little league game and got the loan in motion. We were leaving in two days for a 4th of July vacation, so we cancelled those plans, rented a U-haul and began moving our belongings to the attic of our new home. All within less than a week of a normal morning operating room conversation. Life’s course changes in the blink of an eye.

The backyard

As a very early epilogue to the story, we are extremely happy with the house, so I still enjoy doing cases with Jill.

The school and teachers are great. We got much more than we bargained for. There are numerous baby sitters in the neighborhood. There are quite a few school kids living nearby. The view is every bit as good as the old house with Mount Hood greeting us at every sunrise. A popular running path starts outside our doors. There is a Nature Conservancy Preserve below the house. With a rather private guest room at the other end of the house from kids, guests seem to like staying longer. Our friends come over much more often now that we live close to them. It is a ten minute bike ride or car ride to work for me and less than 5 for Susan. We are pretty sure that the morning traffic reports on the radio are just comic relief as we seldom have to so much as stop for a stop sign on the way to work. At about 1000 feet above the city, we have gotten a few dustings of snow and massive, frequent howling winds - I love the weather. I have moved most of my dwarf conifer collection and Japanese maples - 50 or more trees, brought several hundred irises (after division) and immersed myself in transplanting some portion of my previous garden. Perhaps 20 bearing apple and pear trees grace the property, so Susan took to making marmalades, chutneys, jellies, desserts, any way to use up the harvest. We lit our first fire one night as guests were coming for dinner without knowing there were bricks on top of the chimney to keep birds out, so the home feels lived in now.

We have graced it with furniture we are familar with so it feels every bit like a home we have lived in for years. There might be a few boxes to unpack yet, but the unpacked ones from our previous move in 91 we felt safe in disposing of. The home was built in 1950 so has those wonders and those quirks that go with age - like rock solid, heavy, manual garage doors. I bought Susan an automatic garage door opener for Christmas so she feels like royalty coming home to a warm garage as it has rained every day for the past month. The other half of the equation is that we have enough space in the house to actually have an empty garage bay to even consider parking in.

Check out the home a little further. We hope to see you here sometime and be careful whom you talk to in the operating room or you may find yourself lulled into a sense of euphoria that may take a lifetime to recover from!