NPO

*Disclaimer*

If you've had surgery, you are probably familiar with this procedure. It sure surprised me, though.



I stare at the bottle.

"Just don't take it too close to bedtime."

The nurse unscrews the cap, sets in on my bedside cart. I stare at it some more. It's about the size of a small cough syrup bottle, opaque white, and says "Fleet" on the side, with some medical information. It's important that I drink this prior to surgery. Something tells me to wait.

That nurse leaves, and when the evening team comes, I take the bottle, drag my IV pole into the hall and talk to the nurses I trust.

"So... this is supposed to clean me out."

The nurse squints at the bottle.

"Yeah, that'll do it."

"Now be honest with me. Am I gonna have a nice cruise down the Hershey Highway, or am I going to be running for the border?"

They laugh. I even think it's kind of amusing at the time. But really, this stuff isn't that funny. Gech, I'm getting nauseous just writing about it.

I take it like a man, swallow the most foul stuff I've ever encountered, and wait.

Later, Vanessa comes to the hospital room to watch a movie on my borrowed laptop. When the fleet hits, she'll have to lift my IV pole over obstacles so I can get to my... destination. Fleet indeed. There's definitely some fleeing going on.

Meals arrive, less robust than hospital food normally is.

Breakfast: "orange gelatin", orange juice. Tea.

Lunch: Beef broth. Water. Tea.

Dinner: No dinner.

I cheat. My mother hustles in a tray of fast-food sushi, and I ravenously down three salmon rolls. They are the best salmon rolls I could conceive to eat, ever. Technically, solid foods after midnight are a no-no, but it's only around dinner time. And it's just rice. and some fish. I should be OK. I hope.

The next day, I'm officially NPO.

When you're NPO, they put a small red tag on your nameplate outside the hospital door. This means Nothing by Mouth. Nothing. They pump you full of saline so you don't get dehydrated. The real catch is, you still have to take your medication.

It's always the treatment that makes you feel worse than the disease, right? A high dose of steroids, folic acid, vitamins and calcium on an empty stomach - no water - leaves me sicker than I ever been. I give up on using my laptop. The thought of reading makes my stomach turn. When I'm forced to stand to urinate, the effort makes my dry heave repeatedly.

My surgeon, Dr. Briesbois, visits again. He's dressed in OR scrubs.

"We have two surgeries ahead of you. If they go well, you're in today. If they don't go well, or if we have emergency trauma cases, you can eat."

That's the nice way of saying not today, you get to do the NPO thing all over tomorrow.

Uh-uh. Vanessa and my mom pray hard the other surgeries will go well.

After a few hours I finally I relent, and beg the nurses for some relief. Without hesitation, the nurse hooks me up with a medium-level anti-nausea medication, kind of a "Super-Gravol." It works well. I smack myself for not asking earlier. The nurse relents and gives me some ice chips and tells me not to "go nuts."

My pastors come and visit. They bring cards signed by the church. I do my best to look upbeat, but I'm really, really sick, and smell really bad. They pray for me. My appreciation is greater than I can express in this state.

Twenty minutes later, a nurse arrives with a porter and a stretcher.

"You're in."