Every Saturday, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 27-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
In the recovery room, I watch an older woman named Susan arrive on a gurney from surgery. She is struggling quite a bit. A male attendant stays for a while, waiting for her to settle. He is irritated with her in a way that he would not have shown if she was conscious. Arms stiffly at his sides; his head swivels quickly. He seems to be privately questioning an earlier action, his reaction, and now he wants to control himself, at least until he understands what he has done. He also wants the nurses to see his irritation. With Susan. Not his irritation with himself.
Susan’s thin hands search the air for something to hold onto. Something, someone. I am on my back, IV still in, blood pressure cuff on, heart monitor clipped to my finger, my mouth full of something I want to spit out, but the nurses are busy settling Susan. They keep saying her name. Firm but kind. Susan has probably made pies with those hands, held babies, darned socks, planted bulbs, taught kids how to tie their shoes. The nurses take her hands out of the air and hold them until they twist away again, reaching for something. A rolling pin, the zipper of a child’s parka. Her head snaps back and forth, like I’m watching her on a soap opera. She has the oxygen mask on and the hospital hat they make us wear. The male attendant says, “They had to do a partial mastectomy. It couldn’t be helped.”
I wonder if Susan knew they were going to remove part of her breast or if that will be news for her to wake up to. Will she hear this news, see the news or feel this news? Will she ask, see or feel something? Missing.
Susan probably has someone waiting for her. Someone for when she wakes up. This is hospital culture. Patients arrive with someone, and that person waits for them. They are there for them. They are there when the patient wakes up after surgery. They read magazines they would never have at home. Periodicals with articles about men desiring women twice their age, how to get a man to open up, 10-point outlines: what you need to know about orgasms.
I’d woken up with a mouthful of what felt like the gel they use in ultrasound. I looked around the room, and a nurse waved at me. I didn’t wave back. I didn’t say anything. I wanted to spit out the goo, but there was nothing to spit into. That’s when Susan arrived. I lay there with a mouthful of goo while Susan waved her frail hands, waving smoke from the casserole she’d left too long in the oven. Waving away flies from her apple pie cooling under a tea towel. Waving goodbye to Jimmy heading off on his first day of school. Breasts are symbolic of these displays. Hands waving freely need to be held by those gathered here today, settling Susan.
