The Trash Can

      “A disposable cuff?

     I was somewhat incredulous.  I checked in to the hospital before 9 a.m.  My first instructions said 9:30 for a 11:30 “procedure”.  A subsequent phone call informed me I should be there two-and-a-half hours before my appointed hour.

     After the usual height-weight routine, Rebecca led me to my prep cubicle.  There on the bed lay the ubiquitous backless gown.  It had company, a pair of yellowish-greenish tube socks covered with non-slip strips.

      Four plastic packages about the size of a Hershey candy bar, only longer, topped the gown.  Rebecca explained that the contents of the packages should be used to bathe as much of my body as possible.  Even though my “procedure” was a slit about an inch-and-a-half along the wrist and slightly into the palm of my left hand.   

     “Trying to keep the OR sterile,” Rebecca explained.  “Four packages, one for each leg, one for the arms, one for the front of your body, and one for as much of your back as you can get,” she continued.                                                              

     As I finished using the oversized Wet Ones, which had been warmed, I dumped each one, into the trash can. 

     No wonder the trash can was huge.

     Having donned my backless gown, I stepped, in my non slip socks, the only time they would hit the floor, over to the curtain, drew it to signal to Rebecca that I was ready, and lay down on the bed.  Rebecca proceeded to insert two IV needles, one near my right elbow joint, one in the back of my left wrist near the joint between arm and hand.

     A pile of plastic wrappers covered my lap when she was done.  Into the trash can.

     Rebecca hooked up a series of monitors and started the juice flowing through my elbow IV.  The wrist one was to inject numbing agents to stave off pain, she explained.  Then she unwrapped the blood pressure cuff.  I noticed it wasn’t the usual black lined material.  It looked more like the cardboard, soft, flexible that we used to use to pad and separate eggs in a wooden crate. 

      The cuff was soft and flexible.  And disposable.

     “It will stay with you the whole time you are here,”  Rebecca assured me.  And then?

     Into the trash can.

     I can only guess how much trash was generated in the operating room.  I took a nap. 

     I am sure that all the instruments used were no doubt sealed carefully in sterile plastic packaging.  Which went into the trash.

     In the recovery room, I got a carton of cranberry juice.  The carton could be recycled, but I doubt it did get recycled. 

     Various dressings and two or three pairs of gloves used by the recovery room lady as she got me ready to depart went into the trash.  The socks came off as she dressed me.  Did I want the socks?  Heavens no.  They weren’t very comfortable and they were ugly.  Into the trash can.

      Finally, off came the blood pressure cuff.  The nurse didn’t offer to send it home with me. 

      Into the trash can.

     Fully dressed, I rode the wheel chair to the exit door.  The Goodwife pulled the car up to the door.  The young lady helped me get into the car.  Away we went.

      I left a pile of trash in my wake.

     I should not complain.  My surgery went smoothly.  The big clock in the OR, big enough for me to see without my glasses, said 11:30 as they wheeled me in. 

      I was awakened briefly to look at the slit in my wrist.  Back to sleep I went.  It wasn’t quite 12:30 as they wheeled me out of the OR.  It was 1:30 when I left the recovery room.

      So far so good.  I have less pain in my wrist now than I sometimes experienced before surgery.  So far, no sign of infection.  I am grateful for the strides made in medicine.  (Think of the amputations in field hospitals during the Civil War.  How did anyone survive that?)

      But I can’t help reflecting on the mountain of trash hospitals and medical facilities generate daily, hourly.  When we run out of places to dump trash, we may need to take a look at how the medical industry does business.

     Really?  A disposable blood pressure cuff?

Addenda:  What did I do after a day at home?  Bought gloves that would go over the bandage on my hand and wrist, so I could wash my other hand.   Disposable plastic gloves.  Shame on me.