Mindbend

“Tuohy needle, please,” said Dr. Burnham. Candy wondered what a Tuohy needle was. It sounded awful. She heard a cellophane package being torn open.

Dr. Burnham eyed the three-inch needle in his gloved hand, sliding the stylet up and down to make sure it moved freely.

Stepping to the left so that he could make sure that Candy was sitting straight, he positioned the needle over the area he had injected with the local anesthetic.

Using both hands, he pushed the needle into Candy’s back.

His experienced fingers could feel the needle break through the skin and slide between the bony prominences of Candy’s lumbar vertebrae. He stopped just short of the ligamentum flavum, the barrier covering the spinal canal. Epidural anesthesia was tricky and that was one reason Dr. Burnham liked to use it. He knew not everybody could do it as well as he could and that knowledge gave him satisfaction. With a flourish he pulled out the stylet. As expected, no cerebrospinal fluid came out. Replacing the stylet, he advanced the Tuohy needle another millimeter and felt it pop through the ligamentum flavum. A test dose of air went in easily. Perfect! Replacing the empty needle with one filled with tetracaine, Dr. Burnham gave Candy a small dose.

“I feel a strange sensation on the side of my leg,” said Candy with concern.

“That just means we’re where we are supposed to be,” said Dr. Burnham. With deft hands he removed the syringe with the tetracaine and then threaded a small plastic catheter up through the Tuohy needle. Once the catheter was in place, he removed the needle. A piece of paper tape went over the puncture site.

“That’s that,” said Dr. Burnham, stripping off his sterile gloves and putting a hand on Candy’s shoulder to urge her to lie down. “Now you can’t say that hurt very much.”

“But I don’t feel the anesthetic,” said Candy, fearful they would go ahead with the surgery even if the anesthetic wasn’t working.

“That’s because I haven’t given you anything yet,” said Dr. Burnham.

Candy allowed herself to be lowered to the gurney, the nurse helping by lifting her legs, then covering her with the thin cotton blanket. Candy clutched the cover to her chest as if it would afford some protection. Dr. Burnham fussed with a small plastic tube that snaked out from beneath her.

“Do you still feel as nervous?” questioned Dr. Burnham.

“Worse!” admitted Candy.

“I’ll give you a little more sedative,” said Dr. Burnham, squeezing Candy’s shoulder reassuringly. While she watched, he injected something into her IV line.

“OK, let’s go,” said Dr. Burnham.

The gurney with Candy on it rolled silently into the OR, which was bustling with activity. Candy’s eyes scanned the room. It was dazzlingly white with white tile walls and floor and white acoustical ceiling. X-ray view boxes lined one wall, futuristic electronic monitoring equipment another.

“OK, Candy,” said the nurse who’d been helping Dr.

Burnham. “We’d like you to scoot over here.” She was on the other side of the operating table, which she patted encouragingly. For a moment Candy felt irritation at being ordered about. But the feeling passed quickly. She really had no choice. She was pregnant with an eighteen-week-old fetus.

She preferred to use the word “fetus.” It was easier to think about than “baby” or “child.” Dutifully, Candy moved to the operating table.

Another nurse pulled up Candy’s gown and attached minute electrodes to her chest. A beeping noise began, but it took Candy a while to realize that the sound corresponded to the beating of her heart.

“I’m going to tilt the table,” said Dr. Burnham as Candy felt herself angle so that her feet were lower than her head.

In that position she could feel the weight of her uterus in her pelvis. At the same time she felt a fluttering which she had noticed over the previous week and which she thought might be the fetus moving within her womb. Thankfully, it stopped quickly.

The next instant the door to the corridor burst open and Dr. Lawrence Foley backed in, holding up his dripping hands just like surgeons did in the movies. “Well,” he said in his peculiarly inflectionless voice, “how’s my girl?”

“I don’t feel the anesthetic,” said Candy anxiously. She was relieved to see Dr. Foley. He was a tall man with thin features and a long straight nose that sharply tented the front of his surgical mask. Soon all Candy could see of his face were his gray-green eyes. The rest was hidden, including his silver-white hair.

Candy had been seeing Dr. Foley on an infrequent basis for her routine gynecological care and had always liked and trusted the man. She had not had a checkup for eighteen months prior to her pregnancy, and when she had gone to his office a few weeks ago she had been surprised to see how much Dr. Foley had changed. She’d remembered him as being outgoing and not without a touch of dry humor. Candy wondered how much of his “new” personality was due to his disapproval of her unmarried pregnant state.