So the other day, I had surgery done. It was no big deal, really. There was this needy benign growth on my left shoulder that, well, kept growing. I called it the monkey on my shoulder. My family hated it. They called it names, awful names. They wanted it gone. It became a conversation piece in our household; my family came together around my monkey, it had to go. This, even though my doctor had decreed that it was not a problem. My wife overruled our doctor. It had to go. You do what your wife tells you. Your doctor does what your wife wants.
Before the doctor slices into you, they take you to a private room for “prep” work, in which you are handed over from one medical busybody to the other. They ask you things, you mostly lie to protect your dignity. Sample stupid question: “Would you consider yourself a light, moderate or a heavy drinker?” Heh! They wanted to know if I was allergic to any medicine. I said quinine, hoping to be quarantined; I needed the rest from work and home. The nurses googled quinine on their laptops (yes, they didn’t know) and huddled anxiously when they saw the word “malaria.” The nurses were smart, pretty and sweet, almost shy. One brunette seemed to take a liking to me, the way a cheerleader takes a liking to a bespectacled nerd. “He is so sweet,” she enthused breathlessly to anybody who would listen. She fussed over me, paid every attention to me. I was flattered. I overheard her teaching several other nurses how to mangle my name.
Brunette Nurse went and found a Nigerian nurse to say hello to me, I don’t know why. She was Ndiigbo, we grinned sheepishly at each other as we struggled to humour this white sister trying to forge a kinship. We did not understand the rejection; why, culturally we were each closer to her than we were to each other. Through contrived accents we happily rejected each other and Ndiigbo fled into the mess of rooms and broken patients. I missed my wife and I asked for her to be with me. Brunette Nurse went and got my wife. My wife sat with me and nobody came again to fuss with me. Then some stalwarts came to wheel me away for the operation. They would not let my wife come with me. Brunette Nurse wished me luck.
Going to the operating table is interesting. There is a strange finality to being wheeled away. It feels like going to one’s execution. In the operating room I am strapped to a gurney by pretty chatty people, babbling nice things. They are trained to be affirming, encouraging me even when I am not following directions. The surgeon is chatty, but indifferent to knowledge outside of his profession. I like him. He is in his forties but he is still wearing the spirit of a boy. He tells me that his parents bought this house in this great neighborhood in the 60s; he doesn’t know what the house is worth today. He has trouble converting the past to the present value. I help him. He grows quiet. Except for a colonoscopy, I have never really done anything this invasive. As I lay there shivering on the operating gurney, I remember my uncle Elephant in my ancestral land; poet, griot and herbalist. He believes that witches and wizards are responsible for the fate of the living. All ailments including apparently cancer, were treated by an enema which he gleefully administered to the unwilling. He made some of the most awful-tasting concoctions out of plants that grew around our compound. I have not-so fond memories of trying to swallow his creations in the sixties during the Nigerian civil war. At those times, the war didn’t seem too far away.
The doctor starts snipping away at my monkey with a studied nonchalance. I loudly marvel at the invasive techniques of Western medicine. He asks me: “What do you mean?” I think to myself, this man is an idiot. How did his ancestors get to the moon? I survive the idiot’s knife. I actually like him. He is not an idiot. He is a professional who has little patience for the undisciplined flourishes of a literary mind. Surgery over, my wife retrieves me and takes me home. It has been a long day; my wife wants a sandwich. We get one from a bakery. I don’t like sandwiches, something about meat between slices of bread I find merely fascinating. I want to go home to comfort food; my wife’s white rice and goat meat stew. I reach into the hospital bag that houses my belongings and my friend waits patiently for me in my iPhone. My friend’s question lurks anxiously, “How did it go?” I type back, “nbd, I am still here, everything is as it should be, lol.” The response returns dripping with relief and exasperation: “You!” I am still here. And the beat goes on.
Pa Ikhide 