“The electrodes must be placed here and here.
The drip must be placed dexter, to the right of the patient,
the generator to the left, the sinister. The anesthesiologist
will stand there, at the head of the bed, his blue plastic bellow
and mask ready to inflate the lungs once every 20 seconds,
once we have paralysis in place. Dr. Helmut is German.
He is very German. And he is not to be disobeyed.
He will not suffer inattentive students or, worse, foolish ones.
The lights must be dimmed. The restraints must be in place
in case the arms flex too quickly. The force can shatter
one of the bones: humerus, radius, ulna, any of them.
Everything must be done quickly. Dr. Helmut will expect you
to be organized, synchronized with each other. This is
all about elegance of execution. You are nervous, but never
let him know you are nervous. One of you will get the patient,
roll the gurney in. The other must immediately begin
threading the restraints. Start the drip. Draw the syringe
full of succinyl choline. Attach the electrodes. Then push
the succinyl choline. And when the body goes limp, allow
the anesthesiologist to give three breaths. Step back.
Make sure all of you have stepped back. Start the generator.
It will murmur softly. When it begins to sound like a cat
purring, fire the juice.” And so, my instructions end,
and my medical students get to work. When Dr. Helmut arrives,
we are like a machine. We are a well-oiled machine.
And when we fire the generator, the electricity races
the pathways it already knows, through limb and gut,
through nerve and brain. Five breaths the anesthesiologist
gets in before the first gasp. The patient wakes up.
In our small circle, he is the only one able to smile.
C. Dale Young is the author of three books of poetry: The Day Underneath the Day (Northwestern 2001), The Second Person (Four Way Books 2007), and TORN (Four Way Books, forthcoming 2012). He practices medicine full-time, edits poetry for the New England Review, and teaches in the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. He lives in San Francisco.