The only minor surgery, my mother said, is someone else’s surgery. And I suppose that’s probably true. As this week drew closer, I found myself doing a great job of concentrating on all of the other things in life, but on Monday during the pre-op stuff, when you walk by a sign that says Vascular Surgery you are unavoidably confronted by the thing.
My wife’s surgery yesterday went well, before, during and after. Today, a staff physical therapist came by and before long The Yankee was walking down the hall of the Cleveland Clinic unassisted. It was slow, but she put away the crutches. This is about 28 hours after having two chunks of muscle removed from her leg to improve arterial blood flow. (And, I am contractually obligated to say, just nine days removed from an Ironman.) Maybe the worst part of the whole thing was having to say goodnight, last night, and leave her hospital room. The people we’ve met in the Cleveland Clinic have been amazing — and who knows what kind of 18 months these people have had — so I didn’t even make jokes about how that visiting hours rule didn’t apply to me.
I walked down the hall at the appropriate time, before anyone had to run me off, and a woman passing the other way wished me a good night. I was thinking about what one of the staff members had replied to almost everything we’d said earlier in the day, “It’s a blessing.”
So I was in a philosophical mood as I walked back to the hotel room, just two blocks from where The Yankee would fitfully try to get some hospital rest. Probably because we had to spend so much of our relationship apart — a year while we were dating, and five years-plus after we were married — I am keenly aware of the distance when we are close, but apart.
I walked by this on the way back to the room. It’s not a Spock thing.
I knew the gesture made famous in Star Trek had Jewish religious origins, and I stood there for a while trying to remember if I’d ever read what the salute Leonard Nimoy incorporated into the show meant in the real world. We go to Chabad for an explanation:
(T)he Vulcan salute is an authentic imitation of the manner by which Cohanim spread their hands in most congregations when blessing the congregation to this day.
Cohanim are those people that today comprise about four to five percent of the Jewish population, all of whom trace their paternal lineage back to Aaron, brother of Moses, who was also the first High Priest. The Cohanim performed the offerings in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple in Jerusalem. They are still afforded certain honors, and they still bless the congregation with exactly the same words with which Aaron blessed us over 3,300 years ago when we finally got the first Tabernacle up and standing.
All of that is very interesting, but we’re after the real substance here:
The reason the Cohanim raise and spread out their hands is because that’s just what Aaron did when he blessed us: “And Aaron lifted up his hands towards the people and blessed them …”
But why do they spread their fingers? The Midrash explains that the Shechinah—the divine presence, peers through the fingers of the Cohanim during the priestly blessing, in keeping with the verse, “…behold, He is standing behind our wall, looking from the windows, peering between the cracks.”
The explanation notes the priestly blessing ends with “and give you peace.” A reference in between hospital buildings which is surely welcome to those who know what they are seeing.
Also welcome today was the discharge from the hospital and getting back to the room with ease, via the hospital’s shuttle. I had to pick up some prescriptions and a late lunch and then, finally, we could take a nap. No one sleeps well in the few nights before a surgery — even a minor one! And no patient can sleep well in a hospital bed. So this was one of those late afternoon naps which was so necessary that it didn’t in any way seem indulgent.
There’s a nice little restaurant in our hotel, and I picked up a light dinner there. We had a cookie treat which was in every way an indulgence, before calling it a night.
The doctor had asked us to stay in town an extra night as a just-in-case. Better to be here than six hours away should something unexpected arise, he said. I think he was simply doing me a favor. The idea of driving back today would have been daunting. Today’s nap and a full night of sleep will make a day in the car easier to manage tomorrow.
