MicroHorror

“Jesus, I really need to go to the bathroom,” Dr. Willy Nailstein said to his assistants. He’d been in surgery since 7:00 AM and had forgotten his customary stop to the bathroom before starting surgery. Now, more than two hours into surgery, his bladder’s need was superceding any need the eighty-two year old man on the table might have. You’ve done it before, he thought. Just go run in, take a leak, wash your hands and be back before the EKG prints out.

“I’m leaving to go to the bathroom.”

“Yes, Doctor. Go ahead.”

“Right.”

Nailstien ran out of the OR to the men’s room. He pushed the door open with his backside. He did his thing in the nearest stall. Halfway through his piss, Willy heard the code blue alarm.

“Code Blue Operating Room Four
Code Blue OR Four
Code Blue!”

With a bit of effort, Willy finished in record time. At a sprinter’s pace he raced to the nurse waiting with a fresh pair of gloves. With great skill, Will slid into the gloves a moment before bursting through the OR doors.

“What the hell? I was gone for less than a minute!”

“Patient flatlined because you didn’t look close enough at where you put your scalpel before taking a piss,” one of his brave assistants said.

“Shut up and help me save the old man!”

Five minutes of shocking his heart with no result. Willy gave up trying.

“I’m going to call it. You guys know the drill for this situation,” Willy said to his staff. This wasn’t the first time they had to cover something like this. Willy didn’t have a doubt about their ability to lie but they weren’t the ones that had to sell it to the family. At 9:42 am Willy Nailstein’s patient died. The official cause of death on the report would be written down as complications that arose during surgery. It didn’t help Willy as he made his way to the family’s waiting room.

The family was all there, prepared for the long haul. Monopoly and Scrabble boards took up two of the four guest tables. When Willy appeared, the relatives surrounded him. Gently, Willy took the new widow aside to break the news.

“What happened? I mean, how did the surgery go?” she asked.

“Well… there were complications.”