Scrubs

Most surgery anniversaries, I’ve asked K.T. to tell me the story of what happened while they waited for Glanda to be removed. If you’re new here, it’s the story where he gets the phone call from Dr. Carroll about halfway through the procedure saying that malignancy was suspected in my supposedly benign tumor. K.T. always tells me how he listened quietly trying to understand what he was hearing, set the phone back down, and blankly walked back around the corner to our families before falling to pieces, knowing how hard I would take the news. Every time, all I want to do is to be able to go back and comfort him in that moment. But I can’t and I couldn’t. And no matter how many times I’ve heard the story, it still hits me right in the heart.

Years ago, I thought maybe if I could just see for myself what happened during surgery, it might provide some extra clarity, understanding, and healing for my soul. I wanted to know at what point things looked like they were taking an unexpected turn. I wanted to experience the atmosphere in an OR while a patient is under anesthesia. I wanted to hear the conversations and the playlist selected for that day. I wanted to watch the process of finding Glanda and taking out that stupid tumor that changed my life forever.

Some of my fellow survivors might understand this mentality, but I would assume most of y’all think I’ve truly lost any sanity I had left. And maybe I have, but as surgery anniversary rolled around this past year, I sent a few emails and talked to a few people, filled out a whole bunch of paperwork, and soon scribbled “parotidectomy” onto my July calendar once again.

In July 2025, 8 whole years after I was rolled back to OR 13 for my procedure, I rolled up to UAB North Pavilion 7th floor in a pair of borrowed blue scrubs and stepped into the OR side-by-side with Dr. Carroll. (He’s retired now, but I wasn’t going in there without him).

The room was like a beehive. Everyone had their tasks and they were diligently buzzing around to make sure they were checked off before timeout and first cut. I stood in the corner and surveyed the room. The ceiling was familiar. I remembered popping my head up to take a quick look before it was time for the counting-backwards-from-ten part, but everything else, I felt like I was seeing for the first time. My thoughts refocused to present time and I realized the patient was already napping. I was suddenly overwhelmed with relief that I didn’t have to explain myself and why I was there.

It took me several minutes to disassociate from the feeling that it was me on the table and I wasn’t experiencing one of those Christmas Carol moments where you’re standing in the room watching yourself live. And it took me several tries to hold steady mentally and not dip back into that thinking once things got going.

As I stood on my little step stool so I could see over the medical team, Dr. Carroll answered all my questions, walked me through what it was like for me that day, and explained some other cool surgery facts along the way. I got to see how I was positioned on the table and why my dang arm was so sore when I woke up in recovery. I got to see how the upside down question mark incision was made across my face, how my cheek was pulled back and tucked out of the way, and how each branch of the facial nerve is parsed through for preservation (technology included). And I got to see how Glanda ultimately became Goneda.

This particular surgery went how mine was “supposed” to go. I still fully believe that mine went how it was supposed to, too, for the record. But this one was 2hrs (instead of 4hrs), the tumor was benign (instead of surprisingly malignant), and the patient healed up as expected as far as I know (instead of processing cancer and facing radiation treatments ahead).

I walked out of the OR exhilarated. It felt surreal. I finally felt like I knew all the things I had pondered so many times. But for what? Why did it matter?

To be honest, I don’t know why this step in my journey was so important to me. But I know that there was a certain peace that came from the experience. With nearly everything else that happened, I had unique insider knowledge of all the things. I had been attending head and neck tumor board regularly as part of my role in clinical research months before surgery, so the second Dr. Carroll said the words “cribriform pattern” during his post-op rounds I knew exactly what he meant. I worked in radiation oncology before surgery so when I was going through treatment, I was well-versed in what a linear accelerator was, what the vault doors sounded like when they opened and closed, and why a medical physicist was part of the team. And when it was time for some maintenance treatment with hyperbarics in 2023, I had direct access to several physicians that are board certified in hyperbaric oxygen treatment and knew the ins and outs of the chambers before ever going for my first dive. Surgery was the only thing I sort of walked into like a normal patient. I knew what my scar might look like and a few normal expectations but that’s it. And I’m kind of thankful for that. My position is a very privileged and unique one, I know that. It’s given me massive reassurance at times and its been scary knowing a little too much at times too.

The things that happened in that OR July 6, 2017 are what changed my entire life. It wasn’t the before. I was absolutely thrilled to go into surgery and have Glanda removed. And it wasn’t the after either. Glanda was Goneda (with clear margins) when I woke up from surgery and I was thrilled about that too. The mystery and the tragedy happened while I was asleep and defenseless between the sterile walls of OR 13. Four hours gone. My story became a horror film from one lucid memory to the next and it was devastating.

I think I wanted to go back to the scene of the crime. I wanted to go see what happened so I could understand how it happened. And while I knew I was never going to find any actual answers in an operating room eight years later, it made total sense to me to fill in that time gap so I felt like I was no longer missing any part of my story. I needed to go envision myself going through it all to feel the feelings that I didn’t get to in real time. It gave me the opportunity to piece together the story K.T. has been telling me for years with the part he didn’t get to experience either. It completed the circle.