HEALER

by Susan Markisz
Freelance
for the New York Times

January 2002
New York City

Wake Me When It's Over

"Get to hospital operating room at 12:30" the assignment sheet read, "You'll need to scrub for the operation."

SCRUB???

Rachele Davis, a Reiki Healer, with her patient Saul Rodriguez, who is undergoing a hip replacement operation by Dr. Harvey Insler of Bronx Lebanon Hospital. © Susan B. Markisz for The New York Times

I don't do wars, but sometimes I get to shoot some neat stuff. And every once in awhile the "stuff" turns into a personal triumph. The assignment was to photograph Rachele Davis, a Reiki healer, who would be with her patient in the operating room during hip replacement surgery, for a story on the combination of alternative and traditional medicine.

 

Operating Room?

When these words made their way through the safety of e-mail cyberspace to the reality of my consciousness, my first thought was "Cool!" But given my propensity for anxiety, my second thought was "No way!"

Some people get the queasies at the mere mention of blood and guts. Not me. I've got a strong stomach. It's the weak-in-the-knees, out-of-control feeling that precipitates a trip to the operating room that gets to me. Let's just say I've had more than a few trips down that road, so it's fair to say I was feeling a tad anxious. Panicked might even be a more accurate description.

Thirteen years ago (hooray for 13!), I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had just discovered my passion for photojournalism. I had a crazy notion that I would take a camera into the operating room and document my operation, (that's right, remotely, while unconscious!) or at least the panic-stricken moments leading up to the surgery, the walls closing in, the blur of doctors in masks scurrying about. Depending on your perspective, the brain cells were working overtime, or they weren't working at all. But as the hour approached for my surgery, all I could think of was how to get through it, much less come away with an artistic rendering. My autobiographical work would have to come later. Forget the pictures! I'd imagine what it was like later on. (And did I really want to know?)

In the olden days, they used to admit you to the hospital the night before surgery, drug you up into a state of anesthetic oblivion where anxiety lives in someone else's world. You wouldn't wake up 'til post-op and you would get a few days of R&R with a little room service thrown in for good measure. Not so in the days of managed care. Nowadays, you walk into your surgery on your own steam as if it's just another day at the office, and if you're lucky, you get to go home the same day, even if your body and soul are begging not to be moved. There are, of course, compelling reasons for this. Insurance companies get to save on the hotel bill this way, even if it costs them in future psychiatric treatment for post traumatic stress disorder.

Stay with me on this. And forgive the soapbox, I have to get this off my chest, so to speak.

My surgeon had this notion back in 1988, (one almost as crazy as mine) that it would be empowering for me to WALK into the operating room before my mastectomy---as opposed to being wheeled in on a gurney blissfully sedated. I felt as if I was going to the gallows. As we neared the operating room, my surgeon and I engaged in preoperative banter; he told jokes as I politely laughed and wished he would just shut up and put me to sleep.

I didn't care about the play-by-play! I didn't much care how the blood pressure cuff worked and I didn't care about the little sticky things they were putting on my chest. I didn't want to know the details. For a detail-oriented person, a little information is a dangerous thing. I had already digested the entire operating room and I was in sensory overload. My body yearned for anesthesia. "You won't remember a thing," my surgeon had said.

Fast forward a decade or so. The above scenario was replaying like a broken record as I drove to the hospital. Already my body was sending signals like "even if YOU want to go there and make these pictures, I'm not comin' along."

So I did a little mental cheerleading. "This isn't about you," I told myself. "This is about someone else, and it's a hip replacement; it's not about cancer."

As I arrived at the hospital a little early, with sudden clarity of vision, I knew what I would do. I would have the healer heal ME before the operation. But it was not to be. Rachele was already engaged in a laying on of hands with her patient, that left me to rely, instead, on a multitude of Hail Mary's and the fervent hope that in the end, the fight --- of the fight or flight response --- would win, over the desire to run like hell. There was no way I was going to chicken out of this assignment.

Rachele Davis, a Reiki healer, stayed with her patient, during his 3 hour hip replacement surgery. © Susan B. Markisz for The New York Times

Worst case scenario, I figured I would get a few pictures of the healer and the patient before the incision and then bolt. My editor wouldn't want the gory part anyway. As I inched my way into my chosen position in the OR, I had a great location---I could see the healer and the patient, but nothing else. It was PERFECT! And there right beside me, was the chair I had requested, just in case

Within moments, I had gotten my pictures and I suddenly realized I wasn't worried about my legs giving way anymore. Curiosity soon got the better of me and I peeked around the drape to see what was going on. They had drills and hammers and tools and ARMOR. There was so much hammering and drilling, that it sounded more like a construction site than an operation. Dr. Harvey Insler did the play-by-play as I waltzed my way around the OR asking questions like a resident-in-training. I was inches away from an open wound the size of Montana saying "Wow." My daughter always tells me I'm easily impressed. I guess it's true because the operation was awesome.

That the human body can sustain a planned trauma like hip replacement surgery, is pretty remarkable. © Susan B. Markisz for The New York Times

Dr. Harvey Insler removes a portion of a diseased hip joint from his patient. © Susan B. Markisz for The New York Times

Susan B. Markisz

Editor's note: Susan Markisz's autobiographical breast cancer work has been exhibited and published extensively, including the U.S. House of Representatives, which censored one of her photographs in 1993 for "unsuitability for viewing by the general public." But that's a story for another day. She has yet to figure out a way to document an operation while under sedation.

Copyright 2002 Susan B. Markisz

Susan Markisz
Smarkisz@aol.com