A story about knots and surgeons Ed Gavagan

now we wake up in the morning you get

dressed put on your shoes you head out

into the world do you plan on coming

back getting undressed going to bed

waking up doing it again and that

anticipation that rhythm helps give us a

structure to how we organize ourselves

and our lives and it gives a measure of

predictability living in New York City

as I do it’s almost as if with so many

people doing so many things at the same

time in such close quarters it’s almost

like life is dealing you extra hands out

of that deck you’re never it’s just

juxtapositions are possible that just

that aren’t you don’t think they’re

going to happen and you never think

you’re going to be the guy who’s walking

down the street and because you choose

to go down one side or the other the

rest of your life has changed forever

and one one night I’m riding the Uptown

local train I get on I tend to be a

little bit vigilant when I get on the

subway I don’t not one of the people

zoning out with headphones or a book and

I get on the car and I look and I i

noticed this couple college aged student

looking kids guy and a girl and they’re

sitting next to each other and she’s got

her leg draped over his knee in there

doing have this little contraption and

they’re tying these knots and they’re

doing it with one hand they’re doing it

left-handed and right-handed very

quickly and then she’ll hand the thing

to him and he’ll do it I’ve never seen

anything like this it’s almost like

they’re practicing magic tricks

and and at the next stop a guy gets on

the car and he has this sort of visiting

professor look to him he’s got the

overstuffed leather satchel and the

rectangular file case in a laptop bag

and the tweed jacket with the leather

patches and he looks at them and then in

a blink of an eye he kneels down in

front of them and he starts to say

listen here’s how you can do it look if

you do this and he takes the laces out

of their hand and in instantly he starts

tying these knots and even better than

they were doing it remarkably and it

turns out they are medical students on

their way to a lecture about the latest

suturing techniques and he’s the guy

given the lecture so he starts to tell

them and he’s like no this is very

important here you know when you’re when

you’re needing these knots it’s going to

be you know everything is going to be

happening at the same time it’s going to

be you’re going to have all this

information coming at you there’s going

to be organs getting in the way it’s

going to be slippery and it’s just very

important that you be able to do these

beyond second nature each hand left hand

right hand you have to be able to do

them without seeing your fingers and at

that moment when I heard that I just got

catapulted out of the subway car into a

night when I had been getting a ride in

an ambulance from the sidewalk where I

had been stabbed hmm to the trauma room

of st. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan

and what had happened was a gang had

come in from Brooklyn as part of an

initiation for three of the members they

had to kill somebody and I happen to be

the guy walking down the bleecker street

that night and they jumped on me without

a word one of the very lucky things when

i was in at notre dame i was on the

boxing team so i put my hands up right

away instinctively the guy on the right

had a knife with a 10 inch blade and he

went in under my elbow and it went up

and cut my inferior vena cava if you

know anything about Anatomy that’s not a

good thing to get cut and everything of

course on the way up and then I still

have my hands up he pulled it out it

went from my neck and sunk it in up to

the hilt on in my neck and I got one

straight right punch and not the middle

guy out the other guy was still working

on me collapsing my other lung and I

managed to get by hitting that guy to

get a minute I ran down the street and

collapsed and the ambulance guys

intubated me on the sidewalk and let the

trauma room know we had an incoming and

one of the side effects of having major

massive blood loss is you get tunnel

vision so I remember being on the

stretcher and having little nickel sized

cone of vision and I was moving my head

around and we got the st. Vincent’s and

we’re racing down this hallway and I see

the lights going and it’s a peculiar

effect of memories like that they don’t

really go to the usual place the

memories go they kind of have this vault

where they’re stored in high def and

George Lucas did all the sound effects

so it’s sometimes it’s remembering them

it’s like it’s it’s not like any other

kind of memories and I get into the the

trauma room and they’re waiting for me

and the lights are there and I been able

to breathe a little more now because

that the blood has left my had been

filling up my lungs and I was having a

very hard time breathing but now it’s

kind of gone into the stretcher and I

said is there anything I can do to help

and the the nurse kind of had a

hysterical laugh and and I’m turning my

head trying to see everybody and I had

this weird memory of being in college

and raised

raising money for the flood victims of

Bangladesh and then I look over and my

anesthesiologist is clamping the mask on

me and I think he looks Bangladeshi and

I just have that those two facts and I

just think this could work somehow and

then I go I go out and they work on me

for the rest of the night and i needed

about 40 units of blood to keep me there

while they did their work and the

surgeon took out about a third of my

intestines my cecum organs I didn’t know

that I had and he later told me one of

the last things he did while he was in

there was to remove my appendix for me

which I thought was great you know just

a little tidy thing there at the end and

I came to in the morning out of

anesthetic he had let them know that he

wanted to be there and he had given me

about a two percent chance of living so

he was there when I when I woke up and

it was waking up was like breaking

through the ice into a frozen lake of

pain it was that and developing and

there was only one spot that didn’t hurt

worse than anything I’d ever felt and it

was my instep and he was holding the

arch of my foot and and rubbing the

instep with his thumb and I looked up

and he’s like good to see you and I I

was trying to remember what had happened

and try and get my head around

everything and the pain was just

overwhelming and he said um you know we

we didn’t cut your hair I thought you

were you might have gotten strength from

your hair like Samson and you’re going

to need all the strength you can get and

in those days I had my hair was down to

my waist I drove a motorcycle I was

unmarried I owned a bar so those were

different times

but I had three days of life support and

everybody was expecting due to just the

massive amount of what they had had to

do that I wasn’t going to make it so it

was three days of everybody who’s either

waiting for me to die or poop and when I

finally pooped then that somehow

surgically speaking that’s like you

crossed some good line and on that day

the surgeon came in and whipped the

sheet off of me he had three or four

friends with him and he does that and

they all look and there’s there was no

infection and there they bend over me

and they’re poking and prodding and they

like there’s no hematomas look at the

color and and they’re talking amongst

themselves and I’m like this restored

automobile that he’s just going yeah I

did that and and it was just um it was

amazing because these guys are

high-fiving him over how good I turned

out you know and it’s my zipper and and

I still got the staples in and

everything and later on when I got out

and the the flashbacks and the

nightmares were giving me a hard time I

would I went back to him and I was sort

of asking him you know what what am I

going to do and I think kind of as a

surgeon he basically said kid I saved

your life like now you can do whatever

you want like you know you got to get on

with that it’s like I gave you a new car

and you’re complaining about not finding

parking like just go out and and and you

know do your best but you’re alive

that’s that’s what it’s that’s what it’s

about and then I hear Bing bong and the

subway doors are closing and my stop is

next and I look at these kids and I go I

think to myself I’m going to lift my

shirt up and and show

and then I think now this is a new york

city subway that’s going to lead to

other things and so I just think they

got their lecture to go to I step off I

get standing on the platform and I feel

my index finger in in the first scar

that i ever got from my umbilical cord

and then around that which is traced the

last scar that i got from my surgeon and

I I think that that chance encounter

with those kids on the street with their

knives led me to my surgical team and

their training and their skill and

always a little bit of luck pushed back

against chaos

very lucky to be here

you