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