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The Most Sagittarius Thing I Ever Said

A few years ago I found myself lying on a table in a hospital, waiting to have my left ankle reconstructed. I will spare you most of the gruesome details. I’ll let you know that I was there because of a combination of clumsiness, drunkenness, stupidity, and the pins getting infected that were put in to hold the various fragments of my ankle together. It was not at all pretty. In fact, were I to have faced the same situation anytime after the early to mid 90s, I would have probably become an amputee (thanks, medical technology!).

Lying on the table, I found the usual thoughts going through my head one might expect. There was a small but real chance that I could die on the table that day, as all major surgery has some risk going for it. There was also a chance that the procedure being done on me that day… again, I have spared you the most disturbing of the details… would result in my never needing to lace up a left shoe again, and my sock budget would be reduced by fifty percent.

I was surrounded by a dozen or so medical professionals. It was a teaching hospital, and apparently my surgery was of some educational value. there was an IV in my left arm and out of the corner of my eye I saw someone make a gesture, like something was being injected into my line.

After a few seconds I stopped worrying about dying under anesthesia or living as an amputee or never being able to walk properly again. I turned my head to look at the man in the surgical mask to my left and asked him, “hey, did you just give me anesthetic?”

“Yes,” he replied, “why?”

I paused for a second before I answered him. “Because all of a sudden I’m feeling strangely optimistic about things.”

I woke up several hours later, with both feet still attached.