On the 7th of this month, George was FINALLY taken for his hernia surgery. Below are the thoughts and feelings shared by George on the whole procedure…

Thursday Nov. 6th. It’s around 5:30 pm and I hear my name over the intercom to report to the Captain’s office. I had an idea of what it was for and hoped thats what it was about.
“You’re going to out on medical, but first it’s the “Hole” the Captain informed me.
I stood silent as they put the cuffs on. The “Hole” was no big deal for me as I have been enclosed before. Some fear it, I don’t. I was placed in a dirty holding tank-they gave me only a little chicken based broth and water-the broth was so salty I could not drink it. After a few hours I was handcuffed again and lead to another empty cell-alittle cleaner, but not much. I sat on the edge of the bed, took a couple of deep breaths-I knew I had to get some sleep now-Holes come alive in the wee hours, 3-4am-the screaming, yelling and cursing.
I knew it would be pretty early when they would come get me-they do the first head count at 5am-the guard came right after count and told me to get ready-being a prison “veteran”, I knew the showers in the hole were VERY hot, coffee hot. You only have 30-60 seconds before the water will boil your skin off-48 seconds, done-since I was in the hole for medical I was dressed in a loose gray sweatsuit, no orange jumpsuit.
I was then handcuffed and leg ironed-ten of us were led to a waiting bus-it’s been years since I was on a “free” road-the motion can do something to one’s head and stomach, it did-I endured.
It’s late dawn now-we arrive at the surgery clinic-it’s a small building behind another building, where? I don’t know and really don’t care-I just want to be fixed-I have waited long enough-anyways-we are led inside.
Once inside you are assigned a nurse and a “gun-toting” guard. They chain you to the bed, and begin prepping for the surgery-I was first, in I went, with the guard in tow-yes, he comes into the operating room too, with his gun.
I was awakened by a soft voice-the surgery was done-they gave me a pill-I fell back to sleep-I was woken again and told to get up and get ready-I was then chained again to the other 9 and put on the bus for the ride back-I threw up twice on the bus back-I think it was that pill-my gut felt as if it was gonna burst.
Back at the prison, we are checked and sent back to our cells-I threw up again, man, this pain sucks.
I was “helped” back to my cell-I laid there, my privates swelled up and discolored. I was definetly feeling some pain-nothing I could do but wait it out-I thanked God while thinking about what the soilders must endure when wounded in a battlefield far from home-I endured.
In the evening, my friends rallied around me, brought me my soup, pain-killers, ice packs, and most importantly, kindness.
For the next few days I just laid on my bed and rested-Today is the first day I am sitting up-it strikes me funny that the first thing I really want to do is write-write for my blog readers-this has become such an important part of my life. It helps me feel and stay alive.
It’s almost a week later and I still have some pain-”this too shall pass”, John always says that- but to ALL of this, I have to ask, when??

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 15th, 2008 at 12:14 pm and is filed under George Martorano. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.