My Surgeon Ghosted Me Mid-Procedure, So I Took A Lyft To The Nearest ER
Look, I get it. Surgery is stressful. You’re naked under a paper gown that has the structural integrity of a wet napkin, some anesthesiologist is telling you to count backwards from ten, and you’re praying the last thing you see isn’t a TikTok of a guy eating a Tide Pod. But I think we can all agree there’s an unspoken social contract between a patient and their surgeon, right? The contract being: “You cut me open, put my guts back where they go, and don’t leave me alone on the table to go grab a burrito.”
Apparently, that contract is written in invisible ink now.
This saga, which I’m legally obligated to call “a cautionary tale” but prefer to call “the worst Uber rating drama of my life,” begins with a routine gallbladder removal. I’d had some gnarly gallstones—basically my body decided to manufacture tiny, angry pieces of gravel in my organ of fat storage. The doctor, let’s call him Dr. McSteamy (he wasn’t), said it would be a quick laparoscopic job. “In and out,” he said. “You’ll be home by lunch,” he said. Bros, I was not home by lunch. I was in the back of a 2012 Nissan Altima with a seatbelt digging into my fresh incision, trying not to bleed on the upholstery.
So, the surgery starts. I’m under. The world is a fuzzy, purple haze of propofol and regret. I wake up, groggy, confused, and realize I’m not in the recovery room. I’m still in the OR. The lights are on. There’s a faint beeping. And I am utterly, horrifyingly alone. The surgical team is gone. The robot arms are retracted. My abdomen is open to the world like a sad, deflated whoopee cushion. I look down. I see a piece of my own liver. I do not have a medical degree, but I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to keep those inside the bag.
Turns out, Dr. McSteamy had a case of the “my shift ended” syndrome. According to the nursing supervisor I screamed at later, he got a text from his wife about a kid’s soccer game, decided he was “done for the day,” and just… left. He told the scrub nurse to “close me up and page a resident.” But the scrub nurse? The nurse had also apparently clocked out. The anesthesiologist was already in the parking lot. So there I am, a human piñata, alone in a sterile room, my insides on the outside.
Now, a normal person would panic. A normal person would scream. But I’m an American, and we’re problem-solvers. My phone was in a locker, but my Apple Watch was still on my wrist. I checked my vitals—heart rate: 190. Blood pressure: trying to escape. I did the only logical thing: I opened the Uber app. No, I didn’t call 911. 911 takes 15 minutes. An UberX was three minutes away. I managed to hit the “Request” button with my bloody, gloved finger.
I won’t lie, getting off the operating table was the hardest part. Imagine doing a crunch while your intestines are staging a protest. I waddled out of the OR, trailing a bit of antiseptic and dignity, and met my ride, a guy named Dmitri with a bumper sticker that said “I’d rather be fishing.”
Dmitri took one look at me—gown, IV port dangling, holding my own abdomen together like a cheap purse—and said, “You good, bro?” I said “ER. Fast.” He said “Extra five bucks for blood cleanup?” I said “Deal.”
The ride was… eventful. I bled a little on the seat. Dmitri didn’t even flinch. He just put on some lo-fi beats and asked if I wanted to hit a drive-thru. I declined. I was trying not to die, not get a McFlurry.
We made it to the ER. I stumbled in, told the triage nurse my surgeon dipped out. She looked at my chart, looked at my open abdomen, and said, “Oh honey, he does this all the time.” ALL THE TIME. This was a known quantity. I was the laughingstock of the surgical floor. I got stitched up by a very tired resident who called my original surgeon a “fucking liability” under his breath. Music to my ears.
The hospital is now offering me a settlement for “emotional distress,” but honestly? The real trauma is my Uber rating. I got a two-star from Dmitri for being a “messy passenger.” Meanwhile, Dr. McSteamy is probably on a beach in Cabo, sipping a piña colada, completely unbothered. The system is broken, my friends. The system is broken and leaking bile.
So, AITA for giving my surgeon a bad Yelp review while still on fentanyl? Because I did. And I’d do it again.
Final Thoughts
After reading through the clinical precision and emotional weight of the article, one can't help but see surgery as a profound paradox: it is an act of calculated destruction in the service of creation. The scalpel is a tool of both violence and healing, and the success of an operation often hinges less on technical mastery alone and more on the fragile trust placed in the hands of a surgeon who must navigate the chasm between hope and risk. Ultimately, this piece reminds us that beneath the sterile drapes and bright lights, surgery remains an intensely human endeavor, where every incision is a gamble and every recovery is a quiet miracle.