Now fuck the table

I’m scrubbing in on the two C-sections today. They ask me to put on a hair cap and a mask, both are made of fabric and are falling apart. I wash my hands and fore arms and walk into the sterile room where I try on the washed and reused surgical gown. I have scrubbed in on many operations before, but here I have to think everything over for a long time, figuring out what is sterile and what’s not, and how I can fit into size 8 gloves (I’m a 6,5).

During all that hassle with double sterile gloves and unfamiliar gowns the doctor is talking to me in an interesting Swahili/English mix. I just nod and smile, hoping he didn’t ask me anything specific. After walking into the theatre and making our sterile field he suddenly goes “and now fuck the table.” I beg your pardon? “Yes fuck the table, put your pubic bone against the edge of the table, so nothing can come between you and the sterile field.”

The operations are uneventful in the technical aspect of the word, but the second mother delivered twins, one live boy at 35 weeks and one intra uterine foetal death. It’s sad to see another dead baby boy so soon after yesterday’s events.

After the OP the doctor, scrub nurses and assistants sit down in the working room for tea. “Don’t you want to stay in Tanzania for ever?” asks the doctor, “we could find you a good husband, Shwa’ib here has just finished med school and is training to become a surgeon.” “You are not engaged are you?” I should have followed Inge’s advice and wear a ring.