Will I?

That's the phrase I uttered a few times in my mind the very first time I saw a "surgery". (I say "surgery" because it was reeeeeally pushing the definition of that word- it was a melanoma excision on a shoulder.) Anyway, after the local anesthetic was administered, the scalpel was raised, and I secured an appropriate vantage point (my tippy-toes), the dermatologist turned to me and said, "You won't faint will you?"

I suddenly started mentally freaking out. Will I? I seriously had never thought about it before. What if I can't handle it? What if I get queasy? Will I faint? Will I puke? Will I answer this doctor's question before he starts snapping his fingers at me and snarking, "Hello?! McFly?!"

"Nah, I'll be okay" I said with a lot more gusto and falsetto than I intended. My voice may have quivered too, I can't remember. "Great, let's get started" the doctor replied, and turned back around to start cutting. And I started feeling my fear take over, my face flush, my heart rate increase, my palms simultaneously sweat and freeze up, and my apprehension of perhaps picking a totally incompatible profession that will tie me up for more than a decade and shove me so far down the throat of Debt that it'd just be easier to climb out the bottom, began to take over. I watched the first incision, noting the first few drops of blood appear at the edges. And...

Haha, no I'm just joking. It went totally fine. My panic immediately subsided and I looked like Lily instead of Barney. I was fascinated by the levels of skin, how to contain the bleeding, where to cut to realign the edges, and the double enclosure sutures. I fell in love. And when I saw a double above-the-knee amputation a few months later, the scrub nurse asked the same thing. I confidently said, "I'll be okay."

Damn straight. Now why don't you hand me that bovie and scoot over, Doc?