Nothing compares to the first time I held the #10 blade. The second the scalpel was placed in my hand, I knew exactly why I was there. I held my breath. Time froze as I timidly touched the knife to the skin. The clock started with that cut.
The #10 blade spoke to me in a tone only a surgeon hears. It taught me that the lighter the pressure, the finer the cut. Each blade has its sweet spot, and each hand has a preference. I trialed various handle lengths, then different blades for other procedures and skins. There was the hefty #20 blade and the delicate #15 blade. The sophisticated curve of the #15 blade entranced me. In time every surgeon finds their blade. The #15 became my career favorite.
If only this blade could talk! It would ease my warped perception of neurosurgical time. Time clots in the OR, becoming slow and thick. I lose count of the hours while operating. Only when I emerge, finding the sky now night, do I realize how many hours have passed. No one senses that time is the currency quite like a neurosurgeon delivering a glioblastoma diagnosis. Here, time is quick as heartbreak. Joining vision, hearing, smell, touch and taste, time is the neurosurgeon’s sixth sense.
The only blade to fear is an #11, with its dangerous and unforgiving point. I saved it for last. I am operating in the #11 blade of my career; the sharp tip is hinting that is it nearly midnight. Suddenly nostalgic, 30 years melt away to that summer day when Dr. Nakamura entrusted me to make my first incision. There is only one moment that will mean more than the first. The last one. I hold the blade with tender tightness, resting it on the scalp one more time. For every blade there is a season. And winter is coming.
