We Accidentally Performed Surgery on Your Grandmother, but This Could Actually Turn Out to Be a Good Thing

Okay, we’re just going to come right out and say it: We mistook your grandmother for another patient and brought her in for surgery this morning. This happens from time to time. Thankfully, the surgery went well. Still, we think it’s important to be as transparent as possible with our mistakes.

We’re sure you have many questions, and we intend to answer them all. For starters, how did this happen? The simple explanation would be that we meant to take her roommate, whose name sounds a lot like Doris and is also somebody’s grandmother. Unfortunately, it’s never quite that simple, since the patient we meant to take was a middle-aged man named Valentino on a different floor. We’re still investigating what exactly went wrong, but we suspect it may be related to staffing problems and the fact that the same person was responsible for both lunch orders and patient transport. It’s possible that when asked whether she wanted the chicken barley soup or house salad, your grandmother requested a knee replacement.

That partially answers the next question you probably have, which is what procedure she had. The straightforward answer here is a knee replacement, and if we were in the business of withholding information, we would leave it at that. The truth is that it was a double knee replacement, because we accidentally opened two prosthetic joints, and once you unseal the packaging you have to use it or throw it out.

And then—this is where it gets a little complicated—she also received a kidney transplant. We were getting ready to wheel her out of the OR when the transplant team came rushing in with a donor kidney on ice, fresh off the helicopter. Sounds like they had the wrong room number. They came in so quickly and confidently that no one really thought to stop them. Once they opened her up, they noticed her liver was looking a little ragged, and, as luck would have it, we had an extra one that we were going to throw out anyway. So she got the two organs—the kidney and the liver.

When the surgeons were finished, they left the resident and medical student to suture your grandmother up. They did a great job, really. The medical student—who is going into dermatology—even did a little cosmetic touch-up for her, gratis. Some Botox, a bit of filler. Honestly, nothing crazy. At least at first.

We did stop him when he brought out the laser to zap up a few stray whiskers. We actually had to wrestle it away from him, during which time he was kind of firing it indiscriminately. The good news is that he had the laser on the wrong setting, so your grandmother’s hair is completely fine. The strange news is that he grabbed an experimental model that we’ve been developing with the Department of Defense, which, at higher frequencies, stimulates rapid muscle growth. Your grandmother is the first human subject, and we’re not sure how long the effects will last.

So, to summarize: Your grandmother got the double knee replacement, the new organs, a facelift, and now she is—to use an unscientific term—absolutely yoked. She looks like a cross between Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and, well, your grandmother. We’re sure this comes as a bit of a shock, especially after yesterday’s family meeting where your grandmother said she didn’t want any aggressive medical interventions and hoped to live out her days in quiet, at home. And your family outlined a bunch of reasons that mostly had to do with your own peace of mind as to why she was better off in a nursing home. But all of that was before Doris 2.0. This version’s best years may be ahead of her.

You’re welcome to come visit your grandmother. She’s just waking up from the anesthesia, and… actually, wait, never mind. It sounds like she ripped out her IVs, shoved a nurse’s assistant, and stormed out of the PACU muttering something about “showing them the nursing home.”

The important thing is that your grandmother is doing well, or even better than well. She seems to have a new lease on life. You may want to consider relocating temporarily while we notify the Department of Defense. If she does find you first, please let her know that we ordered her new medications to the CVS on Pine Street. And her insurance denied coverage for most of the procedures, but you know what, we can sort that out later.