Lifesabeachafter50

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

It was with a kind of resentment that I got out of bed on Monday morning.  Why? Because I had to get up at crack of dawn to go to hospital for an operation.  I set my alarm to six thirty am on Sunday night, but woke up naturally before the alarm.  The Sun was already up and it was a beautiful day.  However, I was a little apprehensive.  It was supposed to be a simple investigative keyhole operation but I was worried because I didn’t know what to expect.  What if they find something nasty, what if it’s a cancerous tumour? What if I don’t wake up from the anaesthetic?  And all sorts of disturbing thoughts.

I have simple philosophies in life.  One of them is “Expect the worst, but hope for the best” and that’s what I did. I hoped for the best.  I had done a lot of research on similar operations, and I knew that the complications or fatalities from anaesthesia is about five in a thousand so very rare.  But you never know do you!  You always think that the worst things only happen to others, but one day that other, could be you couldn’t it?

I had been told that I may or may not have to stay the night at the hospital so in the morning I got my dressing gown and nightdress ready, neatly folded with my toothbrush on top and left the whole bundle on my bed before leaving.  I thought I could get Stephen to bring them to me if I need to stay the night. and I left home with the intension to come back the same day. 

The trains were almost deserted. I only had a few stops to go and I was glad it was a short journey because all the way I felt like a lamb going to the slaughterhouse and hated the feeling.  Even though I had researched the procedure extensively and watched videos of similar operations on you tube and knew that they perform these routinely, I was still thinking of the worst that could happen.

In the waiting room at hospital, there was another woman sitting with a small suitcase.  I quietly sat down, looked at the woman who was busy reading an out of date magazine, and thought I wonder how old she is, she looks around my age or perhaps a little older.

She was taken to the ward before me and then the nurse came back for me.  They put nametags on both my wrists and the Philippino nurse said, “ This is so that you can’t run away from us!!”

With a giggle.  Then she asked me “ you have no luggage?”  “No!” I said “I travel light so I can make a quick escape!”

She showed me to my bed, showed me the controls and told me not to play with them! and told me I was first on the list to go into operating theatre and I said “ Oh good I love an early show!”

As I was going to my bed, I heard the woman I saw in the waiting room telling a Doctor her date of birth was 1970. And thought to myself “Wow! She is twenty years younger than me and I thought she was older!”

I was hoping that they get on with it as soon as possible and they actually did, I had a few different nurses coming around checking my temperature, blood pressure and asking questions, doing all the paper work, then the surgeon came round and briefed me about what she was going to do and I really impressed her with my knowledge of the procedure and my questions.  She said, “ Have you had this done before?”  “No” I said, “I’ve just done my homework!” Then a nice young anaesthetist came and asked some questions and I made him laugh too! When I said, “ be warned! You may need a lot more drugs than you’ve calculated for my weight and height because I am a tough cookie!”

Then a nice Australian agency nurse came to me and said “ Hi, I’m Sarah and I am going to be your nurse for today”.  And she accompanied me to the anaesthetic room where I met the team of anaesthetists, about five of them.  They attached some monitoring pads to my temples and shoulders and a couple of needles into the veins in my hand.  I was watching the clock the whole time.  Then they put this Oxygen mask on my face and I felt like being suffocated, I pulled it off and said, “ I thought you were going to give me Oxygen!  This smells like dry cleaning fumes!!”  They all laughed. 

It was about 9.15 when they started to administer the drugs to send me to sleep. Five minutes later, one of them called my name, Nahid, are you still with us?  And I am saying yeah man! And heard one of the girls in the background whispering, “Anyone else would have been under by now”.  And I said, “ I heard that!” And looked at the clock on the wall again: 9.30…..

Woke up in the recovery room with a clock right in front of me on the wall at 10.20.  A nice young male nurse was sitting beside me holding my hand. Then he kept putting the Oxygen mask on my face and I kept pulling it off telling him I didn’t want it.  He gave up in the end when I told him it was making me feel like I am suffocating.

In the ward by 11 am.  Couldn’t get comfortable on the narrow bed and though I felt sleepy, couldn’t sleep because I had a sore throat and kept snoring!  They brought me some lunch by 12.  Soup and a fish dish with white sauce, that was actually yellow, mashed potato that looked like it was made with that powdery stuff SMASH! And some broccoli that was cooked for so long it was no longer green!  And a small tub of vanilla ice cream.  I had the soup, Asparagus it was, not too bad and the ice cream and gave the fish a miss.

I was up and walking after that and couldn’t wait to leave.  The surgeon’s assistant came to see me and told me the operation was successful and I could go home in a few hours. 

It was around 2 pm when I asked the nurse if I could go now, and she said no you should wait “ we like to keep and eye on you for at least four hours after surgery” and I said, well, I went in around 9.30.  She said, “ Yeah but you took a long time coming around from anaesthetic”  “ I was very tiered!”  I said. 

By 4.30 I was dressed and ready to go and Stephen came for me just before 5 and we left.  The other woman was still in her bed as I passed her by, looking even paler and older than before.

2 Responses to “Operation Monday”