It’s hospital check-in day. I sleep badly at night, wake up early in the morning. I’m nervous, scared and my whole body is shaking uncontrollably.
I wonder if I’ve prepared everything at home. I’m very afraid of mental damage as a result of the operation. I have given my family all the account information, prepared the credit cards, and hidden the PIN in a sealed envelope. I have written various “cheat sheets” for them and myself in case I lose my memory. I wrote down everything important for running the household. My house is currently full of clues, hints and various keys to solutions. In case of emergency, family members will undergo a story like The Da Vinci Code….
I run around the house, trying to occupy my hands with whatever I can so that my head can shut down. A quick shower, comb my hair one last time, get dressed, make tea, nibble breakfast, slip on my shoes, lock the door and get in the car. I’m being driven by a friend. I don’t want to talk, I stare out the window at passing cars, school children heading to their desks and figures heading to work, to the doctor, to family, to wherever…. I look out the window and the question of why me flies through my head again. Why can’t I go my own way like them, why do I have to face such challenge, fear and feelings of powerlessness. Tears are streaming down my face, dripping onto my clothes and I can even feel the growing anger at my friend. He is nothing unlike me, he will take me there and then go his own way. His soothing words have the opposite effect.
We park at the hospital and approach the first window, the admissions office. I fill out the paperwork and the assistant behind the counter asks me with a smile if I give my consent for the medical students to be present during my surgery and subsequent treatment. With a smile, she also points out not to worry that they won’t be operating on me. We proceed from the fifth floor to the seventh. Again more papers and information, this time written by a nurse. Then the neurosurgery doctor admits me. He reads all the pre-op, neurologically examines me and then turns to me and tells me with unadulterated pride that I am in the highest possible place. I look uncomprehending, so he adds a turn of thought. You see, neurosurgery is the imaginary top of the ladder in the hierarchy of surgeries. You can’t get any higher with surgery. Brain surgery is simply at the top. Oh, yeah…. No…. Hallelujah….
I get a room with two other women in it. One’s having carotid artery surgery. The other is having surgery on the same day as me, but for a different procedure, in a different room and with a different surgeon. She’s Ukrainian and doesn’t understand Czech. I feel sorry for her, she is very scared and she has a language block. Doctors and nurses come to us – they inform us about tomorrow’s surgery, insert the cannula, give us medication, take our temperature and pressure, and want to know various information. I try to remember the basics of Russian from primary school and translate what I can with my hands and feet. The Ukrainian woman laughs, I laugh, the doctors and nurses laugh too. I don’t know what the doctors finally wrote in her documents, but we all tried. I sign the consent for the operation, it’s 5 sheets. I have glasses on the first document. I’ll take them off for the others because I don’t want to read the contents. If I do, I’ll run away like a coward. I sign all the possible risks and tell myself that I’ll be very lucky if none of the above list comes to me.
We are then given red shopping baskets with a list of things to put in them before tomorrow’s procedure. The basket will then go with us to the ICU. All other packed items will be stored with the nurses and we will get to them when we return to the inpatient ward. The list is simple – toothpaste, toothbrush, towel, slippers, cell phone and charger. I’m taking a picture of it and sending it to my friend. He jokingly remarks that he now understands where all the bins from the local Alberta store go. So far so good until the nurses bring us the angels. By then we’re running out of humour and no one speaks for the rest of the day.
I can’t sleep at night. I go to the balcony from where there is a beautiful view of illuminated Prague. The stars are shining above my head, one of them is beautifully bright. I say so up to heaven that I am afraid. I speak impromptu with my dad who is no longer here. I tell him that I will try and if I succeed, I will protect my next life and take care of it with all my might. And if not, I will go there to see him. But anyway, I will give all the strength I have in tomorrow’s fight.
Yes, I will make you happy, life told me. But first I will make you strong.
