It is here. After weeks of waiting, stress, nervousness and sleepless nights.
It’s September 7th, 5:30 a.m. alarm clock. I go out to the balcony again. Now everything is in the hands of fate. I look to the sky again and say I’m going to do it. No matter how it turns out, I did my best in the preparations for myself. I’m getting an antibiotic drip. I am allergic to most of them, so they prescribe me antibiotics of the so-called last resort. They call them vaults. They are trying to adjust the dosage so that I don’t have any allergic reactions. I have exactly two hours to draw the dose, at 8:30 they will take me to the theater, the operation will begin at exactly 8. The end is planned around 12.
The nurse asks me if I want a sedative. I refuse any medication that is unnecessary. I want to keep my brain in good condition as much as possible, I don’t want any sedatives or drugs to calm down or sleep. I tell myself that the anesthesia will be long, they will inject me with a contrast agent and in general they will put so much chemistry into me that the body will have enough work with just the necessary things that it will have to process. Anything extra that can be lived without, I steadfastly reject.
At half past eight they put me in an angel, put me on a stretcher, I get a basket at my feet with things for the JIP and we go to the operating theater on the second floor. The man who drives me jokes that I’ll have it right even with a haircut. I’m going to have a haircut like Rihanna – long hair on one side, shaved hedgehog on the other. They say it will be sexy. So I think I’ll look like a badass. In addition, for the uninitiated, I will be a fifty-year-old punk. A shy old woman playing young. He shaves half his head and presents it as a sign of a young spirit. But he’s trying to cheer me up, so I agree with him. The cheerful conversation will last us all the way to the hall. We meet my mom at the elevator and it’s clear from her expression that she didn’t get much sleep the night before. I tell her not to worry, that everything will be fine, that I can handle it. I have mobilized all the energy I am capable of and with that attitude I go to the hall. I tell myself that I won’t give up today.
We arrive at the second floor, where there is a delivery window like in the dining room. Just a lot bigger. It is open and leads from the operating theater to the corridor we came in. Through the dispensing window, I move from one couch to the couch on the other side, this time the operating one. It is padded in different ways, adjustable, very durable. They take off my angel and cover me with a green sheet. They will take me to the place where they will operate on me. I don’t have any sedatives in me, so I perceive everything very clearly.
There are big operating lights above me. A short distance from the head is the operating microscope that I saw in the hospital’s promotional video. It looks impressive, a bit like something out of a sci-fi movie. I would like to examine him in more detail, but I am already tied to the operating bed and cannot move. I have a cannula in place, the nurses begin to gather various monitoring devices around me on mobile carts. Everything whistles, beeps, flashes in various ways, and a lot of hoses run from it. It’s not very optimistic. However, so far I’m doing fine until a bearded man comes with a massive harness in his hand and walks towards me. Soon they are trying to mount it on my bed behind my head. Shiiiiittt…. what the …. Yippee…. it looks like a grate on which you skewer lamb or pork while grilling. Thick, massive rod, spikes on both sides, screws to tighten…. it occurs to me that they will attach my head to this exact harness so that it does not move during the operation.
Now I’m really panicking. I start to shake, the nurse sees that it is high time to stop bothering me and tells me honey, we are going to sleep. Where would you like to go on vacation? To the Alps, to the mountains. Now imagine it as if you were already there.
Dark.
If you don’t know what to be grateful for in life, feel your pulse.
