day of the surgery

It was 5.30 in the morning. Our friend Paula came to pick me up to take me to the hospital. I supposed to be at the ward by 7am. Emotions were high, but I knew exactly what I wanted. Outside the window it was snowing, lots of snow. We drove slowly, no more than 40 mph. The roads were empty. Black everywhere. Near the hospital Paula got out of the car to say goodbye to me. I could see tears in her eyes. After all, there was no guarantee whether we would see each other again.

I entered through a side entrance. The cafeteria was still closed. I walked down the long corridor for a good 10 minutes until I reached my destination. I was ahead of schedule. There were more people in the waiting room who were struggling with various illnesses. Many stressed faces around. It struck 7.00 a.m. The nurse took me to the ward to a room with more medical people. They checked my blood, blood pressure and measured the my lower limb to get the stockings. I was then taken to another private room where I was asked to change and leave my belongings in my bag. I waited to be interviewed by the anaesthetist and my surgeon.

After a few minutes, the first person appeared. She explained all the possible complications of anaesthesia. We were disturbed in our conversations by an alarm that went off every few minutes. Supposedly this was normal, however, I simply could not hear some of the statements. The surgeon appeared. He asked me if I wanted to have bypass or sleeve surgery. By now I was set on option one, but I was worried about some of the side effects of the operation, mainly the increased chance of dumping syndrome. I hadn’t had symptoms of reflux for years. Anyway, it usually appeared after heavy eating and drinking, mainly beer. I also knew that it was possible to do a bypass even after a gastric sleeve, although it was not that easy as people say. Very complicated surgery. The conversation was disturbed all the time by the fire alarm again. The doctor was already late, he said I had a few minutes to decide. I was sweating. The stress was reaching tops. They gave me papers to sign with several possibilities of complications, obviously including death. I signed. I agreed to the sleeve.

There were about eight to 10 people in the operating theatre. Each dealt with me from a different angle. They strapped me to machines, stuck me with needles, asked me what I was working as. Classic distraction. I was very calm. I trusted them. At one point the anaesthetist said they were just about to give me the ‘good stuff’. I drifted away.

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