The Operation

I hate hospitals. Then again, I don't think anyone 'likes' them. Maybe some have gotten used to them from coming in and out of them enough, and maybe some people have had the utmost joy of never being ill enough to need to go to a hospital and had a very healthy family. Personally, the only times I went to a hospital before this is to see family who had just had an operation. When I'm there, I tend to try my best not to think about it. Just being near a hospital gives me the chills. The only issue now is, I have been feeling pretty bad for a couple of months now. Nausea, abdominal pain, so on, so on. After seeing my GP about what the issue could be, I was told to have a blood test. A week after the blood test, my GP told me that nothing showed on the blood tests, but something had to be wrong, otherwise I wouldn't be feeling like this! I was told to go and see a gastroenterologist (stomach specialist) down at the local hospital. As soon as I heard this, I was shaking. I knew my fate, that I'd need some sort of operation down at the hospital. Nothing was set in stone yet, but I just had that cold feeling telling me that this was going to happen. Despite my mother, who had previously had an operation (something to do with her stomach, I forget the details) telling me that it's nothing to worry about and they take good care of you, I'd never been in this position before. I was indeed told that I should be taken immedietly to the hospital. My dad offered to take me there, as there was no way I was making my own way to the hospital in the state I was in. I was panicking in the car the whole way there, barely able to even drink water. After arriving, and waiting for what felt like a decade, we went in to speak to the doctor. After telling her my symptoms, I had to had more tests done, mostly scans. It was confirmed there that I had something called gallstones, and that I needed an operation to get the gallbladder removed. What made it worse is that I needed to wait until the next day to have the op. When I got back home, I didn't eat or sleep. I just sat with my head in my hands, shaking all night.

The next day, I was a wreck, both physically and emotionally. I had no energy whatsoever, I struggled to keep my eyes open and became extremely paranoid and twitchy. We got to the hospital and, after even more waiting, I was taken in to have the operation. I was watching as others were looking at me with a worried, almost scared look on their faces, but that couldv'e been the paranoia talking. When the surgeon applied the anaestetic, despite my shaking and paranoia, I started to relax, and before I knew it, my eyes were shut and I was the most relaxed I had been for a long time. My mind was starting to slow down and relax, and I couldn't help but calmly repeat to myself in my head "See? It's nothing to worry about". Then I felt something. Something... cold, was moving on my stomach. Something wasn't right, and before I could properly understand what was happening, my mind began to race again. It took me a couple of seconds and then it hit me. I was having the operation! I could hear muffled voices, but I couldn't understand anything that was being said. I feared that what I was hearing were the surgeons performing the operation. So many thoughts started racing into my head, all saying different things, but one made it's way to my consience. "You're not asleep". "No, I must be dreaming. This HAS to be a dream" I kept convincing myself, but what happened next proved that thought to be very false. I felt a very sharp object run it's way along my stomach. The pain was horrible, and I could no longer think straight over the sharp blade cutting into my abdomen. I wanted to move. I wanted to get up, push the doctors away and run as fast as I could, but I realised something else. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't move. My eyes wouldn't open, none of my muscles were responding to my commands, my face was completely lifeless. I was totally paralyzed by the anaesthetic, and I had no choice but to take a blind trip into hell itself, or at least that's what it felt like. At this point, the pain was so severe, I could no longer feel where the blade, I'm guessing a scalpel, was on my body. I thought that would be it, that everything else would just be at least slightly bearable from here on in, but I couldn't have been more wrong. It felt like what would be now a gaping whole in my body was being kept open, ready for the surgeons to reach in and continue their job. Through the agony, I started to have a very worrying thought. "Does this happen to everyone? Do we just forget when we wake up, or is it just me who stays aware through it all...". My thoughts were interrupted by the seering pain of a scalpel cutting deep into my abdomen. My body was burning to a degree I had never experienced, and I wished that I would never have to experience this again. I couldn't concentrate on anything at this point. If my body would allow it, I would've run far away long before this started and never looked back. I had always not been able to trust doctors, but now I knew that they were anything but good news. Sure, they were fixing me up, but is this amount of torture really worth it? I could feel my abdomen moving around some more, this time, I could feel my stomach closing up, as if they were sowing me back together like an old shirt. The pain wasn't anywhere as near as bad as before, but it still felt like someone was vicously tearing into my abdomen. At this point, had my eyes been working, I would be crying at the sheer torture I had just been through, but after that thought, something strange was happening. The muffled voices began to change. What was happening. Whatever was happening, I just wanted to wake up and claw my way out of the hospital the fastest way possible.

My eyes started to open. It has felt like I had just had the best nights sleep in my life. My parents were looking over me as I laid on the hospital bed, along with a doctor, the same one who diagnosed my in the first place. The doctor looked at me with a smile on her face and exclaimed "the operation was a complete success, you'll be able to go home later today and should be back to your normal self in no more than a month". My mother smiled at the news and said "See? I told you there was nothing to worry about, didn't I?" I turned to my mother, smiled back and whispered... "Yeah, I didn't feel a thing. Last thing I remember is being put to sleep..."