Smile

The following is from my spiral notebook, as I didn’t have access to a computer:

January 28, 2006 Saturday

It’s been exactly one week since I was released from the hospital and ten days since my surgery. Tho’ I’m not quite ready to admit I’m glad I went through with it (not just yet anyway)… I am glad, however, it’s now in the past tense.

Upon my appointment, the day before the surgery, with my neurosurgeon… the doctor and I discussed (again), in order that I could achieve a better quality of life (with less head aches and alot less medication) removal of the tumor would probably be my best bet.

Wanting re-assurance (seeing as though he was not going to offer guarantees), I asked him (probably for the 5th or 6th time) what he would do if he were me. He then ushered my husband and myself out into another room where we all looked at my most recent MRI. He pointed at various parts of my head, the tumor and said that the tumor appeared to be mostly fluid and had shrunk slightly even since October. He thought it would be a relatively easy procedure.

Trying to be charming, funny and witty… I then said (to my world re-renouned neurosurgeon) something so profoundly stupid…. “So you’re pretty good at this, uh?” I’m certain he thought I was anything but charming. But he smiled and said that yes, in fact he was “pretty good”.

The next morning as I was checked in and awaited my impending doom… my husband held my hand, my parents prayed for me and told me numerous times how much they loved me.

As I laid on the hospital gurney I was painfully aware of the risks, I knew my doctor’s success rate, I also knew there was a chance I’d be meeting my maker. So secretly in my head I was asking the good lord to forgive me for every single terrible thing or thought I’d had, starting with the time when I was 4 and I pushed my little brother into the dresser causing him numerous stitches. Realizing I’d run out of time, I’d better ask a blanket forgiveness on everything, cause at this rate it could take days. Heh heh.

Trying to keep my composure, I made cracks and told jokes to anyone and everyone I encountered. From the Anesthesiologist, nurses, phlebotomists and assisting neurosurgeons. But in time I knew there would be no clean get-a-way. This was real. It was going to happen.

My parents hugged me, my husband told me he loved me and then a nurse wheeled my into the OR. I tried making one last joke… something about how cold it was in the room, reminded me of being back home in Colorado. Two nurses with surgical caps on, briefly stopped what they were doing (I think they were preparing instruments), looked at me as if I were from Mars… said nothing and turned back around and finished what they were doing. (My dazzling personality must be slipping, I thought.)

I then looked up at the Anesthesiologist standing directly above me. I made a motion toward my neck, as if I were adjusting a make believe business tie. I then asked him…. “Is my tie straight?” (Again, I guess I’m not as charming as I thought). He said he’d be injecting me with a medicine that would “put me out”. The blood in my veins started to feel as though there were ice running through them. He told me to picture myself somewhere pleasant. I immediately thought of the most beautiful sunset I’d ever seen, off the coast of Block Island where for the first time, I snorkeled. “Could somebody bring me a cocktail???”

Then…. nothing. Just blackness.