Operation 1

I arrived four hours before my operation and was immediately put to bed. Over the course of the next four hours, I was asked by about ten different people whether I had any allergies, whether I was on any medication and which knee was going to be operated on.

I thought they were supposed to know all that.

I was in a two-bed room. The guy in the next bed had seemed heavily sedated when I arrived. A curtain now separated us. He suddenly started coughing violently, a hacking, racking, sapping expurgation. I was a little disturbed, but a nurse came in and rolled her eyes as if this was nothing to be alarmed about. Apparently, anaesthetic affects the lungs and I assumed this was why he was coughing so horribly. I was given a big box of tissues and was told that I might need them after the operation.

Despite these slightly nerve-wracking incidents, I was still in fairly good spirits. The next four hours went by fairly quickly. I had a phone call from Ella, started reading my book and listened to music. With about an hour to go, I put on my hospital pyjamas. My nurse had told me that I would need to take my underwear off. I must have looked nonplussed at this because she said she’d get me some disposable underwear. I put it on and it changed the way I felt immediately: if there’s anything in the world that makes you feel more submissive and helpless than hospital pyjamas and paper underwear then I hadn’t come across it.

The anaesthetist visited and was very reassuring. He ran through the list of drugs I’d be on and told me that, as well as morphine intravenously, he’d also be administering a couple of suppositories. After he’d gone I allowed this to sink in. The image of my anaesthetised self having my legs lifted and paper underwear removed so that he could insert the suppositories lingered uncomfortably. I think I was a bit irrational by this stage because I went and took the paper underwear off, thinking that the nurse had only given me them as an afterthought and that this would make the task easier for the anaesthetist.

Two minutes later the nurse came back and asked if I had the paper underwear on. When I said no, she looked bemused and told me to put it on. I had to go and fish it out of the bin in the bathroom. This would be the last thing I would do on my feet before the operation.

Soon after this I was collected to go to the operating theatre. They put a paper hat and paper socks on me. I had now come across something that made me feel more submissive and helpless than hospital pyjamas and paper underwear.

The journey to the operating theatre was classic ER or M*A*S*H. It’s exactly how it is in the movies. This is the first operation I can remember having, but this journey felt familiar and therefore, I suppose, slightly reassuring. I made sure that I looked at the lights above me the whole way and kept pretending that I was watching a film.

I was kept in some kind of holding room before going into theatre. Someone kept farting. I couldn’t tell whether it was a nurse or an anaesthetised patient. Still, it was nice to be wheeled into theatre with the laughter of the nurses ringing in my ears.

The anaesthetist was there to meet me. He told me that the doctor (surgeon, I thought, surely he’s surgeon) would be a bit late. We chatted about the football and where I’ve been since moving to Singapore. When I mentioned Sri Lanka, he said that a couple of his friends had been there when the tsunami hit, but they were ok. I then related my near-miss with the tsunami. Just as I finished, the surgeon walked in, shook my hand and wrote his initials on my leg. Thus branded, having just related the most traumatic thing to happen to me since I’ve been here (if ever), the anaesthetist was given permission to start putting me to sleep.

I can remember wondering whether it was possible to dream whilst anaesthetised, concerned that my dreams might be influenced by my last topic of conversation. Very quickly, though, all was well with the world. I felt a pulse of wellbeing travel from my head to my toes. This must be morphine, I thought. I felt like the Ready Brek man in the old adverts – I could feel the warm glow surround me. Everything was suddenly perfect about the world and I can remember thinking that I’d just been talking about a powerful wave and that here was a powerful wave coursing through my body.

Then the room gradually faded to black.