At the outset I must say that this write up is not meant to cause any offence or disrespect to the medical fraternity for whom I have the greatest respect and admiration. It is merely to narrate and bring out the funny side from a patient’s perspective just before a surgery. The reason I choose to get into this narrative is also to lighten the air somewhat and make it, in whatever way possible, a little less stressful for people undergoing surgeries.
I had mentally braced myself as best as I could for the surgery on hand. The day for going under the scalpel arrived. The good ‘sisters’ came, put a mask around my nose and wheeled me out of my hospital room. Before that, I was made to wear bottlegreen pyjamas and top. The image and a question that crossed my mind, even if only for a fleeting moment at that time, was, “Could this be an enactment from that scene in the movie Shaheed where the three patriots in jail clothes embraced the gallows?” I perished the thought immediately and told myself that I will have nothing to do with such frivolous and irrelevant thoughts.
I was alternating between half and full consciousness, though why it was so is not very clear. I thought of our journey through a lift, a long corridor and then finally to a longish room partitioned into several cubicles separated by curtains. Somebody asked the ‘sisters’ to take me to cubicle no. 9. I could sense that this was going to be some kind of a ‘holding’ area before taking patients into the Operation Theatre or ‘OT’. I could see the ‘sisters’ who wheeled me leaving. My BP and pulse were being monitored by one ‘sister’. Another ‘sister’ came and checked out the ID band strapped to my wrist. A set of ‘rapid fire’ questions followed. I felt like I was in a ‘quiz show’. Your name? your age? Any food or drug allergies? Are you diabetic? Do you have any broken or false tooth? While the BP machine kept doing its job of ‘throbbing’ and ‘deflating’ itself periodically, I continued to lie in that ‘off and on’ state even while being acutely aware of and alert to the questions that were being asked of the patients in my adjoining cubicle. The questions, I soon realised, were standard questions, part of the protocol, I told myself – and were being asked of all of us – the potential visitors to the spooky sounding ‘OT’. Somebody came and asked me if I wanted to use the restroom. I was very badly wanting to use the restroom, but didn’t quite know whether it would be an appropriate thing for a potential ‘OT’ visitor to ask for the restroom. I jumped at the offer and soon I was wheeled in a wheelchair to the restroom. After having relieved myself, I was back on my bed.
A lady doctor who introduced herself as the anaesthetist came and briefed me about the steps that would be followed in administering the anaesthesia through the cannula (already inserted in readiness). With her visit, I could sense that the moment was upon me! The next thing I remember was somebody telling me that I was being taken into the ‘OT’. There was a brief discussion about the positioning of my bed. The last thing I remember after this was the voice of the anaesthetist dictating to someone the medicines to be administered. When I ‘woke’ up, I was back in my ‘holding area’ and ready to be wheeled back into my room. I felt like shouting ‘Hip, hip hooray’.