I was escorted to the pre-op room. My anaesthetist and her assistant were waiting for me and I was invited to hop up onto the operating trolley. I said my goodbyes to the friendly theatre assistant who’d accompanied me and lay back on the bed. Feigning calm, I answered the same set of questions for the third time while the anaesthetic nurse stuck electrode pads to my chest. I noted the monitor as I beeped into life.

The room was new. It was clean, tidy and bright. So very bright. My anaesthetist was relaxed, with a happy, confident and caring demeanour that helped to ease my growing anxiety. My left arm was held by the assistant as a cannula was inserted into the vein in my hand. We chatted for a short time as the procedural checklist was followed item by item.

“So what is it you do?”

“I’m a research manager at the university. It’s actually quite a nice job and I like my academics. Most of them. They’re psychiatrists, a lot of them.”

“Oh. right! Right, well, we’re ready here. I’m going to inject some anaesthetic into your vein now, it will probably sting a little bit, but then you’ll fall asleep very soon afterwards.”

“OK”, I responded. “Thank you”.

It always feels icy cold. Whatever gets injected through a cannula feels icy cold. This was no exception.

I looked up at the bright light above me. This would be absolutely fine, I thought to myself. If it all goes wrong and this is it, then this would be lovely. Just let it go. Like an old television set, the blackness engulfed me… the little white dot… then nothing.

I was expecting pain, but not there and not like that
“Ok Cristina, you’re all done now and absolutely fine. Jane is going to look after you in recovery”.

I was moving! Opening my eyes, I saw my anaesthetist disappearing from view as I was wheeled into the recovery suite. We came to stop and I noticed the clock on the wall: 3.50pm? 4.50pm? Definitely 3.50pm. Nearly three hours in theatre.

There seemed to be a lot of activity around me, my nurse was talking to me. “How are you feeling, are you in pain, do you feel sick?”

“I feel a little bit nauseous. I feel like I’m getting a really bad sore throat and chest infection.” It must have been the tube they stick down your throat, I told myself, while remembering all the other things the anaesthetist had told me could happen with the insertion of said device. I checked my teeth with my tongue: all present and incorrect. It was then that I could feel the restriction of the bandage around my neck.

“I can give you something for the sickness and I’ll put some paracetamol into your drip. You had some morphine just before you were woken up, so that could make you feel quite groggy.”

Within seconds, the mild feeling of sickness had disappeared. What was this miracle drug? Why can’t I stockpile it for Saturday mornings?

Suddenly, all the nursing staff vacated the area while something happened to the patient on the trolley next to mine. Ahem, hello? Don’t I need to be moved too? What if it’s like something out of Alien and I, as closest in proximity, am next to get the octopus from outerspace on my face? By the feeling in my chest, maybe I already had one growing in me.

It’s just an x-ray, Tina. They’re just doing an x-ray.

Everybody returned and I heard one of the nurses answering the phone on the reception. “Yes, she’s fine”, she was looking at my nurse and nodding, “tell them that we’re moving her over to you now.”

And with those words, I just knew that she’d been speaking to a staff member from the ward I was going to, and that particular staff member was acting as some sort of medium for my mother. In the days before people used mobile phones, I could tell who was on the other end of the phone from its ring. Oh god, it’s Mother.

Within minutes, I was being wheeled down the hospital’s corridors on my journey to the ward. I always find it odd that this is done in public. You’d imagine that there’d be some sort of private corridor system for transporting patients from theatres to wards, but no, there you are trundling past the great unwashed (and washed) of Salford.

Seconds later, I arrived at my bedside and, lacking any diginity, I flopped myself from the trolley onto the bed. The theatre staff made me comfortable and said their goodbyes as the lovely nurse Tabitha introduced herself to me by performing the first of the hourly observations for blood pressure, temperature, oxygen saturation. She didn’t ask me if I was hungry though, since, well, I’d not eaten for 24 hours. Starving, actually. She did ask, however, how I liked to be addressed and what the most important thing to me was. “Please call me Tina. The most important thing to me is my family… and world peace.”

I familiarised myself with my surroundings, checked for fire exits and toilets, noted the cooling breeze from the open window behind me, and fell asleep.