Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
They told me on Monday morning that I could be discharged on Tuesday. “Great, what time?” I asked. I was visualising packing my bags on Monday night, injecting myself with my last Heparin shot, checking my obs, filling out my chart and dispensing my pain killers. You know, just to make it easy for them. Can’t let anything hold up this discharge.
Then on Monday night, the plastics doctor came around and said, “Well, we’ll see”. “We’ll see? What do you mean we’ll see?” He said it would depend on the last drain tube and whether it was ready to come out – they didn’t like to send patients home with drain tubes still in. I started to panic. My eyes widened, the tears welled and I made it very clear to him that it was no longer beneficial for me to be in hospital. I could no longer heal there. I needed to go home. He agreed. Look, whether it was the tears or the firm grip I had of his right arm, I’m not sure, but whatever the reason, I was discharged on Tuesday morning, and with one drain tube still in. See? You don’t want to mess with me. That goes for the doctors, and you, cancer. Yes you, mother-fucking cancer. Don’t you know? I am a warrior.
Whilst coming home felt amazing, the 8 nights prior to that had been a great lesson on “How to Surrender 101”. Nothing like having someone sponge bath you whilst you lie in bed. Having someone help pull your knickers up. Having someone help you out of bed and support you while you shuffle, bent over, whilst dangling 4 drain tubes, a catheter and an IV from your mutilated body, 5 meters to a recliner, only to fall down in sheer exhaustion.
Seriously, it felt like I had turned 90 overnight? Nup. I was 36 and diagnosed with breast cancer. I just had my left breast and 18 lymph nodes removed. Then they took the fat from my belly and made me a new boob. The doctors kept calling this “tummy tuck” a benefit of reconstructive surgery. I called it sprucing up a shit situation.
Everything post surgery was completely exhausting. When I took control of my own knicker-pulling-up, it was as if I would emerge from the bathroom having run an ultra marathon. I would be out of breath, red in the face, dizzy and sweating. I’d then have to take a nap.
The nights were the longest and the hardest though.
Night 1 – I didn’t sleep. My obs and the new boob were being checked every 30 minutes – sleeping wasn’t an option. Plus I was on morphine, so you know, wasn’t even really “in bed”. Just hovering, watching from above and re-visiting all my past lives. Standard morphine experience, right?
Night 2 – I was being checked every hour, but I did get a few hours in, here and there. It’s weird though, I would close my eyes for what would feel like 20 minutes, open them and look at the clock to see that only 15 seconds had gone past. Looking at the clock became an obsession.
Night 3 – I lost my shit. I kept dropping everything over the side of the bed and couldn’t retrieve it without buzzing a nurse. And then, the worst thing of all happened – I dropped the buzzer. And then there was the smell of my left armpit. I lost it because I had BO and there was nothing I could do about it. I cried a lot.
Night 4 – I slept like a babe and was woken every two hours.
Night 5 – First night in a share room and I cried all night. I was so uncomfortable from having been in the jack-knife position for 5 days straight. My back was sore, my neck was sore, but ironically nothing from the surgery was sore. I just wanted to go home. The nurses kept telling me how brilliant I was healing, how strong I was, how much progress I had made in such little time. It didn’t matter. I just wanted to sleep on my tum and be in my own bed. Neither was going to happen.
Night 6 – Worst night of my life. A patient across the hall freaked out. He was threatening to kill himself and everyone in the building. He kept screaming that the nurses were raping him, screaming at security, asking them to shoot him then and there for $100,000. He repeated “$100,000, shoot me now!” 100,000 times. I was petrified.
To top it off, the douche bag in the bed next to me had visitors sneak in at 11:30pm – some woman and two very small children. Whilst the psycho was going off, this woman just kept talking louder and louder, laughing and telling jokes, as if nothing was going on. I couldn’t understand how she could not be reacting to the death threats from across the hall.
The fear took over my body and I started to hyperventilate. I started crying out for help, but no-one could hear me over all the commotion. Then it occurred to me. I was dead. I had obviously died and was in-between lives; the realm of the afterlife the Tibetans call bardo. This experience was so terrifying and surreal that it couldn’t possibly be real. “Fuck. I’m dead.”
Strangely, I didn’t cry.
“Sorry I’m late love, three of my patients have gone crazy tonight”, the nurse said.
I am alive.
Relieved, I asked her if they would be moved to a high security ward? “No. But don’t worry, we are safe now. All three have been shackled”.
Night 7 – The douche bag had his TV on ALL night, with the volume up loud – no headphones. I wanted to kill him. I lay there all night, thinking about all the ways I could do it.
Night 8 – I had the room to myself. Slept well. Woke early. Packed my bags ready to go home to my own bed and my six year old.
I may not have entered bardo that terrifying night, but I know I was close. Teetering on the edge. In a way it was a blessing though; facing death gave me life, and I had never felt stronger.