The Billowing Curtain and the Hospital Bed

This week I learned what it is like to be on this side of the curtain.  Do you remember from Harry Potter when Sirius Black is killed in battle? He plunges back into a curtain and does not come back out from it. Harry is unable to understand how the curtain works but what I remember from that scene is the imagery: A billowing curtain in the middle of the room, hiding that which we could not see.  While my experience is not as dramatic as the disappearance of Sirius but I was plunged into thoughts while I experienced my first surgery.

A nurse tried to unsuccessfully find the vein in my left hand to attach the IV.  “Will this hurt?” I asked her before my husband, who had been on the hospital bed before, started nodding fervently.  “I won’t lie to you,” she said, “This does hurt.”  I was not sure whether I appreciated the honesty until the needle actually went in and my imagination of searing pain was grossly overstated.  Her warning proved to be a good thing after all, I was prepared.  I learned then that my veins are too small on my hands and the only viable, or “juicy” as the nurse said to all of our laughter, option is on my forearm.

As she exited behind the curtains giving my bed privacy, I heard some commotion from my left side.  A lady was in pain, her vitals were not responding well, and the nurses were unable to figure out what was the reason.  The doctor was called in.  “I started heavy bleeding last night,” she explained.  “Has there been a lot of pain?” the doctor asked, her voice sounding familiar.  I realized that she was my doctor who seemed to be on call that morning. “Yes,” the lady answered.

I felt a moment of gratitude that I was not in any pain and that my vitals were alright. Alhumdulillah.

Wheeling past the surgeons and their scrubs who introduced themselves to me in what is now a blur,  my arms were stretched to either directions and strapped in inside the operation room. A mask covered my mouth and nose. “I will leave the room as soon as the anesthesia kicks in, okay?” one nurse said and I looked at him, nodding.  Did I nod? I could barely do so with everyone moving my limbs from one side to the other.  Someone said that the medicine was now being administered, I turned my head just enough to see a clear liquid going into my arm through the IV.  It was getting cold and I had the sensation of being suffocated.  “Take nice, deep breaths,” I heard those words and followed suit.

My body was shivering.  I could hear the murmurs but nothing could be understood.  I was cold and shivering.  For some reason, I kept whisking my head from left to right.  In my understanding at the time, I was moving quite rapidly but my head was heavy along with my body.  “Can you open your eyes?” someone asked, was it the same nurse as before? She chuckled a little as I failed in my attempts to do so.  “Take your time,” she said and her voice faded away.  In what seemed to be just a few minutes, I opened my eyes and realized where I was – in another bed nestled in another set of curtains.  “Who did you come with?” she asked, it was definitely a different nurse. “My husband” I answered, surprising myself with a clear voice despite my sore throat, an expected side effect of the anesthetic.

I was getting dressed to leave, feeling my body heavier than it normally is, wanting a good gulp of water and realizing that bringing a closed abaya to change into was a dire mistake.  It was then that the nurse was giving post-op instructions to a lady on the right.  “Take an ibuprofen because you are going to be a in lot of pain,” I heard her speaking through the curtain repeating the same thing that she had just said to me. “But don’t take the Xanax tonight, it might interfere with the anesthesia.”

I paused. The lady next to me was taking Xanax. How many dark thoughts must she be in? In constant anxiety, perhaps even panic attacks, she may be living every day with the threat of it happening once more.  This brought me to the moment of gratitude.  I did not have to worry about that, I thought.  Alhumdulillah

As I was being wheeled out to meet my husband in the car, amongst the conversation with the nurse, I recalled what my husband told me regarding the procedure.  “The doctor did not find any polyps,” he had said.  What do you mean?  “She found fibroids instead, and she could not even get past them,” he continued, “They were pretty big. She took a biopsy and sent it to be tested. But she said that they will probably have to remove them soon.”  Oh no.

It was not the news I was expecting.  I had hoped that this, for the lack of a better word, “adventure” would be the last of the ordeal and all of my uterus woes would be solved.  However, as I was learning, I was meant to experience a few more chapters of this story. My mind went back to the other side of the curtain, to the lady who was bleeding profusely and in pain, and then to the lady living in enough trauma for a daily Xanax prescription.  I was brought back into a mindset of patience.

I was alive, I was not in pain, and I was not in any emotional distress.  Instead, I was being wheeled to an eager husband waiting to take me back into our home.

Alhumdulillah