Mom and Dad kissed me goodnight, amid their internal struggle toward leaving their little girl in the hands of strangers. Once they had gone, my nervousness began to subside; anxiety breeds anxiety, and lacking two generators, I now bore only my own.
Seeing that I was quite alone, a nurse entered the room bearing the essentials of hospital life, issuing to me a gown, and placing kleenex tissues and a thermometer and styrofoam water pitcher on my nightstand. She routinely popped the thermometer into my mouth and took my blood pressure and pulse rate; removing the thermometer from my mouth, she glanced at the reading and made notations for her file. Before bidding me goodnight, the nurse reminded me that I should eat nothing, nor should I drink water after 6 a.m. the next morning; I nodded in comprehensive agreement, and climbed beneath the sheets to stare at the ceiling.
At first it was difficult to dispel my restless thoughts, and I fought to find a comfortable position amongst the stiff sheets and unfamiliar pillow. Yet at some unknown point in time, disquietude was overruled by fatigue, and I was claimed by the obscure world where conscious and unconscious thought are united as one. I drifted into a pleasant, untormented sleep.
In the morning, quite soon after I had been awakened a nurse administered a relaxant which quickly chased away negative emotions that would have otherwise clogged my mind. I felt blissfully content and agreeable as my senses numbed and were encircled by an unearthly calm. I smiled dreamily as my parents descended upon my heavenly state of awareness, speaking and receiving words which sounded distant and muted, as those heard by one while swimming underwater, or standing behind a heavy door.
Two interns arrived, wheeling a cart intended for my transport to places unknown. They skillfully guided it past my parents with minimal conversation, and easily hoisted me from the bed onto the unquestionably hard surface. I waved goodby to Mom and Dad, who stood dubiously watching as the men wordlessly rolled the stretcher down the hall, and finally, after a fair amount of travel, found myself in an expansive room, surrounded by gauges and meters by which a staff of doctors and nurses stood awaiting my arrival.
The room itself was rather dark, which blended fittingly with my semi-consciousness. While the staff worked about me, I remained awake although my body was as limp and motionless as one in a coma. The doctor injected a liquid dye into my vein, watching a monitor as it slowly spread from the point of entry at the union of my leg and trunk, and I began to feel weaker still. With markers, the doctor charted a map on my stomach under the beam of a spotlight; I looked on maintaining awareness through a power that no longer seemed to be my own. It was crazy that people concerned themselves about death; I felt more than half-way there; whether I drifted closer to life or to death made no difference to me, then, for in all things existed only tranquility…and that blissful unearthly calm.
Gravity tied me to the bed, and I laid like a dead thing, bound by an invisible, unyielding weight. All afternoon I slept, and into the deepest night; morning came, Tuesday morning, but I knew it not. Though numbered words to my parents I spoke, I can recall nothing. In my mind's hoard of memories, that morning never dawned before these eyes.
For my parents, Monday, the day of the arteriogram, was spent primarily in my room. They did little but watch in silence as I slept, breathing quietly as dream after dream filtered through my subconscious mind.
Aside from mealtimes and occasional strolls to exercise their legs, my parents remained near my bed until the ripe hours of the evening. Near 8 p.m. Mom was paged on the hospital intercom. Receiving the phone at the Nurses Station, she found herself conversing with Dr. T., the surgeon who would lead a team scheduled for my case the following day. The operation would be of great consequence, and he wished Mom to fully acknowledge that fact before it commenced; to all operations, a risk was involved, and regarding the seriousness of the situation was of utmost importance. Since the mass had so thoroughly encroached upon the stomach, they would have to remove most of the stomach itself, thereby reducing its overall size considerably; though the stomach would stretch with time, it would never return to its original size. The conversation came to a close. It seemed awful that a young girl, Mom's little girl, should have to endure so much, so massive an operation. She returned to the hospital room where I still breathed steadily in a tranquil repose; while Dad received the portents of the previous conversation, I was adrift on a sea bereft of anxiety or pain, and ignorant of their anticipation, I did not stir when they stood to return to their hotel.
The day of the operation had dawned amid countless hours of waiting, yet the waiting for my parents had not ended; the minutes would drag while I laid beyond their sight, and a doctor kindly advised that they leave the building, for the operation would most surely prove quite lengthy, and the hospital atmosphere had less to offer than did the beauty of the nearby sanctuary on the hospital grounds. They nodded, numbly deciding to try his remedy for over-wrought parents.