Of Mildly Morbid Musings at Midnight..

Have you ever gone under the knife?

I myself never had and thus it was a first for me.

Clad in a weird red and white striped shapeless costume they called the OT 'gown', I waited in the doctors' chamber adjacent to the actual operation theatre. This was just a special privilege granted to me being a doctor myself, unlike the lesser patients, mere laymen.

Doctors of various shapes and sizes popped in and out, chatting, laughing, cribbing, joking, arguing....

It felt surreal. It felt like I was soon to go up on stage for a performance in which I was just a non-living prop.
So that's why they call it a 'theatre', I told myself.

In between, a distinguished and portly gentleman strolled in and announced casually to me: 'Hi! I'm Dr ......., your anaesthetist.'

I didn't know whether to stand up in deference, he being much senior fraternity or to remain sitting, playing the patient card. I opted for the latter, mainly because I was petrified that if I stood, there was risk of a serious wardrobe malfunction.

Soon it was time to go up onto the stage.
A young woman resident rolled out a rickety wheelchair for me and I entered the theatre on this royal but creaky chariot.

I walked the last few steps to the OT table and then hoisted myself onto it as gracefully as was possible in that red white costume that tangled very ungracefully around my ankles. But I needn't have bothered with grace and charm, because no one seemed to be interested in me, not in the least concerned that the main character of the current play had arrived.

Then another young woman, very confident, an anaesthesia resident took pity and began paying me some attention. Soon my head was placed on a block, both my arms laid straight and wide extended by my side. Bottles of fluid were hung around, my costume unceremoniously replaced by, I think, pieces of white and green drapes. Then, my surgeon sauntered in, Hitler moustache twitching on his sternly handsome face, head encased in that funny fastfood-joint-waiter cap.

So, the play was about to commence, the curtains would soon go up.......!

I felt very calm. Strangely calm, even without any sedative or anxiety-killer medication.No racing heart, no anxious thoughts, no dry mouth......

Now I wonder: do prisoners on death row feel a little like I felt: empty of all emotions, brain silent, like a prop without soul?

Then they began pushing in the anaesthetic drugs one by one; first the G.....Suddenly my heart began thumping like a race horse on amphetamine, thugh thugh thugh thugh....it felt as if a curtain with beads of ice cubes was slowly descending down my chest....

Next, the F....
'Ma'am you'll become sedated.' the resident informed me graciously. I was all supercilious and full of medical knowledge,
"Yes, yes I know....."

I found myself telling myself, 'Now that you're going to be sedated, close your eyes.'

I took a glance at the creamish white ceiling and closed my eyes.

I opened my eyes to chattering voices. I recognised Other Half's deep bass announcing the details of the surgery. And I realised with a bang that my Play was over.

My surgery and recovery had taken about two hours plus. I think back to that time and I realise that I have absolutely no memory, no feeling, no inkling of these nearly hundred and fifty minutes of time that had passed between that closing and opening of my eyes. Its a complete, unblemished blank.

From my medical experience, I can picture it all: me lying motionless on a narrow steel table, unclothed, just covered in voluminous drapes, extended arms strapped, head held between guillotine blocks with a plastic pipe down my throat going nearly up to my lungs, tubes poking inside veins and other unmentionables as masked surgeons delve within my innards. But that's just a picture I've made up, imagined. I have no memory of it.

Of course I know that's what effective anaesthesia is all about, complete un-awareness, analgesia and amnesia!!! Still, I find it a bit strange that those two plus hours of my life have no record in my brain, not even in its subconscious. It's as if I simply ceased to exist. Yes, my body was fully on duty, my heart, lungs, blood all functioning to their optimum. But that Me as I know her was just not there. And no, it was not like being asleep because when in sleep you dream (at least I do, prolifically) and when you wake up you are subconsciously aware that you were asleep. But this general anaesthesia thing was something totally in a different league.

As I said before it was as if me, Aibee, was not there anymore- till I came back, just at the point that I became aware that I had opened my eyes.

So where had I been? From where was it that my Me had come back?

From my medical knowledge, I know that I had not really gone anywhere; it was just that parts of my brain had been made to switch off with a clever cocktail of drugs.

So, that leads me next to wonder: is this like dying?

Is this what happens right at that specific point of time when one's Life ceases to be?

If it is, then you know, I feel there's really nothing much to worry about of that mysterious phenomenon called Dying. It would all be very easy, quite uncomplicated and a graciously unemotional business:-

Now you're here.
Then...., you're not.