Turbulence: Part One

One evening early last month, I walked into a health facility for admission like a tourist walking into her hotel room. I had with me a black backpack and a sling bag whose contents proved to be vastly inadequate as well as irrelevant especially for an admitted patient. Ridiculously, I had packed my earphones because I had imagined for some wild reasons that I would have all the time in the world to listen to music and what have you.  For context, I had never spent more than five hours in a hospital as a patient, and on this particular visit, I didn’t walk in feeling really sick- never mind that less than 24 hours later I was actually sick, needing to be walked to the bathroom and whatnot.

My longest stay in a hospital as a patient (I’ve stayed in one for over 3 weeks straight as a caregiver) has to be a year ago when I had gone for an endoscopy. That time, I was sedated and was up in less than two hours. The first thing I said to Betty, more to her amusement than surprise,  as soon as she was done recounting to me how she had panicked when my oxygen levels were dropping was, ‘Let’s go home’ . She thought I was high from the sedatives or something. ‘Let’s go home,’ I repeated emphatically, this time actually getting off the bed. We didn’t go home though. We went to Mama Ngina Waterfront to bask in the afternoon breeze, took a few pictures as girls are wont to do, and then for some unclear reason, decided to cross over to Likoni by ferry.

Prior to that procedure, the doctor had stressed that I needed to have company because there was a high chance that lightheadedness, an after effect of sedation, would linger. Google, too, had emphasized that fact.  So when the nurse at the triage that morning asked, ‘Naomi, umekuja peke yako?’ I understood and appreciated her concern. Betty would join me shortly afterwards. Given this degree of concern and the doctor’s particularity, we were a bit surprised by how much we were able to do few hours later. It was perhaps why we decided to cross over to the South; to celebrate an unprecedented coming to!

Betty is the ‘I’m a phone call/text away’ kind of friend, quite literally, and this is one attribute I sincerely envy her; her capacity to love effortlessly, her vibrant and accommodating spirit, her compassionate nature. She also has this kind of an infectious laughter; one that you especially need when you’re unnerved by anxiety and desperately need some relaxation of atmosphere. I love to say that Betty’s compassion is healing, and that is no exaggeration.

In hindsight, and especially after the second experience, I appreciate the amount of concern and compassion and information, especially information, given to me in the earlier. Because why was I shocked to find that I had stitches when I removed the adhesive tapes from the incision sites five days after the procedure? Hadn’t the doctor said they’d be no cuts? Wait a minute, why in the first place was I taken aback by the sight of the two tapes on my belly when I went to use the washroom? Why was I stirred when the doctor, while trying to make meaning of my perpetual dizziness long after the anesthesia had waned, said that it was because of the high doses of morphine which I wasn’t used to?

I remember thinking, morphine? They’ve put me on morphine? Why?

***

I arrived at the facility at around half past 7 P.M. to find one lady at the reception that clearly had her hands full with one thing or another. She had her head bent over the desktop for a considerable amount of time. She could quickly switch to making phone calls to seek some clarifications, or she would enter a room to skim through patients file. Patients, who like me, were scheduled for surgeries the following day. She seemed to manage all the pressure gracefully with that ease that comes only with experience, and I think it’s easy to tell true commitment from mere compliance especially in someone doing a night shift. I was processed and in less than an hour I was on ‘my’ bed. Considering how packed the female ward was following an outbreak in Mombasa, I was placed in the maternity wing.

I was woken up at 5am to shower. My procedure was scheduled for 8:00a.m and I needed to have been prepared before then. I took a quick shower, slipped into a theatre gown and the preparations, which involved taking IV fluids, antibiotics and bleeding control tablets began.

I was nervous. Extremely nervous. All the information I had consumed from the internet about the risks of general anesthesia and the potential reasons for what had been named ‘endometrial hyperplasia’ flooded my mind. My mind wandered back to where it all began. I had gone to see the gyna regarding my PMS symptoms that seemed to be intensifying. It was supposed to be simple. He was to prescribe a drug that I would use and go back for checkup at certain intervals. This course was however unexpectedly altered when in passing; he suggested an ultrasound scan since it had been long since I did one.

‘Your endometrium is thick’, commented the sonographer, moving the probe intently over my abdomen.

‘Is it an anomaly?’ I inquired quizzically.

‘Yes. The thickest it should get is 1.5cm, and that’s just before your period. This is 2.4cm,’ he said, signaling me towards the screen with my insides displayed in black and white. ‘It also appears paler than the surrounding,’ he added.

The gyna studied the scans keenly, sighed and said, ’Now this requires a surgery. Lakini sitakukata .We’ll do a laparoscopic surgery.’

‘Will that require you to put me down?’ I asked, still floating in the echo of everything I just heard.

‘Yes, we’ll put you down,’ he averred as he started drawing an outline of the uterus while explaining four potential reasons for the endometrial thickening shown on the ultrasound scan. And just like that, we began the process of filling insurance preauthorization forms. Like this was just one of those things. Huh! No drugs were prescribed. The course had changed, with one ‘by the way’ move.  Such is life!

***

At 10 minutes past 8, a rather tall gentleman walked in. I was lying on my back on the bed, staring at the drip drop rhythm of the IV fluids. The bottle was almost empty, and in no time, it begun to suck inwards. A few minutes earlier, I had taken a quick selfie and shared it on my WhatsApp stories captioned, ‘Nil by mouth’, which implies a restriction from eating before a surgery. I had contemplated a ’my cannula challenge’ caption in my futile attempt at creating an air of comic relief I so desperately needed. This contemplation had stemmed from the fact that there were so many sick people in Mombasa at the time that it was not unusual to see a picture of someone posing with a cannula on Whatsapp.

‘Hi Naomi,’ he greeted, ‘I’m Ahmed (not his real name), and I’ll be your aesthetician.’

I nodded, my anxiety so heightened it was nearly palpable.

‘Are you ready for theatre?’ he asked, smiling.

‘I’m nervous,’ I managed, balancing tears.

‘Is this your first time?’

I nodded.

‘Not to worry. I will protect your life. I will take care of the anesthesia while Dr. Bill (not his real name) will take care of the surgery. Do you believe in God?’

‘I do,’ I affirmed.

‘Good. I want you to trust God, and to trust me and Dr. Bill,’ he reassured, smiling.

Poor Ahmed, I thought. How exhausting it must be to repeat these very lines to every theatre patient; to assure them that they won’t die, and certainly not in your hands.

I suddenly felt an urgent need to use the washroom, a knotting of the stomach, the body’s natural response to stress. I signaled the nurse who prepped me. She pointed at a door. I slid off the bed and rushed.

The theatre appeared bigger than I had imagined. At Ahmed’s cue, I lay on the bed.

‘Any instructions on antibiotics?’ someone asked.

‘It’s in situ,’ another one replied, making reference to the IV liquid whose flow rate had dropped significantly.

I scanned the room, searching faces. They were five, but none was Doctor Bill’s. I got confused.

‘Naomi, I forgot to ask you, do you drink?’ a whisper on my left ear interrupted.

 It was Ahmed. I laughed, the first light moment in hours.

‘Occasionally,’ I said, chuckling.

‘When was your last drink?’

‘Mmmh, two months ago?’ I replied lightheartedly.

From one end of the room, a door creaked and opened. I looked up. A familiar face – Dr. Bill. Our eyes met.

‘Hello,’ he said solemnly.

‘Hello,’ I replied, hoping that he would smile to at least humanize this procedure; to normalize it if not for anything else.

Ahmed took my left hand and straightened it. I felt a sudden discomfort in my upper right back and before I could tell him, I was out.