Silence Becomes Me

Forecast for surgery, weather wise, was sunny. And though it was not sunny at all when I began my trip to the hospital this morning, it was certainly sunny when I left and for fear of cheesy metaphors it was sunny for me inside and out. Strangely I was relieved, happy and sort of interested in my new found silence.

When I arrived at the hospital this morning at 6:45 am (that is correct people, 15 minutes late-go figure), I actually convinced my father to take hold of the camera (I felt 6 am was too early for my dear, sweet Nicole) and shoot my entrance to the hospital, or to my fate, as I like to dramatically put it.

It is strange to walk into the hospital for an appointment for surgery. The appointments I am used are for pedicures, hair cuts, facials, maybe a standard check up of some sort, teeth cleaning. I have never walked into an appointment to have my vocal cords cut and put back together. I have never been put out with general anasthesia and I have never had an IV. I guess when and if I ever pictured myself on an operating table, it was probably in some imagined scenario replicating some scene I had scene on ER or Grey's Anatomy. I'm wheeled in on a stretcher and opened up right then and there to fix some sort of emergency situation. Yes, I am a hypochondriac and yes, I am a bit dramatic.

In any case, THIS was not how I pictured it. I walked in with my mother, registered, got past the surgery admissions by just handing them my insurance card (all fears of having to pay in full averted) and I waited. I was called into a changing room where I placed my clothing in a bag and sat in a chair and waited. I was lucky to be accompanied by my mother and eventually my father. They'd managed to both remain inside the room despite the one visitor per person policy. We waited. My dad taped a bit, played around with his new i phone and my mother tried to comfort me. I pretended to be calm as best I could, but my tapping feet gave me away. Truthfully, I was nervous about the actual surgery and I was nervous about the impending 7 day silence, but what was on my mind most immediately was getting the actual IV. The thought of a needle and then a tube stuck under thin skin for even just a few minutes grossed me out entirely.

After the changing room I had to say goodbye to my father, I would have had to say goodbye to my mother but she pushed her way into the holding room with me. She has a way with that. She sat with me as different doctors, med students, residents, nurses all came in to introduce themselves to me, as if this was some fun trip we were about to embark upon. Yipppeee!

Then my hero Dr. Carroll found me. She is my speech pathologist the one who will inevitably help me to speak again, once this loooong silent week is over. I did not realize she would actually come on the day of my surgery. But there she was to distract me from my own nerves. She held my hand all the way into the operating room and helped me hoist myself onto the operating table! Yes, there is no wheeling you in on some kind of stretcher, as seen in movies, no. You walk right in, lie down, see all of the instruments around you and then, THEN, they stuff the IV into you.

There I was, Dr. Carroll holding my hand, a bunch of med students and residents standing in a group chatting with each other, Dr. Woo enters, pats me on the back, a nurse sticks a needle in my arm, misses, finds a better vein, hits it this time and Dr. Reid, my anesthesiologist asks me if I am ready. He tells me they are just going to give me a little bit of medicine, my head may feel funny, I tell him I can handle it and the next thing I know I lose control, my head falls in, it burns and then I am out.

Beep, beep, beep....what felt like a moment later and I thought that I must be waking up mid surgery. With no control over my muscles, limbs, mind or mouth all I can think is that someone has to tell them I am waking up! Mid surgery! Then a calm voice says, that's it, you did it, you are done, you did great. Phew....so this is what people meant when they say "and then a minute later, it's over!" Ohhhh....

I had done it. I went down, I rose and I did not speak a word once I had. All I wanted to do was thank everyone, touch everyone, hug everyone. I knew I could not say anything out loud so I just mouthed- thank you to everyone I could see. Then I started shivering, uncontrollably. Apparently that is normal, something about your muscles coming back into action. Nurses chatting all around me, to me, not realizing I am on voice rest, then realizing it and still chatting. I did not care- I as just happy that somehow without my voice I was communicating, or people were at least communicating with me! I finally came to and I just could not wait to get out of there. I actually felt great, my throat burned, but the fact that I had made it through surgery and was one step closer to hearing my voice again overshadowed everything! I wanted to see my mom, my dad, my boyfriend, my friends anyone!

But I couldn't, not until I peed at least. A major step towards the recovery/release room. This part may sound weird, but I am not censoring this experience, not a second of it. Once I could feel myself again, under many warm blankets I felt the immediate urge to pee. Because I was not completely back to my senses I was not allowed to get up and go to the restroom. No one had described this part to me. The part where you slowly regain your bodily functions, public and private. I could not speak so with all of the energy I had in my body (which was very little) I lifted my right hand pointed to my bladder and the nurse in her Phillipino accent responded and said, in full voice, that she would run and get the bed pan.

Through my haze I thought, WHAT?! No way in hell am I going to pee in a public recovery room, in a plastic bin, in the shape of a toilet seat. NO WAY. Fear not- it seems the sensation was just that, a sensation. I laid on this plastic bin for a while to no avail, when the nurse finally removed it and told me to try and take a nap. Take a nap....that should be easy, I have this undying sensation that I need to pee and a man in the bed next to me whining his head off about one thing or another, not to mention an increasingly burning pain in my throat. And of course- no one to talk to about it.

Lucky for me, and i find this to most often be the case, I ran into a few people that I knew! Right there in the recovery room. My old friend Marguite, from Highschool and College was there on a visiting rotation and she saved the day by bringing over some paper and a pen to me and sharing in some voiceless catch up and gossip. Passed the time away. Before I knew it Dr. Woo was in to check on me, asked me to hum a few bars and then told me to shut up for the next week.

Eventually- after peeing not once, but twice, in the real bathroom, I got wheeled in a wheel chair (this part is just like the movies) into the final recovery room, where they took out the blasted IV had me sign some papers and escorted me out to my parents. Actually luckily enough for me a dear friend of our family was on call in the hospital that day and came to my rescue, escorting me earlier then expected out to my parents!

My father explained the the surgery had gone well, I hugged them both, I don't think I realized how much I actually missed them! I began writing away to them dropping my two written prescriptions somewhere along the way, only needing to have them refilled over the phone hours later.

I was free. Free and Captive all at once. I could hear the world, but the world could not hear me. I could peer out but no one could peer in. I sat in the back seat with my mother and my father chaueffered us home, no one having any idea what the next few days would be like.