Soulparking

Millerton Medi-Clinic, Cape Town, South Africa

Saturday, 23 April 2005

The worst of it was the night I was brought to my room.  They put me on fluids immediately and sunk a drip into my vein on my left arm.  The nursing staff told me I could not eat or drink – because they had to keep me at the ready for surgery at any time.  I was able to wrangle ice chips to suck on – they didn’t constitute drinking water (or so I justified it to my nurse). The best thing they did was they gave me morphine for the pain.  And because of all the television and movies of people being addicted to morphine – I went easy on it although I was in agony.  I had permission to take it every four hours.  But I only allowed myself to get a shot every six hours.

I could not stretch out straight – I was always curled into a ball.  And I couldn’t sleep like I usually did – on my stomach because the pain was so bad.  In the middle of the night, my teeth started chattering.  I pushed the nurse call button – and she came and gave me three duvets.  And even after that, my teeth chattered uncontrollably.  It was probably the coldest I have ever felt.  They gave me a bonus shot of morphine to get through it.

They started early with me the next morning taking X-rays and doing an ultra-sound (like I was a pregnant woman).  Then mid-morning, my doctor said everything in five minute walk through.  He got straight to the point:

“I can’t see anything.  There is a mass there that is blocking us from seeing really what’s going on.  I am going on the assumption that it is your appendix because your white blood cell count is extremely high.  So you are definitely fighting some massive infection.  But the fear I have is – if it is your appendix – it means it has already burst and there’s a mess left.  It is going to be a hell of a job to clean up.

“If this were a normal appendix operation, I could make a small hole and use a laser to get rid of it.  But in this case, I don’t know.  So we will be making a major incision – just to be sure.”

And with that, my Polish surgeon with a slight Afrikaans accent was gone.

I am not afraid of surgeries.  I have had lots of them.  But usually, I know what I am getting into – and what the outcome is before I have them.  What scared me the most with this one was – no one knew.  Not even my surgeon knew what it was or what he might have to do to fix me.

It brought back the memory before my second neck surgery of spending about 15 minutes just turning my neck because I knew I was going to lose more mobility.  And here I knew I was going to have my stomach carved up.  So buh-bye abdomen and stomach.  In a drug induced stupor, I pulled down my covers and flipped up my gown – and looked at my fading four pack.  I even looked to see if I could see a bruise or bleeding through the skin.  Although the pain was intense, the skin on top looked normal.  I then tried to imagine my scar afterwards.  Now looking back, there is no way I could have imagined how hideous it would be.

In South Africa, they call going to surgery going to “theatre”.  I told my anesthesiologist  who came to my bedside prior to my surgery – to let me know the procedure and have me sign a consent form in case I died after being put to sleep – that movies and going to the “theatre” would forever take on a new meaning now.  He laughed.

My surgery was saved to the very last.  My surgeon wanted to be able to take his time with me.  I remember rolling through the hospital halls.  No one believed I lived in Cape Town and wasn’t just on holiday.  I made the nurses and hospital staff start laughing about something or another.

They rolled me to the side of the main “theatre” room.  Again, my anesthesiologist came to my bedside and told me they would be starting soon.  I could tell he had been busy all day long.  Then they wheeled me into my “theatre”.  I saw the surgery table.  It was strange to be so wide awake – so close to the cutting board.  I always remembered in my past to be nearly asleep when I was this close to the cutting block.

Then I felt the anesthesiologist tugging on my IV and connecting something to it.  Then he began to explain calmly:

“You are about to feel something to make you feel all tingly.  And then after that, you are going to feel yourself relax and everything will all go black.  Then you will wake up and it will be done.”

I started feeling the tingly part.  But I was very much awake and I watched the people around me working, preparing, setting up – like I was the buffet table and they were the servers making sure the seafood platters were packed for the hungry patrons.

“Okay, its going to start getting dark now.”

“Okay doc,” I said.  And then I remembered focusing on the big surgical light above me.  And I was gone.

“Mister Jackson, are you okay?”  some voice repeated over and over.  “Mister Jackson?”  The voice was loud and annoying.

I tried to speak but it was like lifting weights.  I managed something out, “I feel heavy…”

“What is that Mr. Jackson?”

I swallowed and said again as I felt my bed roll towards some unknown destination.  “I feel heavy…”

They were moving me to the Intensive Care Unit.

“You are going to be okay, Mister Jackson.”

And in this caged glass room, they stopped and put down the parking brake to my bed.  I was in a room by myself unlike Ward D, Bed 7. 

“Do you need something for pain?” the voice asked again.

That’s when I felt it.  Felt something.  Long and winding on my abdomen and stomach.  It was tight.  Like I had been opened up and gutted like a pig.  My new scar.  My long scar.  My ugly scar.