Writing is nothing more than tossing experiences onto a page, with the solitary hope that those words will help one person feel a little bit more understood. I urge you to toss vulnerability to the wind and share your days with the world. I promise, they will not fall on deaf ears.
It is still dark outside. Surgery was scheduled for early that morning. We were told that surgery could last from three to twelve hours. I stare at the hands on the clock hanging above the sink. Next to the sink are different types of tubes and red see-through toxic containers.
The door opens. The surgeon is tall with an understanding gaze and a calm demeanor. He walks into the small room, he presses the hand sanitizer on the wall with the dexterity only years of practice can produce. Last week he was wearing dress pants and a white jacket; today he is wearing blue scrubs head to toe. Several nurses and a fellow follow with clipboards, there are in scrubs and clogs as well. One of the nurses hands me two small white pills and a cup of water. I relish the cold. The small waiting room is getting smaller. My parents and Andrew sit in the chairs across from me. I sit cross-legged in sweatpants waiting until they hand me the forbidden hospital gown.
He shakes hands with all of them. And then he pats my back before sitting on the classic swivel chair and says, “You all get enough sleep last night?”
We respond, “yes” in unison. He then asks if we have any last questions. We had four appointments and numerous emails and telephone calls with him in the last seven days. The biopsy was nineteen days ago. The diagnosis was seventeen days ago. The MRI was thirteen days ago. We flew to Mayo for the first time eight days ago. There were the catscans, more MRIs, blood work, and PET scans. There were no more questions.
His hands are large. I imagine him with knitting needles, or mending a button. I’m curious if that is a prerequisite before he could start sewing on humans. I look down to my chest and imagine that it will never look the same again.
The thoughts are cloudy. They’re not coherent. The medications were moving through my blood stream. The nurses usher my parents and Andrew away. My Dad stands up first and kisses the top of my head. And then Andrew lightly kisses my forehead. They walk out together. I know they’ll find the chilly waiting room and read the WSJ on their ipads. I watch my mom hesitate. She bends down, so we are level with each other. She holds my chin softly and looks into eyes in the same way I imagine she has since the day I was born. She says, “Sweet Angel, I promise this will be over soon. I love you so much.”
I hear the door click behind them. The nurses help me into the thin hospital gown, the kind that opened in the front. They reach to cover my naked feet in ugly socks with white rubber soles on the bottom. I’m led into the clean sterile room, which doesn’t register as the operating room.
I vaguely remember the nurses tucking my braids behind my head and laying the white chair back, pulling the gown down and across my shoulder. I remember the chill of having my breast exposed, the texture of the cold washcloth gently rinsing off the area. Then there was the sting of needles, which broke the pain into seconds and then into hours.
The bright lights and voices had long since faded, when I felt intense pressure on my chest. Deep in my conscious I knew that the incisions were being made.
The first segment of the surgery lasted two hours. The first round was to remove the tumor. And then they would take it to the pathologist, they would stain the slides, they would “bread loaf” the cells, the hope would be he would return to the waiting room with good news.
Two hours later, he explained to my parents and to Andrew that they the results were still positive. He would need to remove more.
He cut deep into the muscle. Physically detaching the roots of the tumor, which had begun to wrap around my clavicle. The cells were stained and sent back to the lab. It took another two hours.
It was early afternoon by then. The nurse was slowly putting a straw in my mouth. The juice drenched my thirst. My head throbbed. I waited falling in and out of darkness.
It is all fuzzy. I hear the surgeon talking, he sounds so far away, “Auna. Auna can you hear me?”
I mumble through the ice melting on my tongue. I’m not sure I can hear him.
“Auna, the margins tested clear of cancer. It's over now. It’s time to sew you up.“
It’s foggy. They’re explaining why I need to stay awake. Then I feel needles, pain is searing through consciousness, and suddenly I’m sobbing. He is giving directions to the nurses, “the local is wearing off, we need to wash the wound and set the internal antibiotics.”
He says softly, “This might hurt a little bit, but we’re going to do our best to keep you comfortable.”
My body doesn’t want to move, the needles enter my body, I know the syringes are going deep. My body convulses in pain. These thoughts aren’t registering on the surface, but deep in my subconscious, what they’re doing, I envision them sewing my muscle together, the innocent muscle, the skin that did no wrong. I fall asleep again, but the pain doesn’t end. It stings.
An hour later… A female voice is in the room. I know it isn’t one of the nurses. She is talking to me. I want to see her, but I'm caught in the dark. Then I hear my Dad talking, and then I hear Andrew, he is asking someone when I will wake up.
Then my mom’s voice feels closer; I can sense her, “Honey?”
The light bleeds into the dark room. I squint. I expect a sunny room, but the windows are dark, dusk had since left us, and the room was lit with the cool tones of ambient medical lights. I try to sit up, but I hear my own scream before I can register my pain. It shoots through my chest, I am afraid to look down.
There is gauze. There is tape and white taped from my breast up to my neck. I cannot see anything. I don’t want to see anything.
We all sit in silence for a while. We’re not in a rush anymore. There is no hurry to see a doctor. To find specialists. There are no more scary Google searches. No more biopsies. They’re waiting for me to say something.
“It’s gone.”
