Chapter 9
They wheeled me out of pre-op and the hallway got colder with every set of double doors. I was still in the same red t-shirt they'd pushed up to get the IVs in, the blue jeans gone and replaced by a warmed blanket that didn't stay warm for long. The ceiling turned into a track of fluorescent panels sliding past. Lena walked beside the bed until we hit the line on the floor outside the OR, her hand clamped around the rail.
A nurse in a surgical cap took over from the transport nurse and called my name and birthdate and I answered. My voice sounded thin. I tried to breathe through the pain in my lower right side that had settled into a constant, tearing pressure.
The operating room was bigger than I expected and too bright. The lights were huge round discs overhead, not on yet, and everything was stainless steel and pale blue like our ER bay but cleaner, more open. The air smelled like cold plastic and antiseptic. A wall of monitors beeped steadily. Someone was already gowned and gloved at a tray of instruments that caught the light.
Lena wasn't allowed past the threshold. She leaned in and put her hand on my forehead the way she had when I was little and had a fever. Her palm was warm. Her green sleeve was pushed up to her elbow and I could see the faint red marks on her upper arm where he'd grabbed her.
"I'm right in the waiting room," she said quietly. "I love you. You're safe now."
I nodded. That was the last thing I felt clearly.
Two people moved me to the narrow operating table. The surface was hard under the thin sheet. They tucked my arms out to the sides on boards and secured a strap across my legs and a blood pressure cuff that squeezed and released. The anesthesiologist was a woman with short gray hair and a mask pulled down, her eyes crinkled at the corners.
"Hi Maya, I'm Dr. Patel," she said. Her voice was calm and even. "We're going to give you some medicine to help you sleep. You might feel a little burning in your IV and then you'll feel floaty. I want you to count back from ten for me, okay?"
I tried to answer but my throat was dry. She adjusted something above my head and the clear oxygen mask came down over my nose and mouth. It smelled faintly sweet. One of the nurses held my hand.
"This is oxygen," Dr. Patel said. "Big breaths for me."
I breathed. The monitor beeped faster. She pushed something into the IV and a cold line ran up my arm.
"Start counting whenever you're ready," she said.
I stared at the big light above me that wasn't lit yet and thought about Lena's hand on my forehead. I got to ten, then nine. My tongue felt thick.
"Ten... nine..." I heard myself say.
By eight my eyelids were heavy and the ceiling started to soften at the edges. I was still trying to hold onto the feeling of her palm, that warm pressure, when the room went quiet and dark.
I didn't dream. The next thing I knew there were voices, but they weren't directed at me. I was somewhere smaller, with curtains around me, and a warmer blanket tucked up to my chin. My mouth was dry and my throat hurt around the tube that was already out. A steady beep was right beside my ear. My eyes would open for a second and then close again. I couldn't keep them open.
I could hear Lena's voice nearby, and a man's voice I didn't recognize, low and clinical.
"...laparoscopic appendectomy, three-port technique," the man was saying, not to Lena but into a phone or recorder, dictating. His tone was flat and precise. "Peritoneal entry uneventful. Appendix identified in right lower quadrant, acutely inflamed, edematous, with fibrinous exudate and early injection of the mesoappendix. No perforation. No abscess. Appendix mobilized and divided at base, removed in endobag. Pathology to follow. Findings consistent with acute appendicitis, timeline consistent with several hours of progressive pain."
Those words floated over me. Fibrinous exudate. Acute. Consistent with several hours. I didn't know exactly what it meant except that it was proof. It wasn't in my head. It had been real the whole time in the ER bay when he threw the water and said I was faking.
Lena made a small sound, like an exhale she had been holding since the fluorescent lights of the emergency room.
"So it was..." she started.
"Acute appendicitis, yes," the surgeon said, his voice softening now, speaking to her instead of the recorder. "It needed to come out tonight. She did the right thing telling us how much it hurt. The inflammation was significant. Another few hours and we would have been looking at a rupture. She's going to be sore, but the source of the pain is gone."
I tried to turn my head toward her voice. My eyes opened a crack. Lena was right there in a plastic chair pulled up to the bed, still in the same green top and jeans, her brown boots tucked under the chair. The PACU was dimmer than the OR, with a curtain around us and a nurse charting at a computer behind her.
"Hey, baby," Lena whispered when she saw me looking. She put her hand back on my forehead, same place as before. "You're done. You did so good."
May you like
I couldn't answer beyond a small hum. My lower belly felt tight and sore under the blanket, with three small bandaged spots I could feel but not see, and the tearing pain from before was gone, replaced by a dull, controlled ache and the tug of the IV. The monitor beeped steady and even.
The nurse came to check my bandages and the IV pump, and Dr. Patel stopped by the foot of the bed for a second to look at the numbers and nod. I drifted again, but I kept Lena's hand in that spot on my forehead and the surgeon's words repeating in the background, the operative note that said in plain medical language that I had been telling the truth.
