April 8, 2013 — Titi G
April 8, 2013 — Titi G
I don’t like hospitals and this morning is no different. I’m here today because I have surgery scheduled for 7am. I have been up since 3am and feel like I didn’t sleep a wink at all.
Three weeks ago, Amy my friend and doctor, had asked I go get x-rays done after she had listened to me complain about symptoms yet again. I was always bloated, had pelvic pain and my back was killing me. I dismissed all of these because the symptoms were generic, and there was the pressure of work. She’d asked me the first time I’d complained, which must have been several months ago at least, but I’d kept postponing until she’d finally threatened me. The x-rays prompted other tests — MRIs, biopsies, and finally here a surgery.
So, here I am sitting, taking the room in. It is cold but not freezing. My eyes dart around the room, unable to focus on one thing. Most of the faces are familiar. They pass by smiling knowingly, as though hiding how dire the situation is behind the smiles. I smile back, hiding anger and then despair in an infinite loop. I feel myself starting to drift into sleep. The last thing I remember as sleep overwhelms me is wondering if I should have told my mother or if I tied up everything at work….
I wake up hours later with a tube down my throat. My physician mind goes into overdrive, panning all the various things that could have gone wrong to warrant my being intubated. As if on cue, Reena the nurse appears. Eyes slightly dipped, she explains I had reacted to the anesthetic. For the first time through all of this, I feel tears rolling down my cheeks…
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All that kicked off a year ago today. I survived the surgery, avoided chemotherapy and made do with radiation treatment only. In very many aspects, life is back to normal, as normal as it could get post-cancer. I really do still hate hospitals but I’m here daily, and have become familiar with each sound, each smell and most importantly where all the good snacks are kept. I am a patient, a cancer survivor and a doctor.
I have been reborn…
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About Titi: Wife-to-be, God lover, BFF, physician and favourite Godmother, Titi alternatively revels in, and is humbled by, Grace in the form of second lives and second chances.