Surgery Day

Good Morning!!! "Can you tell me what day it is? Where are you? What's your name? Why are you here?"
"Tuesday, August 2. Ummmm, the hospital. Rebecca. I've got a umm ttttumor in my head."

My fan club shows up: Larry, Jan, John and Jeff. I think my niece (Larry's niece) Suzie was there also. It might have been yesterday. I mention this because she is a nurse and spent most of her career in the Maricopa County Hospital emergency room. If you know anything about county hospitals, they are very, very busy: Gunshot and stabbing victims, drug overdoses etc. She had intelligent questions to ask the doctors and we appreciated her input.

All morning is taken up with small talk. Everyone seems a little nervous except for me. Once again, looking back on this, I was like a lamb being led to slaughter. It didn't occur to me that I could die on the table, or be permanently brain damaged. But even at that, I would have made the decision to have the surgery. Anything would have been better than the way I was.

I don't remember them coming to get me to take me to surgery. I was asleep for the surgery. Many people have asked about that because for certain types of brain surgery you have to be awake. My head was held in place with a "halo". They didn't even shave my head! The surgery took about eight hours. The first thing I remember was being wheeled back to my room and the nurse or doctor was telling me to wake up. We stopped by the waiting room and my family was there. I sensed that I had been through a big thunderstorm with lots of lightning similar to a Frankenstein movie. Come to find out there was a huge storm that night so I must have been aware at some point. My family was happy and said that everything was okay. It was late and they went home.

I would like to say that I went to my room and slept peacefully for the rest night; but, you have to remember this is a hospital and you don't get a lot of sleep there. They were soon wheeling me off to get a CT scan-hitting every bump along the way. Can you believe there was a waiting line when I got there?

When I get back to my room, the nurse asks me if I am in pain. "YES!" "How bad on a scale of 1 to 10?" "10." I get a shot of morphine. Now maybe I can get some sleep.