When Everything Changed

The Moments Before

a cool draft of air wafts around my ankles as the operating door closes behing me, sending goosbumps up my exposed legs. As I lay down on the surgical table, the nurses try asking me trivial questions about my life in an attempt to distract me from the fact that they are simultaneously strapping me down; as if the most important moment of my life wasn't happening as we spoke. Who knew your reflexes can still be active while under heavy sedation?

Foam is all I taste as the anesthesiologist lowers a mask over my nose and mouth. My body feels light, the whole sensation is oddly ethereal. Echoes are all I hear: tools clattering against metal trays, the air vents in the ceiling whirring ferociously, voices saying words I cannot quite make out. It is as if the volume of the room is turned all the way up and being played in slow motion. I fight to keep my eyes open, to see how long I can last. The whole experience is so strange and I urgently reapeat to myself, "REMEMBER THIS," my own voice bouncing around in my head like sound bouncing around the walls of a cave. Eventually, I fall into the peaceful darkness of sleep as the waves of anesthesia wash over me.

The Moments After

The first thing I remember is opening my eyes and seeing nothing but blackness. I can't hear anything except for my own heart beating, like a stampede of wild buffalo pounding by, so loudly I think it might explode. Yet, it isn't really my own heart; it's someone else's and I cannot help but believe it is trying to escape "Get it out! I don't want this, please take it back out!" I beg my nurses, doctors, parents, anyone who is around to listen. I am afraid, and the beating in my ears and throat is deafening. I hear one other thing before I black out again. My parents are crying and my surgeon is consoling them, assuring them that they did the right thing, that it is just the effects of the anesthesia making me feel this way. I will feel better eventually. The fear, the pain, it'll all go away in a week at the longest. One week had never felt longer.