On the Operation Bed

Operation Stories

The surgeon asked the nurse to make the necessary arrangements. The nurse handed over a patient gown to Ramya. Midst the hurried procedures, a nurse gave an injection on her left arm. Meanwhile, a male warden came and carefully inserted a cannula in the wrist of her right hand.

On the nurse’s instance, Ramya lied down on the operation bed, deriding the ring-shaped pillow which was wrapped in a white strap. She marveled at the reason for making the pillow look so spooky. She thought about the injury her knee had received during the basketball match of her college. Had she been careful, she would not have to undergo this dreadful surgery rather called as ‘small fix’ by the doctors.

Her chain of thoughts broke when the nurse asked her to remove her ring. She then frowned looking at her nails, “they were supposed to be clipped.” Ramya snorted, “if nails are such a nuisance, you could also think of a complete body wax. But please spare the hair on my head”. The operation staff blurted into laughter.

The worst pre-operation thing Ramya found was the staff would keep roaming around hastily without letting her know anything. And after a long time, when they asked her to shift to the operation theatre, she expected a momentary break to decompress herself but what she could see all around the new place was scalpels, bandages, bales of cotton, numerous pairs of scissors, and the bulky sophisticated machines beeping incoherently. As she lied quietly on the stretcher in the center of the room, her eyes squinted at the bright yellow light flashing from a giant bulb overhead that someone had just turned on.

Ramya wondered midst the nitty-gritty of her first operation, why most of the hospital things were green-colored, like the curtains, the cupboards, the carpets, the bedsheets, even the wrappers of injections. Why could not they rather be colorful.

Another person in white apron arrived.

Ramya asked him, “Are you the one with Anesthesia?”

“Yes”. He smiled.

“What is the chemical formula?” She asked him as if he were her chemistry teacher.

“There is no formula, because it’s a mixture”. He retorted.

“Would I be able to speak anything under anesthesia?” She continued.

“No”. He replied emphatically while injecting the chemical into her glucose bottle.

“Good to hear that doc, so I do not spill the beans”. Everybody in the room once again broke into laughter.

It seemed like the anesthetist took on a funny tone as he asked her, “Do you have a baby?”

Doubting her ears, Ramya asked him to repeat, and then screamed out, “No, I am not even married for heaven’s sake”.

Her eyes started to feel bleary. The light overhead turned to a blurry yellow circle. “I am going to sleep.” She kept on blabbering while the surgeons stood in front of her. She remembered the indulgent exclamations of the doctor near her, “oh, really!” “I See”. Soon the voices fainted and the vision blurred.

Now Ramya was locked in a silent, unknown space where senses ceased to exist while the surgeons cut open the ruptured ligament of her knee. It was pure nothingness. Ramya kept her talks going from there…

‘Where are you going?’, ‘listen to me’, ‘you would not get anyone like me to give timeless preaching – listen to your heart. Heart is the boss, and mind is a mere secretary. Secretary can always help, but it is boss’s job to take all decisions. Listen to me. It is very important’.

Ramya heard a nurse saying, “Absolutely right!”

It seemed like the effect of anesthesia started to waver during the end of the surgery when the doctors were doing the final stitches.

In a fit of emotions, Ramya yelled, “Do you know Chutzpah???” Absolute silence. “Chutzpah means audacity. You should be chutzpadic. I studied hard to get a college like IIT. Now I want to draw paintings, the colorful ones. I want to write. I want to know and to be known”.

Before, she could continue, she felt someone was caressing her hair while a few tears had rolled down the pillow as if inside the closed furnace of her eyes, a fire was burning and a glacier was melting.

From the narrow window of her eyes, she saw her mom approaching. This was the first time after that mystical dose that she quietened down for the sake of her concern. She wished if she could tell her that it was a silver cloud of ecstasy which was causing such downpour of her suppressed emotions.

As she went away, Ramya continued to scream, “Listen everyone, what all I am telling you, no one generally tells. Do not live an ordinary life. Give it a meaning. Give education to children for free. Only a nine-to-five job is not life. Life is something else. It is beautiful if you think the other way. You will forget all this after few days, but please try not to.”

She opened her eyes midst her screams. Her throat felt sore. There was a dull silence around. She discovered it was the same room she was in before the operation. She asked the nurse, “Who brought me here? The nurse replied, “we shifted you on stature from the operation theatre”.

Ramya lied perplexed watching the nurse make the room. It was when she discovered a severe pain in the knee. She craved to escape it squirming in the bed and begging for the painkiller. The nurse could not do anything but empathize with her because Ramya was already injected five doses of pain killer, more than which would be dangerous.

Her mom would come to see her in rounds but was not allowed to stay for more than a minute every time. The pain felt unbearable and inescapable. It felt as if someone had sprinkled the salt over her sore wound.

The warden told that the Ambulance would come soon to take her home and asked the nurse to change her clothes after a while. He reassured Ramya, “within minutes, the pain would go away. Then you can sleep well.”

Within good fifteen minutes, the pain subsided and Ramya felt like running home. The drip needle was removed, but cannula was left for routine injections.

Two nurses helped Ramya to sit. But the moment she tried to get up from bed, her head started to whirl and the giddiness made her lose balance. They lay her back in the bed. But then some spark kindled inside of her, and she sprang up from bed, saying “I would walk on my own”.

They held her shoulders on either side while Ramya slowly staggered down the ramp which led to the hospital’s exit. But it was like an entry into a new zone. In a subconscious state, she had seen the whole universe which was nowhere else but inside her. She had found her purpose in life. All that she saw and uttered in her subconscious state of mind was meant to become the life-changer for her. She no more regretted the injury but rather embraced the pain which made her feel so alive, so brave.

Right in the front was her mother, and the other two attendants wearing a smile on their face as if welcoming her. One of them commented in amazement, “I did not know, she talks so much”. Ramya said laughingly, “I really talk a lot and I love that”.