They had given me another shot of morphine but the pain still exploded like those pretty fireworks that expand out like an opening hydrangea. I wished that the pain would move to a place giving the clueless doctors a hint to what was causing it. But having just been told by the very observant surgical team; who all week had been sticking things in me, up and down me, that I was a woman and could have and I quote ‘slightly differing bits and bobs that could cause gynaecological problems.’ Stunned by this admission, I let hope and faith silently slip away into the never, never.
I hate morphine. The first time they gave it to me, it made me sick. So now they give it to me then stab me with the anti-sickness drug. I asked them very politely to give me some of the stuff that drug users have, to at least give me some fun while I lay incapacitated but they just laughed.
I now have a racing heart and feel sure it will jump out of my chest like one of those wind up toys you can get around valentines. My eyes are shut and colours jump around my head as a warm and soft blanket slowly pulls itself up my toes and I panic. Is this what its like to die? I could see the light that’s for sure.
I try to open my eyes and reach for the buzzer to call for help but the warm, soft and very heavy blanket make it impossible to shake it off, no movement can I make nor sound. I felt a tear push from my eye, its forever expanding form lay between my eye and my nose as the blanket pulled itself over my head and I thought of my mum who died last year, her death was nothing like this though. My poor dad was going to be left alone. Cocooned in this warm deep feeling the deepness devoured me.
__________________________________
Gods voice was nothing how I imagined it. It was far away and I strained my ears to hear what was said. I tried to think of all the things I had done wrong and how I could account for my actions.
‘Miss Longbottom.’ As the warmth of the blanket fell away the pain came back. This could not be heaven it must be hell! You wouldn’t feel pain if you were in heaven, I felt sure of that.
‘Miss Longbottom, could you open your eyes for me. It’s Mr. Pratt and I need to discus what we found on your scan.’
‘Not another Pratt!’ I heard several voices ripple with amusement. I Smelt spice to my left but the voice was on my right. ‘I just got rid of one Pratt, I told him to sling his hook.’ I wanted to explain but I had no energy left.
‘Hear what I have to say and then you can tell me to sling my hook too, if you like.’ His gentle humour made a faint smile come to my face and he seized his opportunity. ‘It will be worth while I promise.’ I opened one eye and his face circled like a vortex making me queasy. I couldn’t be sick not in-front of all these people, anyhow I had nothing to eat now for days or was it weeks? So nothing would come up, not really any cancelation in that though.
‘It weren’t worth it!’ I pathetically and churlishly responded.
‘I know I’m not the most attractive person but give it another go’ everyone appreciated that one. My smile had broken across my face and I knew I was going to like him and somehow trust him.
I also knew it was going to bad news. I knew every subtle tone doctors use to convay the difference between hopeful and terminal. I had experienced them all through my mother’s battle with cancer.
‘No! Just tell me while I have my eyes closed. I don’t want to be sick over someone who makes me smile.’ I felt a hand gently squeeze mine and the smell of spice soothed the needling sensation of anxiety.
‘I would prefer it if you have your eyes open.’ This meant treatment and he needed to know that I understood what he had to say.
‘Bugger, it’s going to hurt, I have an aversion to pain.’ Another ripple politely went in the semi circle around my bed. I felt the cooling hand soothing. The exploding knot expanded. ‘Could you just give me a mo so I can stop the world from spinning?’ I could sense him looking at Mr Spicy hand and hesitating.
‘I have a few more people to see and will get back to you. Not a problem.’
‘Thanks’ He lingered and then they all shifted body weight to follow Mr. Pratt in his wake. The hand still was over mine and I made an effort to gain control of my body and open my eyes, grateful I didn’t have an audience at my pathetic state.
‘Would you mind me calling you by your first name?’
‘No I don’t mind’ I laughed ‘anything is better than Miss Longbottom.’
‘My name is Professor Anthony James and’ I cut in
‘Wow a Professor I must be in a bad way, just let me get my eyes open.’ A sickening thud held my heart captive as my eyes began to work I looked up at the Professor. He was striking, tall and bald, which suited him. His dress sense was sharp distinctive and unique. I was stunned. He smiled a little uncomfortable with my reaction.
‘Can I call you Anthony?’ I asked ‘professor freaks me out?’ His face relaxed and gentle humour touched his eyes.
‘You can call me what you like as long as it’s not Longbottom. My Christian name is Freya.’ I told him.
‘Freya is a nice name.’
‘Not at school with Longbottom. I was called ‘frayed your long bottom? Sometimes they would put knickers into the equation for extra kicks. He raised his eyebrows in the most captivating way. This mellow feeling I had now with the drugs was a good place to be, if only it would last and put the exploding fireworks out.
‘I was the one they called when they took your ultra sound scan’ I cringed; I would have preferred never to have met anyone again who had been there.
‘Sorry’ I said
‘You have nothing to reproach yourself over.’ Normally, when a doctor or Professor said that, it was said as a matter of course, a pleasantry but he meant it.
‘You’ve had a pretty rough deal over the last month or so.’ He nodded to my notes that now reached a foot high of a man with size thirteen feet. I blushed, having no idea what was written in those notes.
‘Good reading?’ I asked. He looked at me with such sorrow; I knew he had fully read my history. I felt so angry. All this pain was so unnecessary, avoidable even. He squeezed my hand.
‘Mr. Pratt will be back soon. He has his young team with him. Would you like me to ask them to stay behind while he has a word with you?’
‘No. I’ll be ok’
‘Right then, I’ll just go and tell him you’re ready.’ He squeezed my hand with his calm cool one and off he strode. His purple pinstriped suit accentuated his body in all the right places. The same shade of purple was used on his shoes. He could have looked as though he was a conceited peacock but as my mum would have said he looked ‘dashing’ he was considerate and kind. I smiled at her voice inside my head ‘We need more people like him. And he sure is sweet eye candy’.
His best quality though was that he understood people and wanted to change things and would go to extraordinary lengths to make things right. He had shown me that in the little room where I found out that I mirrored my mum’s diagnosis in everyway detail.
I was a lot younger than her and had no children and likely never to have any, I may be lucky and have a life though, unlike my poor mum. It was time to show my true colours, hold onto my beliefs and put my money where my mouth was.
Professor James was talking to Mr. Pratt and they both looked over to me from time to time. Their entourage following closely holding onto every word they spoke learning, understanding and willing. I closed my eyes to shut out the emotional and physical pain, to become who I am. I had one chance to make a difference to these impressionable people to tell a truth that rarely gets aired, to give them raw unyielding and honest reality. I knew the drill better than most.
Professor James on my left who’s spicy tones gave me strength and vitality with Mr. Pratt on my right with his open face.
‘Miss Fraya Longbottom.’ There was a boyish look concealed in formality between them not lost on me or the rest of the team. My eyebrows rose at a schoolmistress angle, they both apologist immediately. ‘Fraya is able to keep her eyes open now.’ The Professor began.
‘May I call you Fraya?’
‘If you call me anything else I’ll be very angry and you won’t like it!’ We all laughed softly. The tone of light and dark was set for the relaying information. None of us, even with our collective experiences found this conversation easy.
‘We found, what we hope is a dermoid cyst. This’
‘This does not mean it is cancerous as most dermoid or cysts are benign. My mother died of one last year.’ I tried so hard to let him carry on with his speech but I just couldn’t handle it. ‘There is only about a 2% risk I know, but as I had an ectopic pregnancy last year and this year I have a possible dermoid. Luck is not on my side.
I have spent the last months trying to convince my GP I needed a scan. He said I had psychosomatic pain. Understandable considering that my mum had just died riddled with cancer because she got her diagnosis too late. My boyfriend walked over me to get to work because he thought I was a drama queen and I had to pass out at the surgery to get anyone to take me seriously.
I was sent to a surgical ward because the GP had to send me in with something so questioned appendicitis. I spent a week with the surgical team examining every orifice, looking for the cause of my demise only for them to miss the one that I kept telling them about.
Don’t you people talk to each other? Do you not see patients as humans instead as a list of symptoms? Are we just fragmented bit and pieces. To see the full picture you have to have all the pieces joined together, communicate what you know. They then in their infinite wisdom decided that patience came in two forms male and female and sent me down to the gynaecological ward to have my extra bits looked into.
They observed me, waiting for the pain to go away, instead it increased. If they had just read through my notes but they couldn’t find them or couldn’t read them.
Sorry but this patient has become in-patient and in too much pain to go over old insignificant ground. The big picture is that I am a woman I have a possible dermoid cyst on her right ovary and wants to know where we go from here.’
Mr. Pratt nodded at me. ‘We will perform the operation to-day to remove it. I’m trying to fit you in for this afternoon. I have asked Professor James to perform the operation and I will be assisting. This is his field of expertise and we are lucky to have him. Professor James would you like to take over.’
‘Thank you. We will send a sample off for analysis, which is standard procedure and takes a couple of weeks to get the results back. We will look thoroughly I promise, for anything we feel needs further investigation. You are in an incredible amount of pain because I believe that the cyst is wrapped around your fallopian tube and engulfs your ovary. In these cases we may find that it has bounced on and off other organs in your body, hence the unusual places that the pain has affected you.’
‘We are all unusual, as individuals we are unique, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Yes I would’ He looked down at me and I felt a rising crush developing. Everyone gets a crush on their Doctor; my mum said it was the thing that kept her going, all the lovely doctors and surgeons. I thought Professors were infinitely better and my crush was deepening into love. You had to love the man that was about to save your life.
‘You know and understand that I may not be able to save any part of your only ovary?’
‘Yep, I sort of figured that.’
‘If I can, you may have a better chance than you think of being fertile. It depends on you as a unique individual and what I find’. He squeezed my hand. I love him, I really, really do.
‘I need to go and sort a few things out, get the relevant forms then I will be back and go into more detail about the operation and its consequences. Your father is coming in and has asked if he stay with you. Is that Ok?’ Tears well up in my eyes, my poor, poor dad. I nod, he squeezes, my heart swells.
They leave and the nurse comes over. She is my around my age yearly to mid thirties, confident, fun and caring and told me how she listened into the conversation.
‘You were very good. Mr Pratt will do what he can and Professor James is excellent and is working on some new procedures with conditions like this, you’re in safe hands now’.
‘Safe and caring,’ I smile, ‘it makes the difference just to be believed and listened to. Do doctors never get a full picture of what happened to their patient? Can’t see how they can make proper diagnosis unless they know the full story.’
I’m given all the ammunition they have against the pain. My heart pounds as though it is about to leap out and take flight and I force myself into a sleep.
_____________________________
In my dream, I’m back home as a child. The smell of fresh laundry blowing in the wind caresses my face and I climb into the sheet hanging on the line, hoping that it would feel like a cloud and for a while I swing in the breeze. I so wanted to float on a cloud. Softness brushes my cheek and I feel my mother holding me, her smell engulfing me. I feel elated and the warmth of her smile gave a golden light as she called me ‘Pumpkin’. I opened my eyes and my dad’s tear stained face looked down. A forced smile never reached his sorrowful eyes as he kissed me lightly on the cheek.
I smelt spice, delicate and tantalising. I looked around for him and there he stood. He introduced the anaesthetist, we went through the forms. I was prepared for theatre and rolled down the now familiar corridor.
I looked at their faces ranging in age and gender. All gowned up, explaining what was going to happen next. I was having a spinal tap so that I wouldn’t have to put up with too much morphine. Hanging over the bed, stretching my back to make it easier for the needle to hit the spot, I took a good look at them.
‘You lot look worse than I do.’ They looked exhausted. ‘Leave me until Monday.’ They laughed. Robert who had expertly and without trouble administered the epidural asked me to swing my legs back onto the bed. I looked at him as though he was daft.
‘You have just given me a cocktail of god knows what to stop all sensation in my lower body and are now telling me to swing my legs, that I no longer feel. How am I to do that then?’ The good looking blond whose clear blue eyes shone with humour took pity on me. She gently helped me back on the bed. Arranged the sheets so my dignity was kept intact and a mask was placed over my face. I will wake up laughing was my last thought as the blanket of sleep engulfed me.
The End
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