It’s 5 a.m. and the door swings open into my hospital room. Two female nurses enter and greet me with “Good morning, Andrew, we are here to take some blood samples before the operation and make sure you are healthy”.
They are both cheery, smiling and treat me very gently. A few blood samples are taken from my arm and my pulse is recorded with an electronic machine. We engage in some friendly chit-chat, and everything is performed smoothly and professionally to make me feel relaxed.
I feel exhausted after so few hours of sleep, not through stress or worrying about the operation, but not being able to get the bed at the right angle for a decent sleep the night before. The nurse explains to me like an idiot where I went wrong, and I try to raise a laugh in my exhausted state of mind.
10 minutes later, they leave the room and tell me someone will be back to collect me in a few hours. I try to get back to sleep but the excitement is all too much. This is all very real and it’s happening soon.
The operation time is planned for 9:30 that morning and I am psychologically ready for surgery. In fact, I feel excited since I’ve never been on an operating table before – am I mentally ill?
I know the operation will be performed with keyhole surgery and excited to see what electronic devices and technology they have in there along with meeting the surgeons and staff.
At around 08:30 I am greeted by the anesthetist. She gives me some tablets and at this point I am thinking about how I will be unconscious soon. But, according to her, this is to make me feel more relaxed and to make the transition onto the heavier drugs easier.
Soon she disappears and my next visit will be one of the hospital porters who will wheel my entire bed through the hospital corridors.
En-Route to the Operating Theatre
This hospital is ‘massive’. There are even maps printed on the walls to guide you through the corridors and floor levels to various sections of the building.
The porter enters my room, introduces himself and asks me to relax in bed as he opens the doors and starts moving my bed out of the ward and into the hospital corridors. After around 10 minutes we reach our destination and he leaves my bed parked outside the operating room.
Even at this point, I’m not nervous, I just want to get in there and get it done. This has been 12 months in the planning!
A long comes the friendly anesthetist again and tells me we are about to meet the team. Now I get out of the bed and escort her inside the operating room to be greeted by all the staff – it’s like a party atmosphere and in typical Swedish fashion everybody takes their turn to introduced themselves. It’s almost like we are about to have an informal dinner party.
I’m surrounded by around 5 women and led towards the operating table.
Lying on top of the table, flapping like a kite, is a transparent inflated plastic mattress. It is removed and I take its place, then it is laid over me. It feels warm and cosy and I’m not quite sure what it is or why it is there, but it makes me feel relaxed.
3 nurses now stand around me, 1 at the top of my head and 2 close to my legs. They make a special effort to put my body into position on the operating bed and push and pull me gently until they are satisfied.
Apparently, a good position where my body is straight and not lying squint is required for the operation. At this point I feel a little drowsy, the tablets must be kicking in now and I’m feeling extremely relaxed and warm.
The anesthetist places a mask over my nose and mouth and tells me to think of pleasurable places and happy moments to think about. I’m guessing the knockout is coming soon and she is now counting slowly down from 10. The last number I recall was 4 and then I was awake – Have they started?
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