From Parasailing to OR: A week in unpredictability, surrender and metastatic cancer
After having gone through numerous surgeries since my first diagnosis of breast cancer in July 2013, I know the precise moment that I hate about any surgery. It’s those first few inescapable moments in the recovery room when a nurse is screaming or what feels like screaming in my ear as she shakes me vigorously, “Uzma! Uzma! Your surgery is over, you are waking up now” and that first moment of awareness bring with it the strong wave of pain and I estimate as to how much pain these buggers have left me in. Waking up from mastectomy and liver ablation were rather horrifying and excruciatingly painful but I did not know what it would be like to wake up from a craniotomy. Craniotomy is the medical term for cutting the skull open. Yes, that special sacred space of the body that guards my identity and “me” in the skull was going to be cut open. I had been in the ER for incessant pain, nausea and vomiting two days before and it was determined that the cancer had eroded my skull bone and causing severe pressure on my brain. My biggest fear after my cancer metastasized was brain involvement and there I was with a 5 cm growth in my skull.
I am laying down in the room in a hospital gown with my skid proof socks to make sure the hospital isn’t liable for slips or fall as if pre-op patients are routinely sliding around to get to places. They are not. Pre-op usually means not having eaten for at least six hours and after that no one is bursting with energy. But I get the logic. The green hospital gown with its hideous print is too large for me but still skimpy to cover my butt because the flaps in the back don’t fall in the right place. The nakedness makes me more vulnerable.
The anesthesiologist shows up and waves a syringe filled with few CCs of an orange liquid, “Versed” she says, it’s the happy medicine. The psychiatrist in me feels a little offended at this turf encroachment, since I am the one that prescribes “happy medicine”. She asks me for my name and date of birth for the umpteenth time and I respond like a real smart student. I don’t tolerate Versed in the sense that I fall asleep after getting it intravenously and I never get the moments where I get super giddy and disinhibited unlike other patients who have some tolerance. Things are beeping around me and I am covered with a blanket. I know that pretty soon its light out and I vaguely remember my husband kissing me as I get wheeled to the OR. The wheels of the gurney start to move.
The wheels of the pulley are rolling and I am floating up gradually. The Florida sun is strong and the sky is clear. The whole scene is drenched in different shades of blue. I am clipped onto a harness that is slowly rising up into the sky and a bright purple and orange parachute is providing the adequate pull to my son and me. I recall sitting in the boat few minutes ago as the staff of the parasailing company asked me to put on a life jacket and I am about to bow out from this experience when my inner voice tells me, “it’s now or never, do it”. Cancer over the last few years has beaten me into giving up control and surrendering so now I seldom get in my own way.
And just like that I get up on the front of the boat, locked into a harness and few minutes later hanging over the ocean. I am holding the harness so tightly that my arms hurt and I tell myself this should not be so painful. My son is getting anxious even though he has prior experience and I try to act tough for him. I remind myself, I am making memories, he should not remember this experience as “Mommy was so scared” when I am gone. I even smile.
I make myself look up and around at the view which is simply gorgeous. I see white sandy beaches and a widespread ocean with shops and restaurants and boats on the coast of Destin. I allow myself to relax and embrace the moment. I surrender to the wind and breathe.
I am now in the OR and have a mask on my face and being asked to breathe deeply. I try to say to them, “I know what you are doing there! You are trying to make me fall asleep!” but no words come out. The grip of mask on my face and the pressure with which anesthesiologist has put it on my face gets stronger. I look up at the OR lights. The happy medicine is working.
The wind is gently blowing and the parachute sways a little, it’s a nice slow movement and to me it feels akin to what an unborn child might feel in the womb but the idea of being upside down in a harness puts me off. A rope runs from the parachute all the way to the boat. I wonder what it is like when the spirit leaves the body and if this is how it slowly lifts and escapes.
I gradually warm up to this ride and actually feel a great sense of accomplishment because I am parasailing. My daughter and husband are waving at us from the boat. I manage a short quick wave back and then grasp the harness again.
Why it’s an accomplishment is clear when I told my mother after the surgery that I had gone parasailing and her jaw dropped, “But you don’t do these kinds of things!”
I was in the ICU, with lines running back and forth and I/Vs poking me, compression stocks on my legs and my head in severe post-op pain, the bandages hiding a 5 inch long scar on the back of my head clearly cognizant of my three year prognosis of my terminal cancer, I looked at her and said “Do you think I have any fear left?”
I assume I am sleep until that moment in the recovery comes. However this time, this will be the moment I remember for the rest of my life, however short it might be, as elating and joyful.
Two nurses are speaking among themselves as I am waking from the deep slumber, “What is the (neurological ) deficit? “ a fair question to ask about anyone who has had their skull cut open by a neurosurgeon during a three hours surgery.
The other voice responds, “None”.
I am so glad to be awake.
There is no deficit. Exactly one week before I was rolled up in the sky for a parasailing trip and then rolled into the ER for urgent surgery to remove the mass causing me excruciating pains in and around my head. My metastatic breast cancer has progressed but my bucket list has gotten shorter and there is no deficit. Only fulfillment.