Part 5... Preparing for Surgery

The decisions were made-- where the surgery would take place and who would do it, but now there was a week of waiting—waiting, wondering, and worrying. Since the biopsy surgery turned out to be more extensive than any of us had anticipated, recovery was the first priority. Melanie wanted to be in the best shape she could before undergoing the knife, again, so she did what Melanie does when undertaking anything. She threw herself into preparing for the physical and psychological impact of what was to come. A friend suggested the book Prepare for Surgery Heal Faster ~A Guide of Mind-Body Technique by Peggy Huddleston. It came with a set of tapes with guided meditations to help prepare patients for surgery through the use of relaxation techniques and visualizing healing going into surgery. Emphasizing the important role a patient can play in their own healing, it seemed to give Melanie courage and focus.

I, on the other hand, skimmed the book and came away thinking it would be great for her, but it did not occur to me that I, too, might benefit from the use of some of the very same techniques she was cramming to learn before surgery. Instead, I stayed in busy mode, making sure insurance approvals were in place and putting together an e-mail list so that we could keep people informed after the surgery. Starting with just a few of our closest friends and family, the list took on a life of it’s own as Melanie’s friends from high school and college asked to be included. In the weeks to come, it also became a lifeline of support.

And I was very busy worrying. In fact, worrying was my major activity, particularly draining since I was trying to hide my anxiety from Melanie. I guess I also prayed, but fear had so wrapped itself around my heart it was almost paralyzed.  When so filled with fear and anxiety, it was hard to pray. Instead, I had to rely on others to do what I could not; Melanie was on prayer lists and prayer chains across the country. One of my friends from Albuquerque, NM e-mailed to say he heard Melanie prayed for at a church in California where he was visiting the weekend before her surgery. 

The surgery would consist of taking out her thyroid and opening her neck  (called a neck dissection (an awful sounding term!!) to clean out lymph nodes on the left side of her neck. Surgery would take six or seven hours.  The thought of spending that much time in the waiting room cave at the hospital completely undid me as did the alternative. Could we bring ourselves to actually leave the building while she was in surgery? We would wait and see. 

Surgery was scheduled for first thing in the morning. It was déjà vu. The early morning sun waking up Boston Harbor went unnoticed as we left the house on that May morning, the car ride through Boston rush hour traffic doing nothing to calm our frazzled nerves. At the hospital we proceeded through the mazes, only this time we were beginning to learn our way. Hall after all.  Reception, to waiting room, to changing room, to pre-op.

This time, when the anesthesiologist appeared, Melanie was prepared with questions.  “Did he ever say things to people as they were going under?” Her book had suggested asking to have positive things said as she went under and came out of anesthesia, but the doctor laughed her off saying that she couldn’t hear anything because she would be out so quickly. It was a total dismissal of all she had worked so hard to do. I was furious, but what could I say? After all, her dismissive doctor was one of the very people who would hold Melanie’s life in his hands for the next few hours.  So I held her hand saying the phrases that she wanted to hear.

That is all I wanted to keep doing and if they had let me, I would have stayed at her side and watched the gruesome ordeal that was to come the same way I held her hand when she had four teeth yanked out as a child.  When the time came, Chris and I hugged her and watched as she was wheeled into the room of masked nameless faces who would spend hours taking her apart and putting her back together. As the gurney went out of sight, I sobbed the way I had sobbed when she went in for hernia surgery as a three year old. She was a strong, and bright, and determined young woman, but in that moment, more than anything, she was my little girl.

Next~ The Long –and I mean LONG - wait…