And why you’re never truly alone.

Content warning: contains themes of medical trauma.

Wednesday

Wednesday hits with a wave of anxiety. Tomorrow is Mum’s surgery and I am… not ready, at all — I don’t think any of us are. One minute Mum was ill and delayed because of illness, then it was “cough gone? We’ll see you in two weeks”!

And that, understandably, has put a huge amount of pressure on the family. Christmas has been chopped and changed so much this year and now it seems Master and I are hosting after all. Not too much pressure, then!

Mum messages me for a chat. I ask her how she’s feeling. 

Nervous, comes the understandable reply. I smile empathetically — I’m nervous too, and I’m not even the one getting surgery!

Mum talks about how my brother and I have “notched up” loads of “GA’s” (general anaesthetics) and she could “look to us for examples” if she gets scared. 

I’m confused, what examples?

You know, body checking people, launching oneself out of the wheelchair… 

I grimace; I’d rather not be reminded. At least I can joke about it now. 

They gave me premed, you know I like to be in control of myself. Self inflicted injury 😏

That surgery is a series of stops and starts in my memory. As far as I understand, I was given midazolam and propofol — both of which can interfere with memory formation around traumatic events — but here’s what I do remember:

Before surgery I was given a “minty drink” — an emerald green, mint-flavoured liquid that I was told would help me relax before my surgery. That liquid contained midazolam.

I started feeling sleepy and wanted to go to sleep, but I was told I wasn’t allowed because I’d be going for surgery soon. I started feeling anxious, weepy, dizzy and tired — my parents still kept me awake. 

Eventually a team of staff came to take me down to theatre and I got even more upset. I don’t remember bodychecking anyone, but I do remember refusing to get on the bed and screaming at the anaesthetist to “get that fucking thing (the gas mask) away from me”. I became hostile and violent; I tried to stop myself breathing the anesthetic gas and in a last ditch bid to escape, I remember biting the side of the anesthetist’s thumb, hard. 

Violence is out of character for me — I resort to violence only if I feel completely trapped. I do what I need to survive, and I did. 

They managed to subdue me anyway, but it took several doctors and nurses — as well as both of my parents — to hold me down and put me under.

My brother, on the other hand, probably left an entire healthcare team questioning their life choices. As they put him under for some dental extractions, he told the doctors and nurses present that they were “bad people.”

He too was given midazolam solution before a general anaesthetic, so our family now (not so) affectionately refers to that stuff as “Hulk juice” — and because that’s pretty much who I became whilst under the influence of it!

Mum wants a screen magnifier ordered. I get it ordered for her. 

It’s not like I’ll be doing much for a few weeks, she says. 

If you do you can explain yourself to your consultant, AND your kids, I reply. 

Says the one. You carried on with your shoulder. 

This isn’t about me 😜

My newly ordered set of string lights arrived, so I set out to install them. 

Cables connected, nothing. 

I tried a new plug, still nothing. I’m down to ordering a new extension cable. What else can it possibly be? 

Wednesday night and before bed, I whispered a little prayer into the void. I hoped that it would be answered. 

“Hey, I know we don’t always talk, but she believes in you. Look after her tomorrow, please?”

Thursday 

I’m awake long into the early hours of Thursday morning. Panicking, obviously, about Mum. 

Valkyries messages me, asks how Mum is. I say she’s anxious. 

How’s you?

It’s an ask that shouldn’t have reduced me to tears, but does. I have spent so much of my life feeling like a spare part, a secondary actor, the one that keeps the wheels turning — the one whose feelings don’t matter, as long as everyone else is okay. Sometimes the show only happens because of me, yet I don’t get so much as a thank you. Sometimes I run myself rugged, and the only “thank you” I get is dirty dishes and a recycling run.

Others before him have cared too, but Valkyries hits different. Valkyries cares, and not just in an “I’m thinking of you” kind of way. He doesn’t just care, Valkyries actually checks in throughout the day. 

Valkyries sees me, finally, and for once I don’t have to hide anything anymore. No more “I’m fine” to make other people comfortable — that displeases him. For once and at last, I’m allowed not to be. 

I woke at 8.30AM, hoping for news that Mum was in theatre as at least then I won’t have so long to wait anxiously for an update. The news isn’t good: Mum now isn’t going to theatre until 3PM. She’s still nil by mouth, though.

It’s an odd day, and I try to keep myself busy doing other things. I’m distracted, understandably, even in spite of that. 

Master is home for the day and Friday, so he can be there for me. Valkyries, too, checks in often, and V, bless him, also checks in. I feel so fortunate to be surrounded by such wonderful people. 

3PM comes, and I feel… odd. What can I do? 

It’s a funny thing: as a kid, I was the one in and out of hospital, under anaesthesia and not — I was the one my family worried about. As a child, my sense of helplessness was different: it was the sense of helplessness I felt, knowing that a general anaesthetic was inevitable. 

Now as the concerned family, it’s the other kind of helplessness — the one you feel when you know the ability to look after your loved one is outside of your control. When you know your loved one is being cared for by professionals, who will be taking care of everything for her — even her breathing. 

I text my brother at about 4:30PM, just to check in and see how he’s holding up. My brother, 36 in February, still lives at home, and he and Mum are quite dependent on one another emotionally. It’s something that has always worried me as our mother ages. 

He says he’s okay, been getting some more sleep. I ask how he’s finding driving Mum’s car (a Citroen Berlingo) and he says he’s actually taken to it quite well, that he was nervous earlier but is trying to prepare for “tomorrow” (today) when he’ll be transporting “precious, priceless cargo”. I roll my eyes  — I love him dearly, but this is exactly the kind of overdependence I often worry about. 

6PM rolls around, three hours after Mum went down to theatre — the length of time they said her surgery would take. Whatsapp is silent and the phone hasn’t rung. No news is good news. Right. Right?

Caught between Master dozing next to me and burnout from my heightened anxiety, I eventually drift off to sleep myself. I wake twenty minutes later and hurriedly grab my phone. I see the Whatsapp symbol at the top of my screen. I keep every crossable digit, crossed. 

The news is good. Finally! 

Mum pulled through her surgery just fine, and both her consultant and Mum are very pleased with how the surgery went. There were no complications, no nasty surprises, no spinal fluid leaks and no unexpected reactions to the anaesthesia. All of my worst fears didn’t come true. 

Mum does have a surgical drain and might be kept in an extra night as there is still quite a bit of drainage from the surgical site, but other than that she’s doing great. Her pain is reduced, she’s been up and out of bed unaided, she’s talking, eating and drinking. It’s emotional for me too: my Mummy is on the mend. 

Thursday evening my laptop refuses to boot up. I tried the power button, it doesn’t respond. Strange. 

I give it a few more presses. Still nothing. It was working fine yesterday! 

I consulted Shadow about it, though Master knew too and I told Valkyries too, since we were chatting at the same time. From anxiously waiting for news on a loved one who was undergoing surgery, I now felt as though I was scrubbing up myself. 

Shadow talked me through some things to try, none of them worked. Suggested I removed and reinserted the RAM — real laptop surgery. Nada.

I can’t be losing my laptop today! 

Valkyries came through again; he directed me to a reset hole on the underside of the laptop, so I grabbed a SIM card remover and gave it a tentative press. When I pressed the power button next, the machine whirred into life. I let out a long exhale — it’s okay, everything is okay. My “patient” is stable.

I told Valkyries I could kiss him.  

I can’t wait to see Mum again, but most of all I can’t wait to tell her of all of the people who were with her, with us on this day. People she doesn’t even know and may (or may not) even meet, but who sent their best wishes anyway. Because that really is the power of our global community.