Kaonashi Ga Suki

Read Part 1 and Part 2.

July 1991
Afternoon

I didn’t dream the whole time.

I don’t know if that’s common for people under anesthesia, but for me it was just a black nothingness. I wonder if that’s what being dead is like. There is no conscious, no sense of existence.

Then slowly, I started to hear muffled sounds. Where is that coming from? I wondered.

The sounds got louder. I started to feel my body again, as if I had re-entered it. It felt very heavy and very tired. I then realized that I was moving. Rather, I was being moved by hands.

“Open your eyes!” commanded a voice in my head, but I couldn’t comply right away. It was too difficult.

“Open them!”

I slowly opened my eyes, but I couldn’t focus. I saw a bright light and some dark shapes moving about. I tried to lift my head, but found that I couldn’t. I could barely even turn it. Every part of my body seemed extremely heavy. My entire back felt numb.

I wanted to say something, but found that I couldn’t on account of the breathing tube down my throat. Fortunately, it wasn’t going to be there for much longer.

“Toni? Toni. I need for you to exhale very hard ok? As hard as you can. We’re going to remove the tube out of your throat,” said a disembodied voice.

Obediently I exhaled as hard as I possibly could and felt a long, snakelike object exiting my throat. I was surprised that it was so long. How did they get it in?

“Maaaaaaaaa-” I whispered hoarsely. Damn, my throat hurt a whole lot. Little did I know it was nothing compared to the pain I would be feeling once the anesthesia wore off.

“You’re going to feel that your throat is really sore right now. That’s because the tube was in your throat for hours. But don’t worry, that’s going to go away in a little while.” said the disembodied voice. “You can have some ice chips later to soothe it.”

I then felt the whole gurney moving. Now what’s going on? Where am I going?

“Toni? It’s Mom and Dad. We’re right here.”

(On a humourous note, my mom told me later on that my dad was crying when he saw me in that condition. She teased him and said, “Pfft. You’re just crying because you feel guilty for always scolding her.”)

“Maaaaammm. Daaaaaaad.” I managed to whisper. I still couldn’t see them, but it was soothing to know that they were near me. I tried to focus, but everything looked fuzzy. My parents were just these shapes looming over me.

The disembodied voice spoke again. Apparently she was talking to my parents. “We’re taking her to ICU right now. The doctor needs to speak with you first but then you can come up and see her.”

I don’t remember the actual ride to the intensive care unit. I must have fallen asleep along the way. When I woke up my parents were sitting next to me. I tried to take in my environment and looked around. A needle was stuck on the top part of my hand, which led to the IV. Next to the IV was the heart monitor. I found that I had a breathing apparatus sitting on my nostrils, and there were wires affixed to sticky round patches on my chest. Most likely they were for monitoring my heart. Worse of it all was that I had a catheter stuck inside my vagina, which wasn’t exactly very comfortable. I must have looked a sight. Since I didn’t have my glasses, I was also blind as a bat.

I noticed that my parents had drawn the curtains for added privacy, but kept one side open. This side had a window that faced the hallway, but I couldn’t really see any people walking by. I wondered who else was in the ICU with me. Were they kids my age? Older? Younger? What were their problems?

A nurse came in and asked how I was doing. “Ok,” I lied. She then took off the breathing apparatus from my nostrils since I didn’t need them anymore, but left the heart monitor things. She then explained that a morphine drip was attached to the IV. She gave me a small remote and told me that whenever I felt any pain, I should just push the little button and I’d get a shot of morphine. She added that to prevent an overdose or dependence on the drug, the machine was programmed to dispense morphine once every 20 minutes (if I remember correctly). That night and over the next couple of days, I would come to realize the hard way that 20 minutes was too long of a waiting period.

I didn’t really do much talking with my parents since my throat was still pretty raw from the breathing tube, but they kept me company. I asked them what time it was, and I was surprised when they told me it was around 4pm. I couldn’t believe that the operation took that long. To me it seemed like I was only under for a few minutes.

Very shortly I experienced another side effect of the anesthesia in addition to the wooziness I had already been feeling: nausea.

I announced that I felt sick, and my mom rushed to grab something to catch what I was about to expel. As I was barfing my guts out, I noticed that my vomit was a bright green color. Not lime green, but more of a radioactive, toxic waste green slime color. I couldn’t understand why the hell it was that color, especially since I hadn’t eaten anything since the night before. It was really nasty, and believe me- it wasn’t the last time either.

Sometime around 6pm, I fell asleep again. It had been a very long day.