Prasanna Nose All

[From a diary I wrote of my experience after my Nose-Throat surgery - 13 August 2006]

Operation

To this day I am a very obedient patient. I was one too, even on the first day. That’s why when I fainted people wondered.

First things first. I had a Laser surgery done to my throat (to remove the tonsils) simultaneously with a corrective Endoscopic surgery through my Nose, to correct my sinusitis problems.

The fascinating experience starts with the anesthesia (General Anesthesia).

I was wheeled in. I smiled at the anesthesiologist, who greeted me with a “Welcome Boss, go to sleep.” He strapped a mask on me.

Then I heard him say, “By God! He sleeps quick.” Then I heard snatches of conversation, felt once a whirring motor pushing painlessly up my right nose, and even an “Idiot!”

Seemed like two minutes, and I was back in my room, surgery a success.

My family had had to wait an hour extra to see me, I was told then. It had taken two hours – one hour for the surgery, and another one for me to naturally come out of ‘sleep’.

By God! I sleep long!

Ice Scream

I remember my proudest creation in the demanding field of humour was a pun I discovered in my sixth standard. Ice cream. I scream.

Prophetic.

I was an obedient patient. In one valiant effort, I gulped cup after cup of vanilla ice cream, though my throat hurt. And my nose seemed to gorge with every gulp.

My brother Prasad, who was one phenomenal support for me that day, quipped that I looked like a Red-Nosed clown.

My nose was gift-wrapped. The wrapper color kept becoming redder with the hour, of course.

Not to panic, that was “normal”.

Some hours later, after meeting and taking the warmth of my family visiting me, including my sister-in-law and her mother, I was beginning to feel alive.

That’s when I indicated to my brother that I wanted a special something.

Did I mention, I could not speak?

My brother and I had advanced so much in sign language in such a short time that it took just a second for him to act on what I wanted.

I puked into the bed-pan he gave me.

The Fuelled Engine

Our body is an engine.

Two hours after the throwing up (“It’s normal,” ) I was more relaxed.

I wanted to piss.

I signaled to my brother. He came to get me up on my feet.

I felt all air leaving my body, I gasped.

My head spinned. My dying mind was not yet giving up.

It seemed, as my mind clung on its last fingernail to the receding cliff, that it’s only good would be to actually let go.

And what a relief, that descent into black!

The five second swooning act was a warning from the governors of the engine – “Your body’s been without food for too long”

Glucose solution entering me through my veins, brought the engine revving up again.

Everyone around me held me and reassured me that I was fine.

I needed it.

I was scared I had had a relapse of my childhood feberal fits, and I enquired if that was the case. It was not.

I cried.

One cries when one is a child.

A child is one who seems something unfathomable.

The dip to black that moment, signaled the first of those “realizations” that has peppered my path to recovery – Life and its intricate mechanisms is huge; it is true; it exists.

Life is bigger.

Than me. Than my thoughts. Than any of my will.

Life is a mechanism.

Its engines need fuel.