By Shormistha Mukherjee

This is a quick post on what all happened after I heard a voice say, “Shormistha, wake up, the surgery is over.”

a) Coming out of GA is like trying to clamber out of a large sloping pit filled with jelly while feeling pukey. It wasn’t nice at all. My face kept feeling like it was on fire, while my body was going around in circles in a heavy fog. I was cranky, and every time I tried to speak I would want to puke. Thank god for A, who was fanning my face, holding my hand, patting my forehead. It took about 4 hours after surgery for this to settle and for me to fall asleep and wake up absolutely okay.

b) Magic hour in hospitals is 6am. I don’t know what is this fascination for doing everything at that unearthly hour. So my IV was put at 6am. My catheter was taken out at 6am. My first medicine was given at 6am. Oh my god. Just stop. Let the patient sleep. But no, it’s like the Rajdhani. Just when you are cozy, and the blanket is over your head, they start waking you up. Needles, pills and the morning tea at 6.30. All that’s needed is a roll call parade, so you feel like you’re in jail!

c) Catheter. First time I had it. I was dreading it. peeing into a pipe and a bag. But it wasn’t so bad. You never have to get up in the middle of the night to pee. Hurrah! The flip side, you can’t do potty. It feels too weird. Try it. Hold your pee and try doing potty, it’s impossible.

d) It feels funny when you have reconstruction. The tissue is trying to sort itself out, the nerves are all trying to join or connect, and you feel tingling sensations. You feel like on one side your bra is too tight. And then you realise you aren’t wearing one. Your armpit has been opened up to remove a lymph node, so you can’t feel too much of your upper arm. There’s no pain, it’s just some new sensations. I’m just watching them and letting them happen. It’s all new and pretty fascinating.

Oh, and they had to do some grafting as well. So they took some skin from my back. The doctor tells me they stitched up like stapled almost, the place where they took the skin. And because skin expands and stretches, it’ll slowly adjust and make up for the loss.

What a thing the human body is. I’m just so amazed by it, and watching my body heal and adjust is such a joy.

e) How do people get boob jobs? Or nose jobs? Or lip jobs? Or any jobs? Why would you go through all this? Brrrrr. Hats off to them.

Pamela behena, kyun, kyun, kyun?????