Life was on its last legs!
The world around Mike was spinning, He could see colors one instant and the next it was all white and milky. His entrails churned, Mike retched as if wanting to spill his guts through his mouth and nostrils. He felt the thick bile gush up his throat, but it was pushed back by some strange peristaltic force. Mike wanted to sit up, but could barely move.
“Please untie me!” His screams never seemed to reach them! The sadists had strapped up his hands and legs too. Mike’s eyes stopped rolling, he could see them now! A few menacing pairs of eyes looked straight at him. They giggled, followed by some meaningful side-glances. They spoke in a language of their own and they laughed again.
“Tell me something I can understand, please…” Mike begged them. He couldn’t understand one damned word, neither did they! Mike wailed. In vain!
Terrifying moments! Mike was still tethered, as they now shoved him on to a Giant-Wheel that wheeled him skywards at the speed of light. As his cabin reached the pinnacle, the world beneath looked frighteningly miniscule. The cabin creaked and stopped at the top. It paused for effect, as if prodding him to savor the view in an instant. The goose-flesh on Mike was now pronounced- Mike felt like a Wart-hog. He desperately wanted to jump down, but couldn’t break-free.
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…Children could be such effective ice-breakers, such wonderful healers….
Mike couldn’t figure out why, but he counted, One…two…three…
The Cabin creaked again and moved forward. Mike stopped counting.
His head spun as the Cabin somersaulted descending with all the momentum it had gathered at the top. The higher they go, the harder they fall. His heart was pounding hard as he tried to breathe in. The air at those heights was rare and light; it gushed into his windpipe and nearly choked him. Mikes eyes nearly popped out of his sockets as he went on a downward spiral. Mike’s heart missed a few beats, and then resumed beating again. Mike bawled, he had never shrieked louder. Was this the cry of his soul?
As Mike hurtled down at break-neck speed, a slide-show of life’s fondest memories played. No back-ground scores here, no breath-taking landscape, just plain memories.
His 3 year old son seemed to reach out for him as the cabin swooshed past, managing to touch his fingertips. “Dada…” his imploring wail rent the air and faded behind Mike. His wife of ten years stood sobbing helplessly by their son, as Mike whizzed past them. Bye-bye love, bye- bye happiness, hello loneliness.
Mike fought back, a losing wager. He had been a winner all his life, not anymore! There was no escape this time. He was a goner! One final gasp of breath and then a soothing lull as his eyes closed in on him.
Darkness, eerie darkness- not even a ray of light. Silence, eternal silence- not even a whimper.
The effects of the Ketamine were wearing out as Mike slowly stirred back to life. The stretcher stopped. He heard a gentle buzz in his ears as the nurse asked him, “Can you roll on to the bed by yourself”? Mike seemed to nod, or did he? The heady anesthetic had left him quite numb. He tried to get up, fell in a heap on to his bed.
Mike fought back the mild nausea yet again, as he trembled. An abdominal muscle contracted as Mike grimaced momentarily. Effects of GA, his half-baked knowledge of medicine told him.
Mike’s abdominals hurt from the surgery. They had bored two wound suction catheters on either side to drain the surgical wound. One catheter dangled right between his legs to ensure he didn’t wet the bed in his inebriated state. The cannulae with their trocars (needles) on both arms didn’t make a pretty sight either. Mild thrombosis had set in too, making the left fore-arm rather painful. Mike tried to lift his head to look at his belly, he couldn’t.
Mike’s nasal membranes twitched, he fought back the sneeze. If he sneezed, he knew it would be a terribly painful act now. The sneeze died off at climax leaving Mike highly irritated.
It was in fact a mixed bag of emotions for Mike- Pain, anguish, irritability and drowsiness, not necessarily in that order. He surmised this would be the scheme of things for at least a few days more.
?Strange are the ways of nature, even stranger the way the body reacts to obligatory alterations’, he thought. Mike was glad to have given up on smoking sometime ago, saved him from the ordeal of the dreaded smokers cough.
He watched the intravenous fluid drip drop by drop into his veins. Mike faded away, drifting into slumber-land, no dreams this time.
A few days ago, Mike had called his boss Thomas, to keep him posted on his post-op progress. Mike’s lil fellow had snatched the phone from him and yelled, “Thomas Uncle, Doctor cut Dada’s stomach”. Mike’s request for leave extension was sanctioned without any further ado.
Mike’s now at home, hale and hearty, recuperating from what his surgeon jokingly calls “A Double whopper”. Mike Junior runs into Mike, hugs and kisses him softly on the belly and whispers “I love you my dad”. He looks up at Mike and asks, “Doctor cut your stomach with a knife?” “Yes sweetheart” Mike answers. The little fellow dashes to his toy box returning with a gun, fires a few rounds in the air animatedly proclaiming “I will shoot your bad doctor now”.
Children could be such effective ice-breakers, such wonderful healers. A child’s innocence so striking and powerful – Mike smiled in realization.
Was it even more over-powering than a general anesthesia? He shook his head sideways, paused and then nodded, as if answering his own query.
Author: Amarnath Bantwal- Kuwait
