On surgery, surrender, and learning to stop when life says slow down
I arrived at the hospital just 30 minutes before my scheduled admission time, fully prepared to wait. Hospitals usually mean waiting rooms, delays, long stretches of time to think.
Instead, I was taken straight through.
The nurses were kind. Gentle. Efficient. Total strangers. I felt empty, anxious, barely able to string words together. I couldn’t slow my thoughts. I was suddenly cold.
My blood pressure? Perfect. Vital signs? Perfect. On paper, everything was fine.
I was put into a gown, into a bed. Everyone was so nice and I felt deeply lonely. My clothes and phone were placed into a clear plastic bag. A red name band was fastened to my wrist. Then I was wheeled toward the anaesthetic bay. Another red band went on this time around my ankle. I couldn’t help but think about identification by an ankle band. How quickly you become a body to be tracked. A name. A number.
The anaesthetic nurse chatted gently while we waited. Another stranger, doing her best to steady me. The anaesthetist arrived and struggled to find a vein. After several attempts, she pulled out a syringe of water and began flushing it to “get it into position.”
I turned my head toward the window. Outside was a beautiful tree. Strong. Quiet. Leaves moving gently in the breeze, sunlight resting on them without effort. For twenty minutes I stared at that tree. Nature, doing what it does best being simple, being steady. I thought about how blessed we are. How uncomplicated life can be when we let it be.
Then it was time.
The surgeon I’d met briefly in my 30 minute appointment came in and said, “Let’s get this all out. Hopefully in a couple of weeks, with clear margins, you’ll be all good.”
Those words mattered more than he probably realised.
I was wheeled into the operating theatre and transferred from my warm bed onto a cold, hard table. My arms were pulled outward and placed on moveable armrests. The oxygen mask went on. There were so many people in the room, so many strangers. I felt a strange sensation come over me and managed to ask, “Did you drug me?”
“Yes,” they said. And I was asleep.
I woke with a stranger standing beside me. “Am I okay?” I asked. “Your blood pressure has been very low,” she said. “Very, very low.”
Her words hung in the air.
She didn’t leave my side. She just stood there, watching me, monitoring me with a look on her face I had never seen before. The blood pressure cuff tightened around my arm again.
“67,” she said. “You’re not going anywhere yet.” I asked where I was.
“Recovery.”
“How long have I been here?”
“An hour and a half.”
I knew I was only meant to be there for thirty minutes. The machine kept cycling. Inflating. Deflating. Beeping. Buttons. Numbers. That same stranger, still there, holding the space while my body found its way back.
Finally, she said the words: “She’s at 100. She can go back to day surgery and have something to eat.”
I felt a small, unexpected sense of pride almost as if my focus alone had helped bring it back up.
I was wheeled back to where I started. Bruised. A little battered. And more grateful for life than I had been that morning. A sip of water. A rice cracker. I got dressed and called my husband he was just around the corner.
Time to go home.
I walked through my front door and was met with warmth. My grandson. My daughter. My son-in-law. My dad. My sister-in-law. And the smell of my favourite food, cooked by my husband. In that moment, I knew, without question, how blessed I am.
I’m writing this 36 hours into weeks of recovery. My left breast is swollen. The bruising is emerging. There’s a significant incision a clear reminder of what my body has been through. The pain is constant, not overwhelming, but insistent. A steady message telling me to slow down.
And that’s the hardest part.
How do you stop and recover when you have so much to do?
I’m resting. I’m sleeping more than I ever allow myself to. I’m listening to my body in ways I usually override. Time keeps insisting that I respect it.
Time, it turns out, is the great equaliser.
Now comes the waiting. Waiting for the words I’m holding space for:
We got it all. Margins are clear. You’re good to keep moving forward.
Until then, I’m learning again that rest isn’t weakness.
It’s trust.
How do you rest when you have so much to do?
