operating rooms
look just like normal rooms.
i was surprised by this.
just an ordinary room
with alot of light
and a bed in the middle
soft music playing, what music was playing? i don’t remember.
but
the bed was out of the ordinary
black and segmented and flat
with orange pads that were warm
but the rest of the room was too cold and they knew it and put a blanket on me.
i watched her strap my arms down in brown leather, on the warm pads. (i was thinking of electric chairs and lethal injections)
i wondered why i didn’t get a shot this time
“to calm you down”
i could have used that.
i was far from calm, having to go nakedly from the stretcher
to lay myself on that strange bed...
three anesthesiologists chattering away
telling me, in dutch, that they are about to help me go to sleep...
only later i am told about the tube that was down my throat through my nose (“they do that in all surguries.”)
wondering, what-else-happened-in-that-ordinary-room-exactly-what-happened-how-many-people-were-there-what-did-the-inside-of-me-look-like-anyway-i-wouldn’t-mind-knowing-what-all-these-people-saw-i-really-should-have-placed-a-video-camera
that, creepy as hell, sleep-not-sleep
waking up cold again. wanting to rest but not resting at all
wanting to get the hell out of there
trying not to panic.
knowing that
everything is okay, this is a safe place
no longer on the segmened bed
but in one where the sheets smell of bleach
and there are numerous nurses
and a needle in my wrist
and lots of beeping machines
and a constant monitoring of blood pressure.