All three of us had been fasting since morning and we were hungry. My turn would be at around three. I was tired and quite numb by the time a nurse call my name. We walked to surgery and she told me to lie down on a bed with wheels. A male nurse pushed the bed into anesthetics bay. The anesthetist greeted me and introduced me to his assistants. There must have been about four of them, walking in and out of the room. The doctor inserted a needle into my vein and chatted with me and his assistant. He told me that he was going to Jakarta in two days for a conference. I was going to ask him “Are you sure?” because I know there was a big flood there at the moment. My home and my friends’ home had been submerged. But he was chatting with his assistant about the way anesthetists were trained in Indonesia and my surgeon just came in so I didn’t ask him.

A few minutes later I was wheeled into the operating theatre. They put a metal plank under my bed sheet and pulled the sheet, and me, onto the operating bed. An assistant put an oxygen mask over my nose. The anesthetist released the knock-out liquid into my hand. I felt a burning sensation creeping up my arm. I was worried. What if it burned through my whole body? One, two, three… “Wake up. It’s over now. You’re in recovery.” I was given some food. I changed into my own clothes. The nurse took out the needle and cut out the labels. My sister-in-law came and we went home.

A nurse took me to a quiet room to calm down. Then she took me up to day surgery again to wait for my turn. There was another person sitting in the waiting room. I sat next to her and started a conversation. She told me her whole family was riddled with cancer. Her parents had cancer, and her sister was terminally ill. She herself had had an operation to remove some nasties from her tummy and now she had seven funny stuff on one breast and nine on the other. I started to cry again. This time because I felt sorry for her, but I didn’t tell her that. We chatted about the programs on the TV and I felt better after that. We even laughed very loudly at one point because she said something really funny but I can’t remember what she said.

Another lady came and told me she had had a tumor the size of a golf ball removed from her breast twenty years ago. Last year she had three tumors removed from her stomach. The biggest was ten cm in diameter, the smallest was five. I really began to feel like a big crybaby.

Hookwire Biopsy

My brother and sister-in-law were on their way home from the airport. I took the morning train alone to go to the city and continued by taxi to the hospital. I was late for my eight o’clock appointment. The nurses were waiting anxiously for me at day surgery. I met the anesthetist there. He was the same doctor who helped me through my mastectomy last year. He still remembered the case, because at that time he tried to put in three types of tube down my throat, and failed. The fourth one, a fibre optic disposable something finally went in. No wonder I had a horrible sore throat the day after. Other than the difficult intubation, I was very good, he said.

After a brief check up and filling out a form I was taken to the breast clinic. I changed into that ugly floral gown and waited. My turn came and I went into the ultrasound room to get the wires inserted. My mom was shocked when I told her about the wires. “WIRE???” So I lied and said, “X-Ray, to locate the funny stuff.” The doctor took out the pain-killer needle and I started to cry, because that was going to be the beginning of the pain. I cried throughout the procedure, even after I didn’t feel pain anymore. I guess it wasn’t a physical pain that hurt me most. Lately, I cried every time I went the breast clinic. I cried after the mammo, and again when I was asked to have a needle biopsy. I even cried at bookings when I asked the staff what is the difference between a private patient and a public patient and she said, “Private is private, public is public.” I’m turning into a big crybaby. I wasn’t like this last year. What’s going on??