January 7: All Over

It didn’t twist again. Surgery was a few months later, just after Christmas. On doctor’s orders, I starved myself the day before (besides three clear jellies from The Spa, which are actually not as bad as they sound). At 7am, my mother drove me in, dumped me on my bed, gave me an extra-tight hug and then left before she cried. I had one last run-down of the risks – the main one being losing Bump (unborn babies don’t dig invasive surgery). The aim of the surgery, they said, is to remove the cyst. They will try and spare the ovary that it’s attached to but sometimes, they have to be removed too. Deal with it.
A midwife checked Bump’s heartbeat – sounded like a galloping thoroughbred on a beach. Then my pulse. Racing, she said. ‘Really? I’m fine.’
The gown – which way round should it go? Onto the trolley, flat on my back, and wheeled through corridors and lifts and yet more corridors. The anaesthetist, a charmer, chats away as he prepares his cocktail, saying: ‘I’m sure I recognise you, where do you live, which school did you go to?’
I think: ‘Perhaps I kissed you once in a nightclub… I hope I was nice to you and didn’t break your heart and run off with your best friend… please don’t remember that I was horrid and give me a double-dose in revenge…’ as the sleeping-drug runs cool up inside my arm.

Pain, too much pain. Why am I in pain? I shout out, confused; don’t remember that I’ve had surgery. A miscarriage, I cry. It must be. Too much pain.
A woman appears by my face. I have a choice – more morphine or an epidural.
Either, I pant, my eyes closing. She tries the morphine.

A week recovering in a hospital haze. I’ve got a catheter in; am hooked up to a pain-relief drip and oxygen. They didn’t need to remove my ovary and Bump is fine (still galloping) but my life is over. I cannot move. I cannot think. I cannot do anything. I’m as incapacitated as a 90-year-old ready to leave this world, frail and broken and of no use to anyone.
But, as is the way of recoveries, inch by inch, some milestones are reached.
Day two, they remove the catheter.
Day three, the oxygen mask.
At some point, I eat half a bowl of custard.
At some point, they wean me off my drug-drip onto tablets.
A few days in, it snows very heavily. ‘Cars can’t get into the carpark, it’s so deep,’ says a fresh-faced, scarf-wrapped visitor to the next bed along. I could get up and walk to the window to look out at the white world, I think. But I can’t quite muster the energy.
My mum or sister come every day bar one when the snow is just too bad. My X – kindly - comes once, bringing me expensive Rhubarb and Custard sweets and hand lotion. I don’t miss them when they're not there, I’m too tired for that. The thick white comforting blanket outside is enough for company.
Day five, the consultant comes round. Tells me I’m staying in until my ‘bowels move’. Move, I think, as he continues his rounds. That might be days! I’ve not budged an inch all week and have barely eaten. As he sweeps past my bed again on his way out, I pluck up the courage and wave a weak hand in his direction.
He takes pity on me. I could kiss him.

Four hours later, and jubilant, I hobble out of the hospital with my sister and seven-year-old niece, a bag of drugs, my belongings, and an enormous sense of humbled gratitude at the care I’ve received. I don’t think I’ve ever been so reliant on strangers in my life, and they couldn’t have been kinder.
The snow is still thick, the air so fresh after a week of central heating. I try not to slip, gripping the car door, gingerly hauling myself into the front-seat, into a seat-belt. The hospital disappears in the rear-view mirror. Take me home, I think. Take me home.