Under the Mask
I sat in one of the many hard chairs filling the almost-empty waiting room of the Massachusetts General Hospital. All was quiet as I slouched there shivering in the hospital gown and purple pants that I needed to wear. Out in the hallway the floor was white, the walls were white, and the ceilings were white. Such boredom for the eyes, but I was fairly accustomed to it by now.
But this story doesn't begin here. It truly began eight years earlier when I was a ten year old without a care in the world. All that mattered was school, family, and friends. It was during this naïve, happy time that three little letters affected me in ways that I didn't yet understand. AVM, short for Ateriovenous Malformation, a rare mis-formation that I was born with. The details are tedious and at the time I didn't get it. All that I knew was that often times I would bleed from the inside of my mouth. It was scary to see my own blood falling into the sink in whole cup loads and to have it just keep coming, and coming, and coming. If my mother hadn't had training as a nurse, I have no idea what would have happened to me. We were all disturbed by the eerie symptom. It just wasn't natural. I needed urgent care and that care could be provided only in Boston, Massachusetts. Now, eight years later, I was waiting yet again for a surgery. How many have I had? I gave up counting long ago.
The first step while I waited was an I.V, which was always a sharp prick in the arm, a tube, and clear tape to hold it in place. I won't lie and say that I didn't cry. As soon as I got a whiff of the strong alcohol they use to sterilize the area before sticking the needle in the tears come. A smell is a trigger, a very powerful one.
A few more minutes trickled by and my tongue felt sticky and dry. Before surgery I couldn't eat or drink. Using soap of deodorant wasn't aloud either. I began fidgeting nervously and watching the clock tick. It was ticking down, down, down toward the time that I'd be...well...out. Reading a book or, more than likely, writing a book helps.
My mother went with me when the doctor's assistant came to get me. Together we walked through automatic double doors and down another hallway that is, to me, far more foreboding than any of the others. We turn into the last room which is almost empty except for a few large pieces of equipment. Before me was a simple, rectangular white table with a small cushion for the patient's head and it is on that table that I laid myself down, surrendering to the treatment that I didn't want, but needed nonetheless. The nurses around me, wearing masks and gloves, saw how upset I was and how many tears I was shedding.
"It's okay sweetheart," one of them said, "This will be over before you know it."
Their smiling and encouragement always comforted me. These were people who were there to help me and although it didn't erase the fear it did help. We had short, cheery conversations about school, writing, and what kind of music I liked until everything was ready and then the anesthesiologist turned on the gas. It was a long, continuous hissing noise. In his hand he held a transparent mask connected to a bulky tube and as he put it over my nose and mouth the nurse instructed me,
"Take deep breaths and count to ten."
I held my mother's hand while breathing in the strange smelling vapors and still hearing that hissing. From head to toe all tension vanished as I counted,
"One...two...three...four...five." I never get passed five. As I count I feel detached. Whatever I'm looking at freezes and the background is the first to blur away then the image itself. I can still hear their voices, but they're smothered by the static buzzing in my head. Then dark. It happens every time I make that strange journey under the mask.
E.J. Norris.
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