Chapter 6: Perspective

When I arrived for the first time at my room in Lusiadas Hospital on the eve of my surgery, my Portuguese roommate greeted me warmly in English. Paula was recovering without pain from an easy varicose vein surgery and was due to be discharged the next day. Her bilingual, chipper helpfulness made perfect sense when I learned that she was Director of Guest Services at the nearby Lisbon Marriott. We established a rapid rapport, chatting about our lives and veins, cooperating over the television and lights, encouraging one another. As I waited to be collected for surgery the next day, Paula noticed I was nervous and reassured me. “Be brave! I am going to leave you my card when I go, Myka,” she said, “And you must call me if you need anything at all.” Overhearing this, the nurse wheeling me toward the operating room beamed. “You made a friend!” she exclaimed.

I was not brave. I do not consider brave the right word for submitting to something that you have no choice about, being afraid of it, and feeling sorry for yourself afterwards. As the anesthesia kicked in, I implored the nurse and anesthesiologist to be with me when I woke up. “Of course we will,” the kind anesthesiologist assured me, “we never leave our patients.” I woke up alone in the corner of a large recovery room. My head felt muffled and my left leg was an aching log. Eventually someone came to roll me wordlessly back to my room. Paula’s bed was empty. I was hungry but not allowed to eat; I was alone; I was in pain; I had no feedback about how the surgery had gone. I tried to console myself with the bright side: my leg was no longer broken! But I felt blue.

Soon, a new roommate arrived. Taking a cue from Paula, I piped up cheerfully in my best Portuguese. Vera was a tiny slip of a woman, around my age, and she spoke English. She was originally from Sintra (the royal retreat from which we were returning when I slipped), and had “escaped,” as she put it, to the Southern coast with her husband many years ago. Vera had just undergone a mastectomy, as a final step of her breast cancer treatment. She told me she was so relieved to be turning the page on this difficult journey, as she winced in pain which she said emanated from her other, unoperated breast. They say misery loves company, and I felt comfort and solidarity with sweet Vera nearby.

As night set in fully, so did our pain. The intravenous bags of pain killers could not come fast enough. No sooner had a nurse responded to my red button than the dashboard lit up from Vera’s button, and vice versa. No position of the adjustable bed was comfortable, and my foot felt like it was burning off inside the cast. Beside myself with pain, I reconsidered my reply to Eirik’s question the day before, when I had admitted that the pain (then) did not rise to the level of natural childbirth. All night long, our room was a discothèque of flashing lights and dancing nurses, and if the exasperation of one was plain to see, another nurse told me, “It’s OK, this is our job, we are here to help you.” When I had maxed out the possibilities in terms of doses and simultaneous meds, another nurse’s reminder was peculiarly helpful: “This pain will not last forever,” she said.

Vera grew worse. At some point, a doctor came and explained something to Vera carefully and apologetically. I could not understand their exchange in Portuguese, but when he left, I could hear Vera sobbing on the other side of the white curtain. “I’m so sorry, Vera,” I called out. A machine was wheeled in by several nurses, and my best guess is that chemo was administered. Vera retched for hours, screaming in discomfort and despair. There were moments of calm. A nurse came during one of them and carried on an earnest conversation with Vera in conspiratorial and almost jubilant whispers. A moment later, Vera was horribly sick again. I thought about what she must be going through—her dashed hopes that the mastectomy would be cancer’s final blow, the prospect of ongoing chemo poisoning, and how it would feel to have to endure such misery with the possibility that it actually might be forever.

When dawn arrived, I awoke from a short bout of hard-won sleep to discover that my pain was more bearable. I wondered if the same was true of Vera because there was silence on her side of the room. After a while, I reached for the curtain to hazard a peek. The clean and freshly remade bed was empty. “Where is Vera?” I asked a nurse. “She had to return to surgery,” she told me. I was crestfallen. My pain will not last, but what about Vera? I never saw Vera again, but the comparison of her situation to mine gave me valuable perspective.