Three Days After the Surgery

The moment you sign the agreement for surgery, you sign away your privacy and dignity. Essentially, you grant the doctors and nurses the right to watch you, touch you, poke you, and feel you wherever and whenever they want. Your intelligence gets foggy. Civilized expressions that reflect education and sophistication are reduced down to monosyllabic jibberish. "Would you be kind enough to tell me what you are injecting into my IV drip?" gets shortened to an "En?" "Would you mind adjusting my bed so I don't feel like my wound is burning?" becomes a prolonged nasalized moan. Even when your roommate annoys you, all you can do is to think about the million different ways you could tell them off if you were well. It's not a bad thing, really, for some of us turn that annoyance into motivation to get better soon.

Self-respect does not exist in hospital wards. When you are busy dealing with pain and aches, smelling your own armpits to make sure you don't stink is the last thing on your mind. Comfort is everything, and hospital gowns are comfortable and convenient. Though it might be an eye sore for most visitors, walking around in a hospital gown with your butt hanging out is in fact quite an enjoyment. Patients in the gynecology ward behave completely differently from women in the outside world. They frown on tight-fitting clothing items and smile at loose PJs; they would not hesitate to slip into a pairs of slippers but could not stand the sight and sound of high heels.

In the hospital, survival is of the utmost importance. Everything else.... Who cares about everything else. Seriously.