Tick, tick, tick… The sound from the clock on the wall was audible and foreboding. I was alone in a room preparing for major surgery… my first.

Four years ago, almost to the day, I’d lost my grandmother, the next year my father, the following year, my father-in-law. All were at the end of June, all weighing on an over imaginative mind.

I took a deep ragged breath, then another, and another. I could do this. I glanced at the clock. It was almost 7 am. The time set for my surgery. I looked at the IV tube snaking away from my arm. I had been brave, for me, when they put it in. I could do this.

7:15, and no one had arrived to collect me, none had even stuck their heads in to see if I was where they’d left me. They were far too trusting.

7:30 came and went and my breathing accelerated. Where were the medical personnel who were to wheel me away to my uncertain future? Didn’t they know I wasn’t the calm sort? Didn’t they understand I’d never had surgery before? I hardly took aspirin, let alone let my body be violated while I slept.

7:45 arrived, finding me in a hyperventilated state and scratching out my Will on my paper sheet with a tiny pencil I found on the bedside tray.

I visibly jumped as the door popped open and a nurse and doctor strode in with pen and forms in hand.

“We forgot to have you sign the release for your anesthesia,” one of them said (my memory fails which one).

I reached a shaky hand to get the clipboard.

The doctor held it dramatically out of reach.

“I need to explain the process first,” he said. “There are possible side effects and precautions you need to be made aware of.” He began to read from a lengthy passage. My breathing accelerated to a rasping pant.

“My father died because he threw up during a medical procedure while under anesthesia,” I interrupted.

“Which is why you were instructed not to eat since midnight last night,” the doctor said. “You didn’t violate that did you?”

“Of course not,” I said, “but I’m still nervous. I’d prefer you not go on about what could go wrong.”

The doctor tapped his pen on the clipboard and stared at me. “You need to be informed.”

“No,” I said, tapping my pencil with equal intensity. “YOU need to be informed. All I need to do is go into that operating room, and sooner rather than later.”

“Do you have anxiety problems?” The nurse stepped forward and rested her hand on my twitching arm.

“Only when I’m supposed to go into surgery and don’t want to hear all the ugly details.” The anesthesiologist handed me the forms and I signed them.

Afterwards, the doctor met the nurse’s eyes and they stepped away. I could hear him whisper orders to her as they left the room.

Tick, tick, tick…

The door opened and the nurse came in alone, a syringe poised in her hand.

“What’s that for?”

She quickly squirted the contents into a port in my IV before I could object. “It’s happy juice. You’ll feel good and won’t remember any of this later. In a few hours, you’ll wake up in the recovery room. Just remember to breathe the oxygen in deeply as you do. It’ll help you become more alert.”

“Why didn’t the anesthesiologist just tell me that?”

She smiled as I faded away. I have a feeling she read that list of side effects to me as I succumbed to whatever happy juice she’d shot into the IV bag.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the recovery room. I breathed deeply as instructed, feeling I had cheated a certain end-of-June-death and an over zealous anesthesiologist.

I did, however, remember.