1946
My Dad was sent off home and I was left alone, hungry, thirsty and frightened. The ward they put me in seemed enormous. It had at least twenty beds but apart from me there was no-one else in there.
After a few minutes a nurse came and told to get undressed and put on what I later knew to be a theatre gown. The nurse tied the strings of the gown behind me. I remember thinking that this was a very strange back-to-front garment. The nurse told me to get into bed and then I was left all alone again. At some stage another nurse came and gave me an injection. “This will make you sleepy before you go for your operation”, she said but it did nothing of the sort. Even later a kindly man came to my bed, lifted me onto his trolley and wheeled me from the ward into the operating theatre. It was exactly 3-o-clock – I noted the time on the large clock in the ward as we set off.
Still no-one had told me what to expect. Because the pre-med injection had not made me at all sleepy I thought they were going to start cutting me up while I was still wide awake but, before I could say anything, someone clamped a mask over my face. I started to panic and struggle. The anaesthetic was the old-fashioned ether gas, although I didn’t know that then. Strong hands held me firmly down when the gas started to flow and I remember fighting violently and screaming as I choked. Someone else had to restrain my flailing legs. A disembodied voice calmly told me to start counting out loud down from fifty. I distinctly remember getting all the way down to thirty wondering what would happen when I got to zero but I never got that far. I paused my counting, took one very deep breath, intending to let out an enormous scream, but I passed out. I had bruises on my arms for days afterwards but, more importantly, for many years I had regular nightmares about that experience and always woke up thrashing around in my bed, terrified, sweating and clutching at my throat. Even today I can remember those events vividly.
When I came out of the anaesthetic I was back in bed on the ward. The first thing I noticed was the clock on the wall – it was 20 minutes past five and I could hear the BBC Children’s Hour radio programme on a loudspeaker.
I looked vaguely around. I was all on my own, absolutely no-one else in sight and all the adjacent beds were still empty. I felt a terrible pain in my abdomen and I tentatively pulled back the bed sheets and opened my pyjama jacket. I remember wondering vaguely who had put my pyjamas on because before I went to theatre I had been wearing the theatre gown. I expected to see a large rectangle of cut flesh where the surgeon had opened me up but all I could see was a large dressing fixed in place by long strips of sticking plaster which, alarmingly, were oozing with blood.
Suddenly I felt sick and urgently needed to go to the toilet to relieve myself. I was still the only person in the ward and no-one responded to my shouts for help so I carefully swung my legs onto the floor and attempted to stand up. I fell to the floor, dizzy and in great pain. I must have passed out because the next thing I knew was a nurse easing me back into bed and telling me off for trying to get out. At least she brought me a bottle so I could relieve myself. It was then twenty minutes to six. Twenty minutes had elapsed since I had woken. So much for recovery care and attention!
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