7- From the Other Side

I told you I'd see you when this was over and I was on the other side. Well, here I am. Let me tell you how the operation went, the days in the hospital, and this first week at home.

Before Going In

I barely slept. Two hours, if that. I spent the rest of the night wearing out ChatGPT with questions: what I could eat, what the pain would be like, how many days, what percentages.

Questions and more questions, as if with enough data I could control what was coming.

In the morning I showered and got ready with my aunt. At 6:20 my friend came to pick us up. At the door we hugged for a very long time. I could have stayed right there.

By 7 we were at the hospital, and the operation was at 8. My body was as nervous as it had been on the day of the diagnosis. They took blood, gave me a pill to relax me and for the pain, and everything went by very fast. There was hardly any time to think, and that was a good thing.

The Pre-Op Room

There, my friend lay down next to me on the bed and held me. And in her arms I started to cry. I cried knowing that, from that moment on, I had to surrender completely.

I remembered the last time I'd been in a room like that, in that same hospital. It was in 2019, when they removed a benign tumor from my salivary gland. That time, the one who lay down with me and, while I rested on his chest, told me stories to distract me and help me stay calm, was my last ex-husband. There, in that bed, and after so much pain, I realized that all of it felt very far away, as if it had been a film. As if it had happened in a parallel universe, and not in this life.

This time it was my friend who was with me, and I could let go and let myself be carried by everything that came up: fear, grief, sadness, numbness. I think there's something freeing about being able to feel so many things at once, and having learned to do it without panicking: holding them, recognizing each one in its own place in the body.

Before, all of that would have been a ball: of mud, of stone, a mass impossible to describe, where I couldn't tell what was what. And with that ball inside me, what I could expect was to disconnect or to be overwhelmed.

It was all there, but I discovered that over these last few years I had learned to tell it apart. I know how to recognize that ball, see where it shows up in the body, untangle that whole chaotic knot of emotions, give it space and not run away from it. That's what has helped me most on my path with Compassionate Inquiry. And that gives me peace.

There are approaches, like biodecoding, that read the uterus as the nest, the home, and link it to a loss, real or symbolic, within that home. I don't take it as an explanation for why I got sick, but as an image it speaks to me. I was about to say goodbye to that nest, and the fact that right then the image of my last ex-husband appeared, as if from another planet, is symbolic for me. It was like a farewell to that world, to everything that was no longer there: the last close-up image of something that was and will never be again. And, in my reading, along with what they were about to take out would go all the pain that had nowhere else to go but there, leaving space for something new.

They came to get me in the middle of all those reflections, tears and emotions, and as they wheeled me to the operating room, I was able to give my aunt a hug.

Hospital Greatest Hits

In the operating room I was welcomed by a very kind young man. He asked whether I'd prefer music or conversation. I chose distraction: that they ask me things, that they talk to me. I thought that way I'd be more present, more alive. A crazy idea, but that's what came out.

About five more people from the team introduced themselves. Someone asked me: "Where are you from?" I said Argentina. The doctor, a Dutch woman who had lived there, answered me in Spanish with an Argentine accent, and offered to put on some music from there. "Calamaro?" she said.

I told them I had a collaborative playlist called "Hospital Greatest Hits." The whole room laughed.

They gave me the injection, and the music started with "Cuando," the song I closed my last post with, by Luna Monti and Juan Quintero. Before I fell asleep, by pure chance, "Al otro lado del río" by Jorge Drexler came on. That's how I went under, with those two.

On the Other Side

The operation took longer than planned. It was done by laparoscopy and hysteroscopy, with a robot. Without opening me up, without scars, without any extra cuts.

There was a 75% chance they'd have to make an incision like a C-section. It would have been in the same place where they cut me 22 years ago, when my son was born, on a scar you can barely see anymore. The doctor was expecting complications. There were none.

I believe the devil himself, if he had any intention of making something go wrong, got scared off by so much light, so much love, so many prayers, little candles, altars and so much good energy.

Waking up was hard: they explained that I'd reacted strongly to the anesthesia. It wasn't until around 2:30 in the afternoon that I started opening my eyes, and I spent the rest of the day in a haze, dozing for ten or fifteen minutes and coming back.

My aunt was by my side, and my son stayed for a good while. The same friend who had taken me came back to give me a welcome hug. My first ex-husband came to see me and then drove my aunt home. Meanwhile, my phone didn't stop: messages, photos of the altar, chants, good wishes. All of it reached me in my hospital bed, and I felt deeply accompanied, loved and held.

The Morphine Dance

The first day I didn't want morphine, and I didn't need it either: they'd given me so much during the operation. During the night the pain kept rising, and in the early hours I had to let them give me an injection. That's when the morphine dance began.

In the morning, on the first shift, at 6, they gave me a long-acting pill, which my body accepted. Since it wasn't enough, they also gave me a short-acting one. I'd already tried that one after the 2019 operation, and it had made me feel awful. I told them, I said I wasn't sure it would help. But when you let go and trust, you stop questioning. And that's what I did: who was I to doubt the professionals, the people who knew and wanted the best for me?

As soon as I took it, I felt sick, dizzy, and the pain didn't go away. My body was trying to adjust to all of this new stuff, and with the morphine my sensations were so blurred that I couldn't connect with it.

They told me walking to the bathroom would do me good, that it would help me recover quickly and be able to go home. So, despite the pain I felt every time I dragged myself along with the IV pole, hunched over like a little old lady of 80, I pushed myself. The good girl had shown up in me, the obedient one, the student who does what she's told, and in my daze I didn't see her until much later, when the pain, the day and the process had already moved on.

With so many narcotics, peeing became complicated, and it hurt a lot. On top of that, my body seemed to block itself and wouldn't let me empty my bladder, so those trips to the bathroom became more and more frequent and more and more painful.

At one point they wanted to put in a catheter and not let me get up anymore, because of the dizziness: fainting in the bathroom would have been a big problem. In that moment I was able to connect with my body, with my need to understand the pain, and I refused anything more. I was able to pee on a commode chair with a bedpan next to the bed, without having to make the effort of getting to the bathroom. That allowed my body to relax, and I was finally able to empty completely. The pain went away.

That's when I saw that girl, and understood that I need to go at my own pace. That brought me back to myself, and I took the reins again.

Three in the Morning

That night they told me they'd give me a different morphine that might suit me better. I finally fell asleep without pain, with the music from the playlist.

At 3 in the morning I woke up with palpitations, sweating, tingling in my arm and chest. I called the nurse, and within two minutes I had four doctors putting patches on me to do an ECG. I got scared. While the doctor was talking to me about what it might be and asking me questions, I threw up. And with that, my soul came back into my body.

From then on I was able to take back my autonomy. I said I didn't want anything more: no morphine, nothing. I needed to feel, and to start exploring what my body was telling me. In the morning, having accepted that the pain was bearable and that I didn't want to cover it up at all costs, I was able to go home with paracetamol and ibuprofen, on the condition, of course, that I'd come back if it hurt too much.

The First Week

My first week at home has already gone by. And it's been an interesting week. I notice my voice is firmer, somehow, and I have clarity about some things.

I feel very connected to my body. All the sensations are new: the first few days I watched them with fear, and now, more with curiosity.

Does it hurt? Yes. Can I handle it? Yes. Is it uncomfortable? Absolutely. Even so, I'm showering again, and taking little walks to the bathroom and back to bed.

In the last post before the operation I told you about the void I thought would be left behind. It isn't there yet. There's space, and for me that's different. There's the pain of adjusting. And yes, there's also fear about what they're going to tell me.

I've been emotional, and also exhausted. Some family things happened, and I think the universe put me in front of the same question again: how to choose myself, how to take care of myself. My boundaries, communication, how I handle them.

One thing I do have to say: I think the universe is starting to lose the plot. It doesn't give me a break, it doesn't give me time to take in one thing before another lands on top of me. Seriously, which manager or CEO do I have to talk to to get a pause?

My first caregiver, my aunt, has left, and my second one has arrived: my friend from Switzerland. I had quite a lot of visitors during the week and over the weekend, and now my body feels a bit more tired. That's something my gynecologist had already warned me would happen.

What I also want to say is how full my heart is, my whole being, with the people who came, who took care of me, who brought me flowers, who sent me beautiful messages, little packages of anthroposophic medicine, of herbs, of music, of care. Thank you. Every single one of you.

Phase 1 complete. Now it's time to recover, and then we'll move into phase 2.

That's all for now, my dear friends. I hope to have good news in the next post, but whatever it is, we'll get through it.

I leave you with this song, the last one I heard before falling asleep in the operating room.

🎵 "Al otro lado del río," by Jorge Drexler

In case you'd like to support me financially on this journey, I'm leaving a link below.

By bank transfer; 

Name: AP Porcelli Battilana

IBAN: NL75INGB0654822875

Swift/BIC: INGBNL2A

WISE: @andreap1845

REVOLUT: @andreaporcelli