Losing Myself, Finding Peace Part 1

As I sat in the waiting room, nerves on edge, I stared at my phone, periodically looking up at the double doors ahead of me. I wasn’t alone in the room. There were others reading magazines or looking at their own phones. People would occasionally glance up and look at the screen mounted to the ceiling in the corner of the room. Color coded, it listed the status of loved ones in surgery: pre-operative, operative, recovery, etc. The board meant nothing to me. I would look at it as my eyes roamed the room paying only slightly less attention to it as I did to the fish tank mounted below it on the floor. I wasn’t there waiting for a loved one, I was waiting to be called back.

The doors opened and I looked up. A nurse came forward but called someone else’s name. I looked back at my phone. I’d been through this routine before. I was in the outpatient surgery center of Overlake Hospital in Bellevue, Washington. It was 2017 and, after battling severe mental illness for more than 30 years, I had consented to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

Finally, the doors opened again and a nurse I recognized came out, jolting me out of my thoughts. She smiled at me, recognizing me as well, saying my name while walking towards the other entrance, barely pausing for me to fall into step with her. She led me back towards the pre-operative rooms: standard medical rooms with a gurney as the focal point. There was a medical cart in one corner with a computer on top. An empty chair – I was there alone – sat in another corner. The gown and socks were laid out on the surgical bed, but she reached into a drawer next to the sink to grab a pair of disposable panties because everything had to come off. Then she left me to change.

Waiting, waiting, waiting... For all the time I spent at the hospital, most of it was spent waiting. Waiting to be called back, waiting for the nurse, waiting for the doctors, waiting to be called to surgery, waiting in recovery… As I sat in the pre-op room, I kept checking Facebook, trying to keep my mind off what was coming.

After a time, the nurse came in to get me settled in the bed. I was so tired. So tired of being tired. So tired of the voices in my head telling me over and over again that people hate me, and I should kill myself no matter how many times friends told me differently. Tired of side effects and appointments and treatments and weight gain. Tired of feeling like a failure and losing jobs and letting people down. Tired of life being so unfair and tired of not being able to see how blessed I was because my sense of reality was so bad.

The whole pre-op procedure for ECT was so drawn out it left me lots of time to think. As I lay on the gurney in pre-op, I tried to calm my nerves. Mentally, I reminded myself why I was doing this. I prayed it would help, that I could attempt to enjoy life.

 “We’re ready!” the nurse said, the perkiness in her voice only slightly grating. She set a pile of cords on my stomach and began hooking them up. They would monitor my vitals throughout the procedure. Once I was hooked up to the cords, she wheeled me back to the outpatient operating room where the surgeon and anesthesiologist were waiting for me..

Some might think the anesthesiologist doesn’t play a big role here. The truth is they are critical to how bad or easy the procedure goes. The process was simple enough. More electrodes were attached to me in the operating room. I heard the doctor’s voice go, “Look to your left, please. Now to your right” as they were attached behind my ears. The anesthesiologist walked me through what they were going to do, “I’m going to ask you to breathe into this mask. If you could hyperventilate a little that would be great. It’s just oxygen. Next, I’m going to inject some medicine into your IV. It may burn a little.”

This is where the skill of the anesthesiologist comes into play. They determine when you’re going to fall asleep and how they’re going to inject the medicine. Some anesthesiologists are so artful the burn and sleep come at the same time. With others, I lie there in agony, the burning sensation moving up my arm. It hurts so bad that I just pray for sleep.

It’s worse when you wake up too soon and you feel like you’re suffocating. I had that happen twice as I slowly returned to a waking state, unable to breathe, suffocation making my chest constrict as if an elephant was sitting on top of me.  I’ve learned that a skilled anesthesiologist, one that cares about your comfort and not just the procedure, is worth their weight in gold. After the procedure, I’m going to feel like I was hit by a truck but with the right meds it can be the difference between a Toyota Tundra and a full-on semi-truck!

As I laid there, looking up at the ceiling as the gas mask lowers over my face, I sent one last prayer to God, thanking him for being with me and for those that love me and asking for his oversight over the procedures. My fear was at its peak but so was my determination. I would fight through this. I would get healthy again.

I woke up slowly. I don’t always remember those first moments after the procedure. Sometimes I woke up and I was still in the operating room. Sometimes I became aware once I was moved to the post-op room. I was helped into a chair and offered 7Up and crackers. I hadn’t eaten since 7am and it was around 4:00-5:00 in the evening before I was alert in recovery. My ride, most frequently my wife, but sometimes my mom or son, was called to come get me after that. Once I was stable on my feet, I was allowed to get dressed. The world was fuzzy at this time, my thoughts jumbled and disorganized. Through it all, the question I’ve asked hundreds of times before kept repeating in my head: why? My mind was in chaos but I believe God was with me in those moments, watching over me. I felt alone but I wasn’t, not at all.

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Photo by Mahdi Bafande on Unsplash