Tears came into her eyes as she felt the blood vessel burst. They had tried the IV in her hand first, and it hadn't gone well. The nurse held the pressure down to get it to stop bleeding, occasionally massaging it to get it to feel better. It hurt like hell, but she was more upset that she was going to have to sit through another poking.
The second one, just below the crease of her elbow, hurt worse. The nurse dug around for a vessel before popping another one, then decided to get the "master poker" who would get it in one go. She was left to freak out by herself for a minute before they brought back KSL. She noticed his agitation immediately and she asked what was wrong.
After a few minutes he confessed that he hated hospitals, after the ones he had to accompany his mother to and the ones he needed to be admitted to as well. She was immediately exasperated with him...why would he let it get this far? She needed someone to be calming her down, not the other way around.
She told him he could wait out in the main waiting room, but he said it was fine. She tried to get him to tell her a story, make both of them forget that an IV was sticking out of her arm, that she had a ridiculously oversized hairnet on. It worked for awhile, then it was finally time to take her back after joking with the anesthesiologist about getting her appendix out too, since she was already doped up.
Her heart was beating so hard that when it was time for her to transfer herself onto the operating table, she got woozy. "That stuff kicked in fast!" She exclaimed. The anesthesiologist again laughed at her. After quite a bit of shuffling herself over and not also flashing everyone in the room at the same time, she got to the other table. She was still adjusting her head onto the pillow provided, and then suddenly she was in recovery, still super woozy. She felt like she had awoken from a long nap, whereas before she had been under anesthesia, it was like no time had passed at all.
She took a deep breath in and was shocked at how much air was already in her lungs without much effort. It was as if someone had finally replaced her old, thick vintage fabric curtains with....well with nothing. Her throat was suddenly an open window into the outside world. Even with everything swollen and throbbing from surgery, she was feeling amazing. Better than amazing.
Which means she'd just be waiting for the other shoe to drop during her entire recovery.
