Hemicolectomy, October 2025

ICU nurse Kayla is hanging a big bag of opaque yellow liquid on my IV pole. ‘I call this one the banana bag,’ she says. ‘It’s packed with nutrients. If there’s ever any left over I take it home and put it on my roses.’

 

Another ICU nurse tells me that when you undergo major abdominal surgery your intestines are all pulled out and plonked on an adjacent sterile surface where the surgeon goes to work, slicing and splicing. Then when it’s done the remains of your plumbing is scooped up and dropped back inside, where (and this is my favourite bit) it all slithers around like a nest of benign vipers until the various parts settle into their correct and rightful place. Please don’t ask me to verify this.

 

Delirium is the most common psychiatric complication after surgery … During the course of postoperative delirium, patients may experience hallucinations … *

No classic delirium for me, but hallucinations can be visual or auditory, as I learned.

Playlist, Hemicolectomy 2025:

• Days 1-2: Heavy metal. Drums and bass guitar. Tuneless. Relentless.
• Day 3: Jungle drumming. Ditto.
• Day 4: A bank of industrial washing machines on spin cycle, just around the corner.
• Days 5-6: A musical? I can catch lyrics this time, just a word here, a phrase there. Deep South flavour. And canned laughter.
• Days 7-9: A small church choir a few blocks away, thin and reedy, singing ‘Hark, the Herald Angels Sing’. Just the first line, over and over.
• Days 10-12: ‘Close Encounters Five-Tone Motif Played by Neighbour’s Nine-year-old Learning the Recorder’. Fades until, on the day I’m discharged, it’s finally gone.

 

A shout-out here to the Patient Care guys – short, solid, red-faced beefsteaks to a man – who can be counted on to roll, lift or transfer you with competence, ease and humour, and to look casually at the ceiling when your gown slips.

 

Those infusion pump alarms, which I’ve heard referred to as ‘random’. Nup, not random. They are co-ordinated, malicious and strategic. Mine works in tandem with my room-mate’s. And they’re timed meticulously to go off seconds after you fall asleep.

 

Francesca. Last time I spent any substantial time in hospital it was eighteen years ago during a neuropathic pain episode. In 2007 she came on night shift just in time to carefully move all the paraphernalia aside and roll me over enough to massage my back, then pack me carefully between pillows to drift off into a deep, blissful sleep. And, like an apparition, she’s there again this time, night two of ICU, a bit greyer, a little life-worn, but still with the massage lotion and the expert pillow placement. Oh, Francesca…

But those pillows. Can someone please set up a Pillow Endowment Fund for Bega Hospital? After a few nights in ICU I’m transferred to the surgical ward, where I’m assigned just the regulation one pillow. My requests for extras are met with incredulous looks. It’s only thanks to the ingenuity of the Mechanic and a subversive physio that I amass three in total, for sleep-packing and knee-resting. New nurses coming on shift marvel at my cache. ‘When you’re discharged you could auction these off,’ one tells me. ‘You’d make good money!’

 

For the first few days post-surgery, questions come to mind. ‘TED stockings? I didn’t need TED stockings last time, did I?’ or, ‘That’s a new nurse – was he here last time?’ Last time? But I’ve never done this before! Or have I? ‘A week of nil by mouth – really? I’m sure I was allowed clear fluids last time.’

No, there’s definitely no ‘last time’. I’ve never had major surgery before, or any kind of emergency surgery, let alone lost half my colon. So why is my mind creating this phantom ‘last time’? Then it comes to me. Perhaps some part of my addled, anaesthetised, analgesic-laced brain needs to have a last time, to cling to a last time, if only to reassure me that this is survivable. That I can get through it. And I do.

 

 

*  ‘Postoperative Hallucinations or Reality: Can Patients Differentiate Between Hallucinations and Reality?’ Cureus 17(3) March 2025.