The Day Before Surgery
So here I am.
Dressed in loose clothes.
Hair scraped back.
Body already half in hospital mode.
Bloods taken.
Chest X-ray done.
That familiar smell of disinfectant and quiet urgency in the air.
I sat there waiting and tried not to think too far ahead — not about the operation, not about the risks, not about waking up and what I might wake up with.
I spoke to Dr Gupsi.
She asked how I’d been. I told her I’d eaten a lot of fatty food over the weekend and joked that I’d be at the gym tonight to try and work it off.
She looked at me in that way doctors do when they know you’re saying something you don’t really mean.
Not judgement.
Recognition.
She knew I knew better.
And the truth was — I didn’t do it for myself.
I did it for him.
I wanted to treat him. To give him something nice before I broke his heart. Before I let him go properly. I didn’t care about myself in those moments. I wasn’t thinking about consequences or bodies or tumours or scans.
I was thinking about kindness.
About one last normal thing.
And somewhere inside that, guilt crept in.
The kind that tells you cruel lies — that you’re responsible for everything that’s going wrong in your body. That every choice you make is somehow a punishment waiting to happen.
That if you just behaved better… loved better… were better… this wouldn’t be happening.
But standing there in the hospital gown, I realised something.

I’m scared.

I’m scared of going under again.

Scared of not waking up.

Scared they won’t be able to do what they hope to do.

Scared I’ll wake up changed. 

Scared no one will love me again 

They think they can remove the tumour without a stoma.

I hope they’re right.

But part of me has already prepared for the possibility that they aren’t.

Because preparing doesn’t mean giving up.

It just means I’m tired of being blindsided.

So I sit here — dressed, tested, scanned — waiting again.