After the dishes she returned to her room to prepare for the surgery with the intensive cleansing rites, which included using her family’s antibacterial milk soap for her body and Hibiclens soap for the areas of the procedure, after which she put on the loose linen robes she had been instructed to wear, embroidered with delicate single threaded constellations on the hems in a dark blue. She had elected to get local anesthetic, rather than being put under to limit nausea and other potential side effects. She was still a little worried that Oongx would be offended if she threw up. And unlike when she had surgery before, when she had been required to go under, this time she would retain some measure of control over the situation.
The surgeon, Ovu, and the anesthesiologist had arrived already, on foot for Ovu, but the physicians had arrived in one of the city’s mobile surgery centers, a large trailer attached to a high powered hover truck. The trailer contained the heavy imaging machinery that would be verifying the location of the craniectomy, just below her hairline and over her frontal lobe. She found herself hyperconscious of the region, realizing with surprise just how often she actually touched it throughout the day. The surgeon had walked her through the process the day before during her pre op appointment down in the city, reviewing her labs and describing the process to her with a scientist’s enthusiasm, how a small incision would be made revealing the cranium, and a bone flap removed. The description had left her decidedly queasy.
As she lay on the operating table, head clamped with a three pin skull fixation device, hair pulled back under a surgical cap and the exposed region shaved and wiped down with antiseptic, she began to question her decision against general anesthesia. She was hyper aware of the area of her scalp where she no longer had feeling, any prodding producing just a strange, distant feeling of pressure. It was almost claustrophobic, how her head was fixed in place, only her body retaining a range of motion. She had taken all the requisite drugs for her operation, and was now vaguely blissed out and dissociative. Lying supine, she stared at the sterile ceiling, focusing on her breathing with as much concentration as she could muster, doing her best to forget that she was about to alter her conscious experience forever. At least this time would be on her own terms, her own choice. She had committed to becoming Oongx’s acolyte. She could do this.
The surgeon had landmarked the locations on her head with surgical markers, mapped and measured to make sure they were aligned properly. The region surrounding the incision site had been padded with layers of fluid absorbing material, to soak up what she could only assume based on the quantity, would be copious amounts of blood. Breath in, four counts. Breath out. The ceiling had a slight curve to it, fused at where it met the walls of the vehicle. The physicians had offered her a view of the screen to watch, but she had declined, already overwhelmed and squeamish.
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
They began, using a scalpel to cut through her scalp and carefully peeling back the skin and muscle, she could see the lights reflecting off the blade from the corner of her eye. A warm wet trickle of blood seep past the layers of gauze down her forehead before the surgeon patted it away, leaving a slight sticky cold feeling behind. The sudden whirl of the drill was too loud, next to her ear, and she was glad for the clamp, she wouldn't have been able to resist flinching otherwise. She wondered with an abrupt hysteria if the anesthetic was working, if she would be able to feel the drill. The drilling went on and on, for what felt like ages. She felt a sudden give and the immediate halting of the drill as the burr was completed on her left side. Relief that the drug was working conflicted with mild horror at the strange sounds that ensued. An unfamiliar shlurp followed by a sound of bubbling reverberated in the trailer, like air bubbles running under the skull as they were pressed out. ‘One down.’ The surgeon said, too cheerful for the situation, Ceit thought irritably. He briskly rinsed the area with a saline wash before twisting in the screw that her horn would be fixed upon, before suturing the muscle and skin back together and placing a soft adhesive dressing over the incision. He repeated the procedure for the other side, and then it was done, unexpectedly quickly for something that would have such an impact on her life. In just a few minutes her life, her experience was forever changed.
Giving her a rundown of post op instructions once again, various medications she would be taking, reiterating the necessary care, and limits to her activity for the next couple days, the surgeon packed up her kit and reminded Ceit of her follow up the next week. She took the offered pain medication, antibiotics, and more of the mild sedatives with small hesitant sips of water. ‘I know you’re having the meteor celebration tonight, but absolutely no alcohol for you!’ She emphasized, lowering herself to look Ceit straight in the eyes to stress the importance of her point. Ceit nodded, she would have agreed with anything anyone said at this point, still not quite lucid. The anesthesiologist guided her down the steps out of the trailer, and into the sitting room to join Ovu and Keris, their expressions alight with expectation as she entered the room.
‘Everything went well, no complications. We’ve gone over all the post op information already with Ceit, but I’ll leave written instructions too, I imagine it may be a bit of a challenge to retain all everything we covered. I’ll see her next week for her follow up.’ She said with a cheery smile, handing several documents to Ceit before she was led out by Keris, seeing her off with a very ebullient thanks as Ovu helped Ceit take a seat.