The evening passed quickly. Before I knew it, the living room clock chimed midnight. Resisting the temptation to put off bedtime, I picked up the cat sleeping on my lap and carried him to the dining room door. Having retired to her sleep nest in the entryway earlier in the evening, Sadie, the girl cat met us at the door. Jerry leapt from my arms to join her.         

I turned out the living room lamps and took a glass of water with me upstairs. After washing my face and brushing my teeth, I snuggled down into my cozy bed. I expected to fall asleep quickly because I was so tired.

A cool breeze made the window curtain gently flutter. It felt good, but I was happy for the light comforter covering me. I could see a large moon in the dark night sky. There were faint, soothing outdoor night sounds. However, my brain refused to relax. It began to flash memories of the day across my mental screen. A thorn had been placed in my psyche earlier in the day and the harder I tried to go to sleep, the bigger the thorn began to grow.

As I tossed and turned, I ruminated on what had happened and what I had said and done. Embarrassed and frustrated, I mulled the experience over and over, wishing for a ‘do-over’.

I’m not the only person in the world who has lost sleep over an annoying experience. As a child I remember my mother once commenting that she could never come up with a sassy come-back until a confrontational conversation was long over. She grumbled, “What I should have said, never occurs to me until long after midnight!”

Fortunately, I seldom experience regret over failed chances to verbally zap unfriendly acquaintances. But I do often regret some of my past linguistic failings. Blurting comments without thinking first can get a person in trouble and hurt feelings.

I haven’t always been so free in making comments and observations. As a child there were times I should have asked more questions. One of these times occurred when I was hospitalized to have my tonsils surgically removed during the summer between third and fourth grade. Looking back, I wish I had had the ability to express what I experienced and properly asked what I wondered about.

A nurse wheeled the cart I was on into the cold, unfriendly-appearing surgical room, and I was terrified. No one tried to explain anything to me. To tell the absolute truth, if they had, I’m not entirely sure I would have understood or remembered what was said. I only remember being told that the ether mask they would put over my face would smell bad. The ether anesthetic would make me sleep and I wouldn’t remember anything.

Ether does smell very bad, and when the mask was placed over my nose and mouth, I thought I was suffocating. Then everything went dark. I don’t know if what happened next truly occurred or was just a dream. I remember suddenly sitting upright. The walls of the room were covered with shiny, pale green 4×4 tiles; trays of metal instruments were on a table. People wearing caps and masks ran towards me with outstretched arms. They appeared afraid I’d fall off the surgical table. Then I saw swirling colors like a television test pattern and after that darkness.

The next day before I was discharged from the hospital, I tried to ask a nurse about what had really happened in the operating room. I wondered how to ask. What words could I use? My linguistic abilities were not mature enough to find out what I wanted to know. All I managed to croak through my sore throat was, “Was I naughty in surgery?” So, all I received in return from the nurse was hearty assurances that I had been a very good girl.

I should have said to the nurse, “Did I unexpectedly wake and sit up in the surgery room?” Even if I had had the maturity to ask that way, she may not have told me the truth, anyway. Afterall, I was a little kid, and it was 1960.  

Is my memory just an ether induced nightmare? Since I have such a clear memory of what the surgical room looked like from a sitting position, I don’t lay awake at night wondering about it. I think I really did surprise and alarm the surgical staff.