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I Fell Asleep, and When I Woke, It Was All Over
I Fell Asleep, and When I Woke, It Was All Over
The word "surgery" carries weight.
More than the name of a condition, more than the cost, those few letters alone bring a person to a halt. A recent patient who underwent gynecomastia surgery felt the same. The word surgery, the sedation, a possible complication. His list of worries was long.
Let me follow the account he left, to see how that list was crossed off one item at a time.
The list of worries
He told us surgery itself was new to him and frightening, and that the sedation and possible complications worried him too.
Worries like these, I believe, are not to be erased but made concrete. What happens and how, what preparations are in place for which situations. This patient wrote that as he heard the explanations and received attentive care, his worries eased, and he came through the surgery well.
The vaguer it is, the more frightening; the more concrete it is, the more bearable it becomes.
Why the threshold of the consultation room grew lower
With a chest concern, being seen at all is itself the worry. This patient remembered the atmosphere of the consultation this way:
"The medical staff were all men, so I was able to have my consultation in a much more comfortable atmosphere."
Because we are men too, there are things that need no explaining. Thanks to that, a consultation can move past reassurance and straight to a plan.
The memory of the day
His memory of the surgery came down to a single sentence.
"After the sedation, unlike what I'd imagined, I fell asleep and woke up to find it all over, which amazed me."
The sedation, his greatest worry before surgery, turned out to pass without his even being aware of it. Of course, the experience of anesthesia and surgery can differ from person to person. Still, we often see in the consultation room how the size of a fear differs from the size of the actual experience.
The style put away in the closet
What this patient most wanted to do after surgery was about clothes.
The tight-fitting clothes he couldn't wear because he shrank back on account of his chest, the styles he liked but gave up. Now, he said, he wanted to wear those clothes freely.
Gynecomastia changes even one's taste in clothing. More precisely, it makes one hide that taste. What is regained after surgery is not only the contour of the chest, but one's own taste as well.
Putting it off won't make it lighter
When we asked what he wanted to say to those with the same concern, he answered:
"Putting off the worry only adds more stress, so I hope people won't delay it any longer."
This is a reflection this patient offered while looking back on his own time. Whether surgery is needed, and whether now is the right time, are matters to judge after confirming your own condition through an examination. Yet one thing is clear. A worry does not shrink by being put off, and the longer it is delayed, the heavier the heart grows.
So that a list of worries becomes a list of plans
Having many worries also means being that much more careful. So that this carefulness does not just circle in place, we will turn it into concrete plans, one at a time, in the consultation room.