And then: don’t go anywhere.

Part Thirty-Four: Stay Right There

Don’t go anywhere.

As though I had the option.

I had been cut open about ninety minutes before.

I had a catheter in and a cannula in the back of my hand and a dressing across my abdomen and compression stockings on both legs and a line going into my arm.

I had no feeling from somewhere around my navel down to the middle of my thighs, and a developing certainty that when that wore off I was going to find out what the operation had actually involved.

I could not stand.