The day that decides my future
N 44°26'48.2'' E 026°03'41,6''Events from 06.07.2006
The wait for the operation drags on terribly. At 2 p.m., Dr. Balteanu and another doctor suddenly appear. “So, how are you?” asks Dr. Baltateanu in a good mood. “Well, I would say according to the circumstances.” “Don’t worry. You can walk tomorrow and fly home the day after tomorrow. By the way, this is my assistant Dr. Sandu. He’s also an experienced surgeon. So you’re in the best of hands. See you soon,” he says cheerfully on the way out, as if we were meeting for coffee.
Finally the nurses come into the room, greet us in a friendly manner and push my bed and me into the elevator. I am trembling with excitement, because from now on there is no possibility of turning back. “You’re not allowed in here,” the OR nurses stop Tanja at the entrance to the operating theater. Triggered by a motion detector, the sliding door opens. The bed starts to move. The door closes automatically and separates Tanja from me. It’s a damn strange feeling to be alone all of a sudden. Anxious thoughts assail me. Have we made the right decision? Will I wake up in a few hours as a healthy or paralyzed man? Oh dear, oh dear, what a shitty situation. Suddenly the automatic door opens again. Tanja stands in front of it and looks at me with a visibly pained smile. We both know what is at stake and at this moment there is no more control. Tears are streaming. Tanja raises her hand again in greeting and disappears behind the closing door. The situation is hard to describe to an outsider, but the chances of the operation failing are killing us both. “Stay calm. You don’t need to be afraid. Leave your wife out there. She’s fine and you’ll be fine in a few hours,” a green female comforts me in a friendly voice. Dr. Baltateanu’s eyes smile at me confidently through his mouth guard. A nurse is pricking my left arm and is apparently desperately trying to insert a thick needle into a vein in my hand. It hurts when she starts the third time but my thoughts are elsewhere. I no longer notice how the light is switched off.
“Mr. Katzer!” Hello Mr. Katzer! Can you hear me?” a voice from far away penetrates my consciousness. I try to answer, but I can’t. “Mr. Katzer!” it floats through a muddy wall of liquid air again. “Yes,” the word slips out of my mouth. “It’s over now. Move your legs!” the words seep into my consciousness and suddenly cut through the swirling wall. My brain cells immediately start to work, putting me on alert and giving the command to my legs. They react abruptly. My toes also wiggle up and down cheerfully after the command is given. A warm feeling of joy permeates my mind. I carefully pull my right foot up, then my left. “The pain is gone,” I whisper in the delirium of anesthesia. “Yes, the operation went very well,” says the voice.
Hours later, I wake up in the intensive care unit. I hear some devices beeping. “Hello my darling,” a beautiful mouth forms very familiar words. Tanja looks at me with happy eyes. “Are you okay?” “Yes,” I reply, moving my legs again and can hardly believe it. “The pain, the pain is gone,” I say happily and a superlative feeling of happiness flows through me again. “Yes, your surgeons did a great job. They had to operate for just under three hours.” “What, that long?” “Yes, Dr. Baltateanu told me that in all the hundreds of operations he’s performed so far, he’s never had a case like yours.” “Why? Did something go wrong?” “No, everything’s fine. It’s just that the blow to your back must have been so strong that it threw parts of your intervertebral disc into the spinal nerve. The nerve was penetrated with lots of little splinters. They pulled everything out. Nothing was forgotten. He said he now knows why you were in such terrible pain. We made the right decision with the operation here in Romania. If we had done it too late, you would probably have ended up in a wheelchair. But don’t worry. Everyone here is quite happy with how the operation went,” I listen to Tanja’s words and marvel. I try to return her laughter and fall back into a deep sleep.
