The Emergency Protocol
The young doctor who had first examined me stepped forward, his expression urgent. “We don’t have time to mourn, Ma’am. Because the tissue has been growing for nine months, it has begun to invade the uterine wall. Your blood pressure is skyrocketing, and if we don’t operate immediately to remove the mass, you will suffer catastrophic internal bleeding.”
“No,” I wept, clutching my swollen, empty abdomen. “No, please. Just let me stay like this. Let me keep the dream.”
“If we don’t operate, you won’t survive the night,” the older doctor said firmly but kindly. “We need to prep the OR for an emergency hysterectomy. Now.”
Within ten minutes, the calm hospital room transformed into a battlefield. IV lines were snapped into my arms, oxygen was pressed over my face, and the bright lights of the operating theater blurred above me through a sea of tears. As the anesthesia began to pull me under, my last thought was of the empty cradle sitting in the quiet afternoon sun in my living room.
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