The surgery was scheduled for early morning. That sounded wonderful, considering I hadn’t been allowed to eat since the previous evening. I assumed that if my letter said to arrive at 8:30, they would probably wheel me in around 9. Brilliant. No time to overthink anything.

As you can probably guess by now, that was not exactly how it went.

Around 9 o’clock I was finally given a bed, where I sat fully prepared for takeoff, until the anaesthesiologist came in to discuss everything. That was when she casually informed me that they definitely would not start before 3 PM. Until then, I was allowed water only.

Luckily, chemotherapy had already given me extensive experience with fasting, so instead of having a breakdown, I simply resigned myself to the fact that this would apparently become my fasting day.

The anaesthesiologist being Hungarian, just like me, was both surprising and strangely comforting. On a tiny island with such a small Hungarian community, it felt unexpected. But hearing the language you grew up with — the language connected to childhood experiences of safety, care, and comfort — can have an incredibly calming effect.

Even after almost twenty years in the UK, I still struggle with the emotional distance and cool professionalism I often encounter in healthcare here. I never quite know what to do with it. Meeting someone from home that day felt deeply reassuring.

Especially because she was one of the kind ones. I could sense that she perhaps felt even more empathy toward me than I allowed myself to feel for my own situation.

She explained that my biggest fears — not waking up after surgery, or waking up during it — were essentially unfounded, because the risks were negligible to minimal. She also told me that when I woke up, I would first be monitored in a high-dependency recovery area until I stabilised, where they could give me “the really good painkillers,” which she warmly recommended.

A small part of me still felt — and honestly still sometimes feels — that the medical team interpreted my relatively cheerful attitude as a lack of awareness. That made me question myself over and over again, even though I genuinely believe very few people research every possible risk, outcome, impact, and scenario as obsessively as I do.

Hello…, it is just my personality. I am flexible, I move on, and I concentrate on what’s next towards what I want. And this is something I actually like about myself.

Still, the concerned looks from doctors and nurses, although comforting in one way (empathy aspect), also frightened me. I kept wondering what terrible secret they already knew that I simply hadn’t managed to read about yet.

That constant seesaw between certainty and uncertainty was perhaps the cruelest part of the entire experience.

After the anaesthesiologist left, the surgeon came in to draw the surgical plans on me. Literally.

The breast care nurses had warned me beforehand not to take it personally if he didn’t speak much during it — apparently he concentrated intensely while drawing. Compared to what I had imagined after hearing that warning, nothing about it felt awkward or strange. He finished within a minute or two, and it never even crossed my mind that we should be making conversation during the process.

Afterwards, though, we went through everything one final time before he disappeared again.

The breast care nurse also came in carrying the little underarm pillows I would need after surgery, together with the post-surgery bra I had already been given to bring with me.

And then came the endless waiting.

Which eventually lasted until 6 PM, so technically it was only almost endless.

By that point, hunger, exhaustion, and emotional fatigue had completely overtaken the anxiety. I no longer cared about being brave. I just wanted it over with, since avoiding it clearly was no longer an option.

Around 6, a nurse finally came to collect me and escorted me to another nurse who needed to complete more paperwork and checks.

That walk felt horrific.

Like I was being escorted to my execution without even getting a last meal first.

A few familiar faces passed me in the corridor, nodding at me sympathetically.

Well, this is it, I thought. I’m done for.

After the admissions process, a third nurse escorted me into the anaesthetic room.

From that point onward, everything suddenly accelerated.

And yet the next fifteen minutes felt unbearable.

I was lying on a narrow bed while an entire team in surgical gowns hurried around me, searching for equipment, connecting monitors, preparing drips. One of the men kept attempting cheerful distraction techniques, trying to pull my attention away from what was happening, but it was hopeless.

The blinding lights. The noise. The rushing. The tension hanging in the air. The sympathetic expression on the Hungarian anaesthesiologist’s face.

For one bizarre moment, I was suddenly reminded of the scene in E.T. where the scientists capture E.T. and the little boy and start experimenting on them under harsh white lights.

At one point the anaesthesiologist gave her colleague a look that clearly said: stop trying to distract her, it’s not working.

Even answering simple questions had become difficult. I felt completely overwhelmed by the situation.

And then finally, salvation arrived through the IV line.

One moment I was there.

The next, absolutely nothing.

After everything leading up to it, temporarily checking out of existence felt unbelievably comforting.