I’m Having Surgery Tomorrow

Going without water will be torture

I’m having surgery tomorrow and am wracked with anxiety. Not because of the surgery itself, but because I can’t drink water for four hours beforehand. For me, even ten minutes without water is an eternity!

I have a condition called psychogenic polydipsia that causes me to drink copious amounts of water and panic when I can’t have it. I drink so much that I’ve been hospitalized three times for dangerously low blood sodium. (The water flushes the sodium out.)

If I keep drinking so much without taking my six salt tablets a day and drinking my electrolyte mix, I could have a stroke or a seizure.

My last surgery was only four months ago, in August. After a week of intense stomach pains, it turned out that I had appendicitis. My little rural hospital didn’t have a surgeon on staff, so my mom drove me an hour and a half to the nearest big hospital to have the operation.

On the way there, I had a bathroom emergency and had to rush out to an outhouse in the blazing hot sun. I couldn’t stand my parched dry throat, so I had several large sips of water.

“It’s your life you’re risking!” my mom cried.

I just couldn’t help it. I can’t go without water.

Tomorrow, I might have to take a couple sips within that four hours in order to survive it. My surgery information packet says that if you have medications, you can take them with a sip of water, so I figured taking a sip would be okay. My last sip will be two hours before, so it’s still going to be torture.

I’ll be so glad to get this over with. Right now, I can’t imagine being on the other side of it. There’s just that single, monolithic thought: I can’t have water. I can’t have water.