A gruesome operation

For the third time we say goodbye to Elijah and Nigel, this time with an expectant "See you again". The weather has completely changed again, this time to our advantage. The sky is blue and the sun welcomes us on our trip to the deep south of Jordan. When we climb out of the village of Wadi Mousa we have beautiful views on the mountains and hills that hide Petra. Both of us have sore legs of all the walking we did the past two days. The air smells of cinnamon and herbal sweets. After 30 minutes we already ascended 550 metres and we enter a cold and windy layer of air. Then the road we cycle on meets the highway and we dive from one descent to the other. With huge speed we whiz past trucks that cheerfully hoot at us.
The landscape of sand, rocks and mountains abruptly changes from beige to red. Fantastic rock-formations lie as tuffs of whipped cream on a pie in the red sandpit. Signs warn us for crossing goats and camels.

the seven pillars of wisdom

The descents and tailwind invite us to cycle to Wadi Rum in one day. The last hour before we reach our destination we cycle in solitude and silence over a small road into the desert of Wadi Rum. Around us dozens of rock-formations point vertically in the air. Over a nasty stretch of seemingly level terrain that climbs very gradually we cycle into the Bedouin-village, where we put up our tent at the government resthouse. There are three more bicycles: a French couple and a German man.

From Matthias (the German man) we borrow his map with hiking-routes. We walk to the well that's named after Lawrence of Arabia. The movie of the same name of David Lean was filmed in Wadi Rum. "Immense, filled with echo and divine." This is how T.H. Lawrence described the desert of Wadi Rum. These are suitable words for the special physiognomy of Wadi Rum and the exceptional strange shaped landscapes we see here. After walking about for four hours we return to the village. In the end we're no hikers, but cyclists, we mustn't overdo it.

Nabatean writing

At three AM Peter wakes up because of a sharp stinging pain in the right side of his abdomen. He immediately knows that something is very wrong and inadvertently thinks of my gallbladder, not too long ago. On the toilet he empties himself completely, then gets back into bed. It's impossible to fall asleep again, the pain is too bad.

watch out for crossing camels

The next morning Peter refuses to visit Wadi Rum's doctor. He really doesn't like doctors and doesn't trust the local medicine-man at all. He'd rather get on his bicycle to reach Aqaba, over 60 kilometres to the south. He takes three painkillers. Despite those he regularly hangs bend over his handlebars, because of the bad pains.
After a considerable twenty kilometres detour because of roadwork we finally reach Aqaba. Peter takes some more painkillers, then feels well enough to grab a bite to eat. We meet Andre and Roland for the second time after Petra and join them for a meal of sandwich falafel with a glass of mango-juice on a terrace near to the hotel. Normally this is Peter's favourite meal in the Middle East, now he doesn't enjoy it a bit. The pain returns in full intensity. In the hotel the only thing he can do is lie on the bed, twisting and turning with pain.

Finally Peter permits me to seek a doctor. I ask the hotel-reception for a doctor who makes house-calls. They send me to a pharmacy, where they aren't able to help me. In the end a bystander feels sorry for me and offers to bring us to a hospital. I return to the hotel, get Peter, put him in the car and we're off. As soon as we arrive in the hospital our benefactors leave, moments later Andre and Roland arrive to support us.
Peter is being examined very thorough, scans are being made and a doctor tries to reach a diagnosis by palpation. The latter is very painful, quite regularly he presses too hard on Peter's painful abdomen. Peter has to return the next morning for more examinations, he has to have an empty stomach.

The next morning the surgeon needs less then ten minutes to establish that Peter has acute appendicitis and has to be operated upon immediately. The operation-room is being prepared, Peter and I tell each other goodbye and Peter is brought to the o.r. A mouth-cap is placed on his head and within ten seconds Peter is unconscious.

These are his experiences the next hour:

I am awake and still far away. My abdomen hurt terribly, someone is pushing in it with a hard object, it has to stop! The pain is unbearable, as soon as I can I try to put my hands in front of my belly and to turn around. My arms are left and right of me, on the table. I feel where they are, but am not able to move them. Oh, no!!! This really has to stop, I hear somebody talk but don't understand him. Then I shout, from the bottom of my lungs. But, no sound escapes out of my throat. I can't even warn them to stop, that I'm awake, that I feel everything! I am paralysed, I have to get out of here, I don't want this pain anymore, I want to sleep…
Somebody shoves a tube down my throat, I almost have to vomit. This has to stop. Again my arms do not do what I want them to do, I can't even move my head. The doctor talks to me, I think: he says that he has to do this and that it will be over in no time. I hear a machine making gurgling sounds. What a nasty feeling in my throat…
I wake up from my own shouting. Two nurses are moving me from the operation-table to a hospital-bed. Every move causes terrible pains in my abdomen, leave me alone, I just want to lie…

During Peter's operation I stayed in his room. When the nurses return him to the room, I immediately get frightened and alarmed: he is awake and in agony with pain. The only thing he asks for is more sedation, he tells me that he has woken up during the operation and witnessed it all*. A terrible nightmare…

Five days later we're sitting in a plane towards the Netherlands. Cycling isn't possible for a little while, our belongings stay behind in the cellar of the hospital in Aqaba. In a month time we return to Jordan, for a healthy continuation of our journey.

* Writer's note
The internet mentions people that have problems getting sedated properly. The phenomena is called "Awareness". Recently a machine is developed which measures brain-activity during surgery: the BIS-monitor. With this machine the anaesthetist can watch whether the patient's sleep is deep enough.

Quote from a Swedish "Awareness" reset:
"It's no picnic to wake up during surgery, told dr. Claes Lenmarken of the university hospital of Linkoping (Sweden) (…) He talked to almost twelve thousand people who have undergone surgery. Eighteen of them (0,15 percent) woke up during the operation. Most of them didn't feel any pain, but it was a frightening experience. They remembered, sometimes after a few days, that they had actually heard and seen what happened. They weren't able to signal the anaesthetist, because their muscles were paralysed and they had tubes coming out of their throats.
These people got special support in hospital, when they went home they said they were over it. Lenmarken visited nine of them after two years and found that seven of them still experienced consequences. They suffered, the one more than the other, from a "post traumatic stress syndrome": they relived the operation often again, had fear- and anxiety-attacks, slept bad and don't want to be operated upon ever again. A real horror-scenario. Up until now it became reality to one or two in every thousand patients even though the anaesthetist did his of her utmost best."
(Dutch website about the subject: http://www.diagnose-kanker.nl/AA-Nieuws-2004/juli-2004/2004-juli%20zeker%20onder-zeil.htm)