My Thyroid Operation

The Doodler Says...

I had a lump taken out of my thyroid just last week. I was sitting on the hospital bed, waiting to go into theatre, and wanted to capture some of the trepidation and thoughts that were going through my head. At the time, I didn’t know whether the lump was a carcinoma or not, and I’d never been under a general anaesthetic before, so while I wasn’t stressed, I was perhaps a little anxious about it all.

Not too anxious to draw though. In fact, I’d say the circumstances probably fuelled my creativity.

As it turns out, the operation went smoothly, I was discharged the following day, and the pathology results showed that the lump was benign and nothing to worry about. Plus I got a night in a comfy bed without screaming kids and ate some yummy meals (Australian hospitals are pretty good, as a rule). And I ended up with a pretty cool sketch as a memento of the experience!

In fact, the nursing staff liked it so much, I sold three copies of my children’s book (which I wrote and illustrated—I have several copies in boxes under my bed) as a result of them seeing the sketch. If I’d sold another 157 copies, I might have paid for the operation!

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