I had minor surgery last week to remove a lipoma, which had quietly made a home for itself on my right shoulder several years ago. Embedded just beneath the skin like one half of a ping pong ball, the benign lump of fat tissue had not affected my well-being in any discernible way.
But I decided that I had seen enough of that offending growth in the mirror and I wanted it removed.
A couple of medical scans and consultations later, I lay supine in a cavernous, blindingly lit operating theatre, while a team of doctors and nurses cut into me.
Having opted for local anaesthesia, I was conscious throughout the 30-minute procedure. Though the surgeons kept assuring me that I was “doing very well”, I was in a silent state of panic.
It was not the pain. There was none, because the anaesthesia did its wonderful magic. But playing in my head on repeat were the gory online videos of lipoma surgeries, which I was stupid enough to watch in the days leading up to my own.