It was as if someone had turned on a switch and he came to life. Out of nothing and nowhere, he now breathed, heard, saw and felt… but what?

His vision was blurred, sounds had no meaning, they were only noise, and he was in pain. Not an ache, not a pain like a sore muscle, or a blow but rather an all encompassing, losing one‘s mind kind of pain… raw, gut-wrenching, cutting, surgical pain. And then out of this came voices all around him, each giving and accepting commands.

“Pain…pain, something for pain, please! ….Please give me something for pain!” He barely recognized his own voice…it was different, somehow, hoarse, deeper, and very thick.

People swirled all around him and then suddenly he was lifted and moved and then gently laid back down.

“Mr. Ryan, can you say the vowels for me?”

“A, E, I, O, U” he croaked.

“That’s very good, Mr. Ryan, how are you feeling?”

“My throat hurts really bad…”

“Yeah, that’s to be expected. Mr. Ryan, the cancer had spread beyond your thyroid and was in your throat and covering your left vocal cord. We scraped it but couldn’t get it all. We seriously considered removing the vocal cord to get all of the cancer but if we’d done that, you’d never have been able to speak again, so we didn’t…” Dr. Geoff’s voice trailed off.

Pat tried to focus his vision as he responded. “Thank you, doctor.”

“You’re welcome. Are you having any trouble breathing?” Dr. Geoff asked.

“No, I guess not.”

“Okay, sir, well, the nurse will give you something for pain now and we’ll see you tomorrow…” He said turning to leave the room.

“Okay“, Pat whispered, closing his eyes.

Pat didn’t care who left or stayed, the whole building could catch on fire for all he cared, “just someone please give me something for pain!”

Opening his eyes, he could see that his room had a glass wall separating it from the hall and above the door was a large faced clock. He silently watched the hands click by second after second. He decided that this would be the longest day of his life.