In the pre-op room I try to pay attention to the anaesthetist as he makes light conversation in order to distract me from his inability to dig the needle deep enough into the 'teeny tiny' veins on the back of my hand. But all I can hear is loud calypso music filtering through from the theatre in front of me and in a crack between the doors, the brief but unmistakable sight of someone in mask and gown doing the merengue.

Is that for the surgeon, he asks.
Sorry?
For the surgeon. The writing, on your wrist.
Oh...no. It's a tattoo.
Ah. Only some people write messages on their bodies, you know, so the right bit gets operated on.
Oh?
Mmm. Big black marker, saying THIS ONE DOCTOR or CUT HERE.
Really?

I want to ask him more but then there's a oxygen mask over my face and the room starts to swim.

I come to to the sound of my violent shivering making the metal sides of the bed rattle. Even the tiniest amount of local anesthetic drenches me in a cold sweat; general anaesthetic turns me blue. A voice asks if I'd like another blanket and I nod, but am asleep again before it arrives.

The next time I wake I'm covered in four blankets and a dressing gown. My hand reaches up to the side of my face, where earlier that morning the consultant had hurriedly told me he might leave one or two neat, scalpelled slices if he couldn't work the screwdriver far enough from inside my mouth. Funny, he said, but in B&Q not last week I saw the smallest little ratchet that would have been perfect for the job. My skin is unbroken, but raising my arm has caused my paper gown to fall towards my face and the nurse sitting by my bed taking my blood pressure every five minutes gets up from her chair to look at the fat, heart-shaped scars that twist their way from my shoulder to my wrist.

These, you did them yourself?
I shake my head gingerly.
It is fashion, then. It hurt?

I attempt to say yes, considerably, but realise I can neither open nor close my jaw. She reaches over and pulls two handfuls of blood-soaked gauze out of my mouth. Immediately I taste thick, salty liquid and blood starts to spatter down down my chest and over the blankets. I sit up while she goes off to find a cardboard bowl and see myself in the mirrored tiles on the opposite wall; hair on end, eyes black, blood seeping from the fingers held over my mouth. I stretch out my other hand, still attached to the drip, and waggle it at my reflection, growling braaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiinssss until I catch sight the nurse waiting patiently behind me for me to finish, bowl in hand.

Half an hour later she helps me into a wheelchair to take me from the recovery room downstairs to the ward. We travel in the lift in silence. Just before she hands me over to another nurse waiting by my bed, she pats me on the shoulder and says, you know, my nephew, he was once into his punk music and his tattoos. But now he's going to be an MP in Europe. So you see, you see. It's okay.

When I wake up tomorrow I think I'll be offended, but for now, I'm touched.