Any extensive movement seemed to evoke pain, and I readily understood the reason for my discomfort when I was bathed. In addition to the regular routine, the nurse also changed my bandages. Seeing the incision for the first time, I gawked in amazement, thoroughly repulsed. The seams of the long gash rose above the surrounding skin, and with the multitude of black stitches, resembled a rail-road track. It seemed to me that it would leave a scar of monstrous proportions looking, at the time, so hopelessly grotesque. Then I noticed the drain located to the side of the incision, and was shocked to discover that the soft rubber tube extended to my interior regions through an open slash in my side. I'd not have thought it possible that one could entertain such an opening without risking complete loss of one's blood. I was learning new biological facts with each passing hour. My parents visited each hour, sometimes speaking with the family members of other "unfortunates" when I was not awake. It is in the confines of a hospital that one learns he is not alone in his pain. The boy who laid in the bed next to my own would literally "poop himself out" during a bowel movement, losing his insides as well as the excrement, while a child across the room had a valve on his head which he could push when water accumulated, thereby releasing the pressure and accompanying pain. I wondered how those children could ever lead normal lives with their present situation appearing so dismal. Although I existed in the present, I lived for the future and my return home; accepting each moment, I fostered no suspicions that I would die, having tumors removed; I knew nothing, as yet, of my tumors being cancerous, for the grave seriousness of the operation I gathered slowly, as I gained physical strength, since spirit I never lacked. The business of getting better was simply a matter of time; "whether or not" I would improve did not enter my mind. Feeling sick, followed by recuperation and health were as inseparably linked as popcorn and salt. I always "got better." Later that evening, I announced that I had to use the bathroom. After two subsequent failures earlier in the day, I rejected the bedpan with obstinance; the contraption was immodest and impossible to operate without the patient feeling horribly unclean. Moreover, I preferred a dry bed to a wet one, and having twice illustrated my inadequacy for the nurses, who then had the extra chore of changing my bed, I found them more than agreeable toward the idea of escorting me to the bathroom.