Variable Indirection: Choosing Variable At Runtime

Hello!
I'm using SQL Server 2000.
I have a variable which contains the name of another variable scoped in my stored procedure. I need to get the value of that other variable, namely:

DECLARE @operation VARCHAR(3)
DECLARE @parameterValue VARCHAR(50)

SELECT @operation='DIS'

CREATE table #myTable(value VARCHAR(20))
INSERT into #myTable values('@operation')

SELECT top 1 @parameterValue = value from #myTable
-- Now @parameterValue is assigned the string '@operation'
-- Here I need some way to retrieve the value of the @operation variable I declared before (in fact
-- another process writes into the table I retrieved the value from), in this case 'DIS'

DROP TABLE #myTable



I've tried several ways, but didn't succeed yet!
Please tell me there's a way to solve my problem!!!

Thank you very much in advance!