A number of questions float about the household air today … some as pure depressive drivel, but alright, I have washed up on the far shore of a routine surgery last week—or was it two weeks ago—without any clue as to why I am alive and what’s more, lacking the will to do anything about it. One knows one is alone, but then there are the experiences that push it in your face, in which you come up existentially empty-handed … and wonder a bit about why. I think the moment of going under anesthesia is interpreted by the limbic brain as a death, as indeed one ceases to exist to oneself for those hours “under the knife.” The scars and stitches demonstrate that for that period you existed for other people …
When I came to, there was a man with a janitor’s broom pushing things about the floor. The clock said eight o’clock. I could not think why he was sweeping up in such a final manner at the beginning of the day. There was one person, a man—a nurse—in the big empty room, besides me. I could barely speak. That’s from the breathing tube, he said, feeding me ice chips. Intubated! Just like on Discovery Health! Which had happened, however, in the dead zone—so it didn’t really happen to me.
I don’t know how many people lied and told me I could eat when the surgery was over. At some point in the middle of that night I freaked out, pulling plugs out of the wall in the dark, unable to find the light switch, the call button, my clothes, the bathroom or myself. Apple juice was produced. Thirty-six hours without food or drink, hooked up to IV drips that, apparently, didn’t provide enough morphine to keep me from going starkers. Or perhaps it is the height of sanity to want to go home to your own bed.
You are not a person, in the hospital—though everyone there was terribly nice—you are suddenly a controlled lump of flesh. Interesting.
At the end of the next day, as it happened—prodded along by my own sweeping statements—I went home. Something I only vaguely remember—indeed, weeks later, that visceral memory of who one is and where, never mind why, remains vague and somewhat out of reach. Our true home is the body—which can, for a time, belong to someone else.
Lordy! I was about to call out Sergeant Preston of The Royal Canadian Mounted Police to find and rescue you! (How old do we have to be to remember Sgt. Preston?). Now, all is clear, but I feel so frustrated in my wish to help! Relieved, alarmed, glad to have a new post from you. Get well, dang it!
Well then who was Sky King?
Aaaack quit tweaking my memories – I want to utterly forget my youth :) and the answer to your question is Kirby Grant if you mean the TV show – if the radio show I don’t know :)
I’m glad you’re home and hope you become yourself soon.
Cuddle up with your Ipad, all things Apple make you feel better.
Such a scary post. It can happen in hospitals where there are jobs to be done and people come and go…so no need to really get involved.
Sky King flew a Cessna 310, had a niece named Penny and a buddy named ___________. His slot was Saturday mornings, but I can’t remember if it was before or after “Winky Dink and You.”
Tag. Your turn.
Miss your posts!
oh zo.
i suck for not reading here until now. a scary story with a most welcome ending.
xo
(i-suck?)