ALTERED STATES II

In ALTERED STATES I, I described the effects that Percodan (Oxycodone) had on my… “sense of humor,” I guess you could call it. To keep from making a too long story even longer, I’d chosen to skip right over the early morning of that operation. So in this post, I’m backing up the clock to fill in that little gap.

Never having had any surgery other than the tonsillectomy at the time, I was of course nervous beyond nervousness. A day earlier I’d become violently ill while being wheeled down en route to radiology for a myelogram. (Myelogram? Think spinal tap) (no, not Spinal Tap the movie, just spinal tap the needle in the spine.) With no time for even a quick explanation to my gurney pilot, I swung myself down onto the floor and limpingly ran away down the hall. I ended up plunging head first into a ladies bathroom and, already making quite a mess of myself and everything around me, fell onto my knees before the porcelain throne and finished the job, all the while hearing the overhead speakers out in the hall issuing an all-points bulletin for the runaway patient on the first floor.

I turned myself in. And because it was obvious to anyone looking at my soiled johnny that I had blown my lunch, I had nothing to prove. So… I got wheeled back up to the 6^th floor, cleaned up, and put back to bed. My doctors were informed that I‘d been diagnosed with a case of the flu, so my procedures would have to be rescheduled for the following day, depending on the state of my health. I was ecstatic. Yes, it was only putting off the inevitable. And yes, I’m such a shallow person I was celebrating my reprieve like Catch-22’s Yossarian when a bombing mission had gotten scrubbed. Anyway, the delay gave me some time to talk to my roomie about what my operation would be like.

He however was hung up and dwelling on is how fast the knock-out anesthesia worked. “It was instantaneous almost! Like that!” he said with a finger-snap. “One minute you see the needle entering skin and then… whoa, lights out.  And then suddenly you’re coming to in the recovery room, you know?” I enjoyed hearing about how quickly you’d go unconscious. Even though on the other hand that sounded just a little too much like dying by lethal injection at San Quentin, for my liking.

But on the other hand, it was… interesting, I had to admit that. And my brain had already started started chewing on this information, because I was desperate, wasn’t I. Needing something that would take my conscious mind off what was coming and keep it off, right up until the final moment. The proverbial bullet to clamp between my teeth, anything at all to take my mind off the buzz saw that was waiting for me over at the other end of the lumber mill.

Alright, here comes a silly thing. I had always wanted to be a writer. Not just a writer, but a successful one, a Steinbeck or a Hemingway, you know? And no, it wasn’t the lure of money. It was the great and overwhelming respect and esteem I’ve always felt for the Great Writers. They were my superheroes, just as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry had once been. It was a foolish thing but… see, I hadn’t figured that out yet, had I. And I wanted in, I wanted to belong to that fraternity/sorority. So consequently, I’d been scribbling my life away, jotting down great ideas on everything from diner napkins and to the back of my hand in a fix. And what had I accomplished thus far? Zilch. Absolutely nada. Well, nada and a gigantic pile of used notebook paper and diner napkins.

Why? Because I just couldn’t do it. No matter how I tried. I didn’t have the talent or the stamina it takes. And apparently with my little, small-time, one-horse-town life, I didn’t have anything to write about anyway. But back then, I was still looking. Looking, looking, always looking for inspiration and some usable material. Any material. And listening to my roommate, it occurred to me that I should take really good mental notes when I got the magic injection and went bye-bye. For The Great Book I was sure I was gonna write someday, who knows, I just might need to include a scene of someone getting anesthetized. My own experience would be an invaluable resource. So I began right away, imagining what it might be like, imagining what it might not be like, already preparing my mind to try to stay sharp right up to the end. If nothing more, at least it would be something to keep myself distracted, to keep my fear tamped down inside until this whole operation thing was over and done with.

Next morning, the big moment finally arrived with some guy in scrubs pushing a gurney into our room. I got manipulated onto it and then settled myself down for “the ride” (think The Green Mile, even though that book wouldn’t be getting published for a couple of decades hence). The P.A., or whatever he was, informed me he was going to give me a little muscle relaxant before we embarked. (Probably to keep me from leaping off the gurney if I got sick this time, such being my reputation after the day before.) I was expecting it to be in the form of a muscle relaxant pill but, no, he proceeded to lift the hem of my jonnie and with a syringe, inject me in the hip instead. No biggie. Didn’t hurt that much. Not as much as the Roman Centurion’s spear probably hurt Jesus when he slipped it into his side anyway.

Before leaving, I checked my watch. I wanted to have at least a pretty accurate idea for the record about how long I’d end up being under. “You need to take that watch off,” he told me. I wasn’t too happy about that but then, “Off we go,” he said, and it was off to the elevator with me and down about a mile of first floor hallway with Leonard Cohen’s sepulchral bass intoning “The Sisters of Mercy” in my head the whole way, as I watched the river of ceiling tiles passing overhead. OK, I’ve been told I’m a little overly dramatic at times and that may be true, but I was terrified, you know? And besides that, I honestly wasn’t all that entirely sure I was ever even going to wake up from the ordeal. I mean, I was totally a fresh-fish newbie at this business.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So. The guy parks me in the hall outside the O.R. and leaves…

OK, to my left is a large plate-glass window looking off into the very well-lit operating room. From my low-level position on the gurney, I can make out the gathering of powder-blue-gowned entities surrounding and hunched over what has to be the operating table. I can’t see the patient, but I’m well aware that I’m due to be next on that slab. It’s like waiting for the next available electric chair at San Quentin. I’m in no damn hurry though. Even though I’m praying for this whole hellish thing to get itself over with.

It seems like it’s taking just way too long.

I can tell you one thing. I’m not dressed for the air-conditioning here. This hospital johnny was never built for warmth. And all I have the thinnest blanket you can imagine covering me, and I’m starting to freeze. 

Time marches on. Instinctively I glance at my watch, but of course it isn’t there, is it. I really don’t see why I had to leave my watch back in my room. It’s not a huge watch. I can’t imagine how it’d possibly get in the way of them operating on my spine, for crying out loud. I mean, damn, obviously it wouldn’t…

Jesus, how long is it gonna take for them to get done with the current body, and get my body on the slab in there anyway? I mean, come ON, people! It’s freezing out here. Hopefully they’ll at least have the heat turned up in there!

Time continues to march.

Suddenly… footsteps! From behind me in the hall! Somebody coming! Finally! I crane my neck to look, but it ain’t easy, stuck in the dying cockroach position. Ah, but here he is, yes, stethoscope dangling from his neck. He’s…

Wait! Don’t pass right by me! “Uhmmm, excuse me? Doctor?” Jesus, he doesn’t even have the common courtesy to slow down, let alone stop. “Hey. Doctor?” No good. So then, in my high school English teacher voice: “HEY!” And there. He stopped. And turning around, but looking confused, looking around like a guy who knows he just heard something, but…what? “Over here! OK?!” OK, seems like he heard that. God, what do I look like, a goddamn lump of laundry, or what? Or… jeez, I dunno, maybe he’s deaf? OK. He’s coming. Good. And here he is.

“Did you say something?”

Yeah. Deaf alright. “Yes,” I say loudly. “I did. Can you tell me what time it is?”

He leans down, getting a closer look at me. Kinda inspecting me. “What’s that?”

Yep. I was right. Deaf as a post. And me here not knowing sign language. So I try again, loudly and slowly, and enunciating very carefully, “What time is it?”

Now he bends down in even a little closer to my face, his stethoscope bopping into me, him looking a little pained and puzzled. “Sorry? What was that?” he says, shaking his head.

Jesus. “I said, WHAT. TIME. IS. IT?!” I mean, come on, gramps, you got a watch right there on your wrist.

He shrugs his shoulders. Shakes his head with a big, clueless, shit-eating smile. Damn, he’s giving up on me. So he turns, and with an I-give-up shake of the head, just ambles away, back on down the hall!

Where am I, the looney bin for crying out loud?!

More time passes. Guess I must’ve fallen asleep because without warning, I feel my gurney moving forward again. I can’t see the guy pushing me. But man, it’s about time! It’s a wonder I haven’t frozen to death by now. But anyway, we’re off and rolling.

The cart stops. Wow. This O.R. is very dark. Which is odd, considering the other one was all lit up so much more brightly. Well, it’s not pitch black at least, but still… and, surprise surprise, it’s no warmer in here than out in the damn hall, either. Which sucks.  It seems my push-cart has disappeared.

Anyway, I tell myself, OK, let’s be ready. It can happen any time at all. Gotta pay very close attention when they put that needle in. And gotta remember all the details, what it’s like, drifting off so quickly into la la land.

But you’d think, though, wouldn’t you, that they’d have started by…

Whoa, somebody’s… crying? Oh yeah. Sobbing, really. What, in here? Right where I’m gonna get operated on?

My eyes are pretty much adjusting to the low light. I look around, take a better look-see. So there’s another gurney right next to mine. With somebody lying on it. And whoever he is, he’s just let out a long, whooping, baleful moan, like he’s trying to howl at the frickin’ moon! I mean c’mon, ladies and germs, let’s get this show on the road. I haven’t got all day! What did they, forget about me?

Actually, there’s more than two gurneys in here. There’s a lot of them. And… they’re not empty, either. Christ, it’s like a parking garage in here.

OK, now somebody somewhere off to my right’s muttering, jabbering like talking in her sleep.

Over and above the powerful clinical antiseptic odors, I smell vomit! Gross. And where the hell are my surgeons? And nurses? OK, I’m starting to panic. Somebody, cries, “Get me the hell outta here!” and it turns … that was me, and because I jumped up a little when I yelled it, a hot, searing pain I swear I can’t even believe goes ripping violently like a chainsaw up my spine. I collapse back, exhausted, promising myself I am never gonna even try to move ever again. Ever. It’s not worth it.

Oh sure, now other voices have joined in, moaning curses and pleas. It’s utter madness… Christ, I’m in a damn zombie movie!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Though I’m a slow study in the best of times, but little by little my re-awakening brain began connecting the dots, and piecing together the confusing but now obvious clues. That doctor in the hall? He wasn’t deaf. It was me. I was unintelligible. My flabby fat lips were connected to a brain-dead brain and were incapable of producing anything more than gobbledeegook. And when the intern, or whatever he was, the one who slipped the injection of “muscle relaxant” into my hip? No shit, Sherlock!. That was it! That was the very thing I’d been waiting for! But, damnit, I wasn’t ready for it!  Was I. So yeah, I missed it! I must’ve been knocked the moment he withdrew the damn syringe from my hip. And all of that watching the ceiling tiles on the way down to the O.R.? That’s when I was leaving the O.R., not travelling to it.It was like that Dr. Hook song, “I Got Stoned and Missed it…

So there I was. Lying there, in the recovery room! Post-op. Moaning and mumbling like all of the other post-ops. So, it was all over. All over but the shouting. Me just lying there, waiting the long wait for my ride back up to the sixth floor, where I could commiserate and compare notes with my roomie.

And begin trying my luck at to scoring Percodan from the nurses up there. Chanting the chant: percodan percodan percodan!