The fog of appreciation

This photograph was taken by Caroline Tallmadge.
Dr. Tallmadge is staff anesthesiologist at The Ottawa Hospital Civic campus.

I don't know if there is a scientifically proven relationship between increased stupidity and time spent under general anesthesia, but I certainly suspect one... and present myself as Exhibit A.

Three times this morning I have hauled myself out of bed, into the wheelchair -- the whole while calling upon the Grace of God and invoking the Names of Various Allied Deities and Cohorts -- out to the kitchen, the feline triumvirate trotting along in my wake, only to lose myself upon arrival -- feeling much as you might, right now, lost in an uncharted sentence.

My pain levels are out of control. I have a pharmaceutical arsenal that I can, and maybe should,
use to bring things in line, but I am also too easily woozed. (Okay. We have "woozy," yes? Then we also ought to revel in the intransitive verb "to wooze." Right? Right!) In my war against the woozies, drugs are the enemy. Still, the battlefield being my tenuous body::mind continuum -- consortium? consortia? keiretsu? -- there is an inherent obligation to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Oops.

I made a request of the anesthesiologist last Monday that she seemed to regard as odd: to tell me in advance when she was going to launch me into the hinterlands*. This last surgery was the fourth major operation in six months and, paradoxically, the prospect of "going under" was increasingly terrifying. I tried to share this feeling with The Fredster but he chose to address it as a foolishness (not out of meanness... more out of denial... at the oddest moments he will tell me of whole days spent at my bedside, me unconscious and on a ventilator, of doctors warning him that I likely would die in the night, and how I wish I could take those memories away!).

Anyway?

Back on December 22, the last go 'round, I was in the middle of a private panic when I suddenly felt consciousness draining away -- and terror is the word, was the word. I need the anchor of knowing, of being prepared, of time to say "thank you." Odd, the thank you thing. It's so important to me, to be able to thank the doctors and nurses before I -- before I went wherever I was going. To the hinterland, behind the borders of the river. In December, despite what I am sure were major doses of amnesia-inducing drugs, I woke to the same panic that that swept me away hours before, and now -- 7 weeks later, the feeling really had not passed.

It felt like my dirty little secret, my personal island of insanity. I've had two "near death experiences" -- profound, even *gasp* very profound! -- and those experiences serve as anchors of calm, so the panic that has recently taken hold is not so much about death as it is about... saying thank you, and knowing that my thanks have been received.

And so it went that this slightly scoffing woman, standing behind my head and looking more at her monitors than at my scared face, gave me a good 15 seconds of warning and became the person to receive my gratitude.

I wonder if she might know what I keep going to the kitchen for?

Food seems likely. Or cat treats? Coffee? Tea? Cola? Juice? Medicine ball? Something to defrost? Or am I meant to go beyond, down the ramp to the laundry room? Hey. That's most likely... so I should turn back and grab a load of dirties!

In all seriousness, my cognitive abilities have taken a big hit. I cannot easily concentrate on a movie or for more than 10 minutes or so of reading. My memory seems impaired and my mood is particularly depressed. I do believe there is something akin to a "fog" that's directly attributable to anesthesia -- but I don't have the wherewithall to research it!

Really? I need to be imbued -- again, and now, in normal times, in this last bit of "ordinary" time -- with that pre-operative sense of gratitude**.

*hinterland in Wiktionary, the free dictionary:
The hinterland is the land or district behind the borders of a coast or river. Specifically, by the doctrine of the hinterland, the word is applied to the inland region lying behind a port, claimed by the state that owns the coast. [Such a beautiful word for the topography of the layers of consciousness, particularly when one tires of references to the peeling onion.]

**One can pay back the loan of gold, but one dies forever in debt to those who are kind. -- Malayan proverb (I love quotation sites -- This was the very first result when I searched quotegarden.com for "Thank you" quotes and isn't it perfect? Would that I could so distill my chatter...)