Seven days pass quickly, and I’m soon being wheeled back down to the operating theatre. For some reason to do with expedience, I have been informed by the anaesthetist that I’ll be wide-awake for absolutely everything this time around. This includes the stitches from the last op being pried out and my scalp being ripped back. If I’m ‘lucky’ I’ll even hear the ‘schlock’ noise as my skull is popped back open. These people must think I’m some sort of unfeeling cyborg for me to take this much battering without batting an eyelid. Personally, I feel like a cross between Ray Liotta’s character in the closing scenes of Hannibal and a Terminator unit.
One of my surgeons prior to scrubbing up
I was beginning to think that I wished I never had found out about the bloody tumour in the first place. Ah well, If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?
Despite being in theatre for four or five hours, I remember very little of the procedure. It’s strange how the human psyche blocks out memories that are too distressing. Indeed, repressed memory is one of the most controversial subjects in the history of psychology and psychiatry. A repressed memory, according to some, is a memory (often traumatic) of an event, which is stored by the unconscious mind but outside the awareness of the conscious mind. Some theorize that these memories may be recovered (that is, integrated into consciousness) years or decades after the event, often via therapy or in dreams. I hope to God that this isn’t the case.
Another hypothesis is that cortisol, a chemical released during trauma, may induce forgetting. Cortisol appears to have the ability to erase details and possibly induce amnesia.
On the other hand, I may have experienced a form of organic amnesia, whereby damage to the medial or anterior temporal regions caused by either the surgery, or the incidental stroke I suffered, brought about a loss of cognitive processing while I was under the knife.
Alternatively, it could be the case that I was so dosed up on Rohypnol its surprising that I even remembered waking up that morning.
Whatever the case, one thing is for certain; you didn’t tune in for a clinicalneuropsychology lecture! Well you can take the boy out of academia, but you can’t take academia out of the boy!
What I do remember is lying on my left side, propped up at a 50 degree angle, the anaesthetist standing in front of me. Every couple of minutes she asks me to wiggle the fingers of my left hand as if I’m playing the piano. Happy with my performance, she asks me to do the same with the toes on my left foot. I see no one else, as they’re probably all behind me ‘scooping’ away. I feel no pain.
Next thing I know is I’m awake in the Recovery Unit again. I’m thirsty, I’m prodded, I’m poked, I’m used to it. After a while some doctors come to see me. They go through the Glasgow Coma Scale, and are sorely disappointed with the performance of my left hand side. Not as much as I am though.
“Hemiparesis”, they call it. ‘FUCKING PARALYSED DOWN ONE FUCKING SIDE’, I call it!
Yeah, The trouble with life is there's no background music. At that moment in time I could have really done with some!
As you can see, my hospital bed was rather hard. I didn't like pyjamas.
