February 17, 2006
Juice….
I was on the operating table waxing lyrical about the possibility of giving kids general anesthetic on long haul flights – the doctor said she thought the idea was appealing but practice would make it impossible – you’d have to hook them all up to drips and monitor their heart rates – there’d be a lot of equipment involved – it wasn’t just like taking a sleeping pill – ultimately far more expensive and far more work involved – best stick to slipping them shots of whisky in their drinks.
This was all going on as we waited for my own general anesthetic to kick in – they told me it wouldn’t be like shutting my eyes and then opening them to suddenly be presented with a whole new scene – I would awake with a strange feeling that time had neither passed nor continued – that something had taken place but no recollection of what - I guess memory just wouldn’t know what to do with the break in time as memory would be on shut down as well as the rest of me – but what ever the case it would be a strange feeling. The morphine would apparently help the surrealism of the whole experience.
I was determined to fight it – just to see if it was possible – try and stay conscious as long as I could – the nurse began the count down and the doctor said it would start to kick in any second – reminded me that there would be a slight pressure on the base of my throat that would temporarily restrict my breathing but that I shouldn’t worry – she was attractive and had a soft Scottish brogue to her voice – how could I worry?
Game time approached and I searched my senses for any indication – then there was a fuzzing of my outer vision and the light began to fade to centre of my focus – like a TV searching for reception for a second, then the bulb shuts off and your picture gets sucked into that little dot in the middle of the screen – as it kicked in I raised my hand pointed to the sky answering an imaginary quiz question “ah there it is I believe” – and suddenly I was gone.
I came round in a different room – started gabbling about tea samples – a new shipment and the need for fresh samples as soon as possible the nurse said – she humored me apparently “I’ll get right on it – just take it easy – everything’s in hand” – I looked around and the room was deserted apart from the big nurse from Ghana busying herself in the far corner – she would take me back up to the ward as soon as I felt ready – I had to keep looking around the place trying to figure out what the hell was going on and where I was – trying to remember why I was there – like your mind is a pit of honey and you have to delve deep to pull out any useful scraps of information.
I didn’t like the morphine – later I related it to how Eric Stolz felt at taking heroin for the first time at the beginning of Killing Zoe rather than Spud laying back and disappearing into the floor in Trainspotting – it was like I had a head full of water but the rest of me was airborne – a sickly haze abounded and nothing stayed at the focus of my mind for any longer than a few seconds – holding on to a scenario, conversation or train of thought seemed impossible – the nurse bared with me as I tried to get a handle on my moonbattery.
As far as fighting the general anesthetic went - I reflected later that maybe that’s how it is when your numbers up – everyone around you telling you to focus and stay awake – you know you’ve got to keep it together to stay around in the world a little longer – but when the body doesn’t have the juice it doesn’t have the juice – when the chemical forces are working against the will power, there really isn’t much you can do – can’t argue with the science.
Lights out sunshine.
This was all going on as we waited for my own general anesthetic to kick in – they told me it wouldn’t be like shutting my eyes and then opening them to suddenly be presented with a whole new scene – I would awake with a strange feeling that time had neither passed nor continued – that something had taken place but no recollection of what - I guess memory just wouldn’t know what to do with the break in time as memory would be on shut down as well as the rest of me – but what ever the case it would be a strange feeling. The morphine would apparently help the surrealism of the whole experience.
I was determined to fight it – just to see if it was possible – try and stay conscious as long as I could – the nurse began the count down and the doctor said it would start to kick in any second – reminded me that there would be a slight pressure on the base of my throat that would temporarily restrict my breathing but that I shouldn’t worry – she was attractive and had a soft Scottish brogue to her voice – how could I worry?
Game time approached and I searched my senses for any indication – then there was a fuzzing of my outer vision and the light began to fade to centre of my focus – like a TV searching for reception for a second, then the bulb shuts off and your picture gets sucked into that little dot in the middle of the screen – as it kicked in I raised my hand pointed to the sky answering an imaginary quiz question “ah there it is I believe” – and suddenly I was gone.
I came round in a different room – started gabbling about tea samples – a new shipment and the need for fresh samples as soon as possible the nurse said – she humored me apparently “I’ll get right on it – just take it easy – everything’s in hand” – I looked around and the room was deserted apart from the big nurse from Ghana busying herself in the far corner – she would take me back up to the ward as soon as I felt ready – I had to keep looking around the place trying to figure out what the hell was going on and where I was – trying to remember why I was there – like your mind is a pit of honey and you have to delve deep to pull out any useful scraps of information.
I didn’t like the morphine – later I related it to how Eric Stolz felt at taking heroin for the first time at the beginning of Killing Zoe rather than Spud laying back and disappearing into the floor in Trainspotting – it was like I had a head full of water but the rest of me was airborne – a sickly haze abounded and nothing stayed at the focus of my mind for any longer than a few seconds – holding on to a scenario, conversation or train of thought seemed impossible – the nurse bared with me as I tried to get a handle on my moonbattery.
As far as fighting the general anesthetic went - I reflected later that maybe that’s how it is when your numbers up – everyone around you telling you to focus and stay awake – you know you’ve got to keep it together to stay around in the world a little longer – but when the body doesn’t have the juice it doesn’t have the juice – when the chemical forces are working against the will power, there really isn’t much you can do – can’t argue with the science.
Lights out sunshine.
Spo | February 17, 2006
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