Tomorrow I will be given a general anesthetic for my sinus surgery. I am remembering the first time I had a general anesthetic. It was when I was in labor with my daughter. I was young and totally clueless and in excruciating pain. She was born ass-first, but the idiots in the hospital never figured out that my yelling and complaining were really warranted until more than a dozen hours into it. Somewhere along the line they finally knocked me out, during which time my little girl finally managed to emerge.
The next thing I remember was hearing a loud buzzing sound and seeing a white light at the end of a long tunnel. Having majored in English in college, of course the first thing I thought of was Emily Dickenson’s poem that begins, I heard a bly buzz when I died. I was convinced that I was dead. My only thought was that I would never see my baby; I’d never even know if it was a boy or girl. I didn’t feel afraid or concerned — only a sense of terrible loss. Of course, as I slowly came out of the anesthetic, I realized that the buzz was the sound of the hospital staff’s voices and the the white light was the light on the ceiling. Nevertheless, ever since then I haven’t been afraid of dying. What I am afraid of, though, is unalleviated PAIN!
They tell me that I will have to live on ice pops, jello, and ginger ale for several days after the surgery. (Only cold stuff; no dairy.) And my nose will be sore and swollen and filled with packing and a splint, and I’ll have to breathe through my mouth. So, today I’m eating all the stuff I won’t be able to eat for a week — fresh strawberries and cream, a salami sandwich with basil and tomato on a hard roll, cheese cake…. And I’m going to sit outside in the sun and read while I still look presentable to the world. I’m stocked up on movies I taped off the tv, books, Fimo to work on a jewelry design I have in my head, and every kind of cold stuff I can imagine, including lots of watermelon.
So, remember to send me your good thoughts tomorrow.
And while I take tomorrow off from blogging, make sure you go and read Frank Paynter’s interview with Dorothea Salo. She’s half my age and twice as smart. I wonder if I had been born thirty years later than I was, if I might have been at least a little like she is. I like to think so.