Sunday, April 30, 2006
Speak, Memory
In a wonderful essay in the Gettysburg Review, Autumn 2005, Rebecca McClanahan writes of the events following her “Routine Procedure” “that unpleasant, potentially demeaning event every conscientious internist urges you toward as you approach your fiftieth birthday.” Well, I just went in for a Routine Procedure last week, and it was certainly all of that.
The only part of the whole thing that’s remotely fun is the anesthesia – they got some mighty good drugs to fool with. So good that the same thing happened this time as at my previous Routine Procedure: my wife picked me up afterwards, and I can remember nothing of the drive home.
I remember getting in the car, waiting for someone to pull out behind us so we could leave, and I remember getting out of the car at home, but absolutely nothing in between. My wife says we talked the whole way. But even now, a week later, the neurons have had all kinds of chances to knit themselves back together, and – nada, zippo, zilch. That half hour of my life is just gone.
The only part of the whole thing that’s remotely fun is the anesthesia – they got some mighty good drugs to fool with. So good that the same thing happened this time as at my previous Routine Procedure: my wife picked me up afterwards, and I can remember nothing of the drive home.
I remember getting in the car, waiting for someone to pull out behind us so we could leave, and I remember getting out of the car at home, but absolutely nothing in between. My wife says we talked the whole way. But even now, a week later, the neurons have had all kinds of chances to knit themselves back together, and – nada, zippo, zilch. That half hour of my life is just gone.
