25 July 2010
Madrid
I’ve put it behind me now. Yesterday was the end. Like the firefly who backed into the fan, I was ‘de-lighted … no end’.
Yep, after many years of the traveller’s bane, I submitted myself to the surgeon’s scalpel and in a 30 minute procedure, I became a perfect ass – a state which many would argue I achieved long ago. But that’s a discussion that need not detain us; I am now wandering around the house, looking for soft places to sit.
It’s painful, there’s no doubt of that. Last year I broke my leg in a number of places and am still walking around with enough screws and plates in me to open a hardware store, but for the leg they give you more drugs afterwards and you pass the first couple of days in a rather pleasant, dreamy haze, napping and then napping again. For what they did yesterday they give you some drugs but not anything like enough.
What did surprise me and was the only frightening thing was the epidural, I think that’s the term; they stick a needle in your spine and take away all feeling from the waist down. It’s frequently used during long labor or difficult births, I’m going to name this one ‘Pigu’. At first your legs, beginning at the feet, just tingle a bit but pretty soon you are not just numb, your bottom half has disappeared.
The anesthesiologist talked to me throughout the surgery, mostly about solar power and wine – good mix, actually. When I got back to the room from the operating theater, I could only tell that the rest of me was there by feeling with my hands. Strange and frightening. I had absolutely zero sensation, as if I stopped just below my waist. I didn’t like it.
