I write a list of the pros and cons of being on the meds. On the pro side is the fact that I don’t feel too bad and am able to function normally. I also have very little appetite and no urge to drink. On the other side are the side effects. None of them are severe, but added up they prevent me from enjoying anything.
The responsible thing to do, of course, is tell all this to my doctor and have him adjust my dosages to hopefully alleviate some of the numbness.
Of course I don’t do this. Instead I decide to just be done with the wretched things. I know they work and I know what to expect. If things get bad, I can go back on them.
As the drugs leave my system, I feel myself surfacing. For a few days I find myself sobbing at random moments, then that phase passes and I experience a sharp clarity I haven’t felt in months. It feels like the first cold snap of the year; painful but refreshing. My brain is once again permitted to feel misery, and it does, but I look the misery in the eye and it doesn’t exactly disappear, but it shrinks a bit. I find myself feeling tired but not exhausted like I had been. The idea of lying in bed and doing nothing for days on end no longer seems like a viable lifestyle choice.
At work one day I find myself taking out my pocket sketchbook and drawing without even realizing what I’m doing. It’s like my hand has suddenly woken up after a deep slumber. The pictures don’t exactly gush out, but they flow, easily and without struggle, and I feel a microscopic thrill of pleasure.
The words are slower to return. I don’t push them, just try to stand back and let them emerge in their own time. When they do, it’s like drinking a cold glass of water after a long, hot day in the sun.
My senses return to normal. I go out to a fancy dinner with a friend and the food is so good I don’t even feel all that envious to hear that her life has turned around and everything is going great. What must that feel like, I wonder, gnawing the head off a shrimp the size of my fist.
The following night I attend a chamber music recital performed by a trio from Copenhagen. The musicians resemble their instruments: the pianist is sleek and angular, the violinist seems to rest her chin on a small model of her own body. The cellist has a narrow waist and large bottom. I love watching her rock back and forth. I want to be held like that, gripped by her knees, with my head resting against her bosom as she coaxes beautiful music from my hollow shell.
A delicate, dissonant piece by Bent Sorenson is paired with Beethoven’s “Ghost.” After the break they launch into a Tchaikovsky piano trio. It sounds like a Russian folk song has exploded, with shrapnel flying in every direction. After forty-five minutes of furious veering and swooping, the strings fall away to leave only the piano quietly plinking and fading to an almost unbearable silence. We all just sit there… surely it doesn’t end like this? But it does, it’s over, the mood shattered by applause that, after such an exquisite descent into nothingness, feels vulgar and inappropriate. It would be better for us to stand and file out without a sound, carrying that silence with us, letting it burden and buoy us.
*
“There’s a woman in your shoe,” Aaron says. He and Jean and the new guy surround me in room one. He’s right; over the weekend I drew a woman on the white inside of my post-op shoe with a Sharpie. I was surprised to find that it had transferred to the bottom of the soft cast. I was a little embarrassed, but Jean didn’t notice it when he pulled it off; at least he didn’t say anything.
It’s strange to be surrounded by men in this clinic which until recently has been overwhelmingly female. “Lotta testosterone in here,” I say loudly, and the women on the other side of the curtain laugh. I tell Aaron I haven’t seen him in a while and he says he was on vacation in Southern Italy. I’m surprised; he doesn’t seem the type to visit Italy. He usually just goes camping around Mount Hood.
The wound on my left foot isn’t any worse, but it’s not much better. I’m not upset; all I care about is whether the skin on the right foot is still intact. And it is.
Dr. Thompson comes in and asks if I mind having an observer, a young woman doctor from St. Vincent’s.
“Did you get to see your friend?” she asks. I had told her Amy was going to be in town. I tell her I had forgotten how nice it can be to just sit around and watch tv and laugh with someone. I talk about how difficult the isolation has been.
“It’s so nice to have people you can share activities with,” says the visiting doctor.
“I know, burying bodies is a lot harder by yourself,” I say.
The visiting doctor looks upset but Dr Thompson just shakes her head and says, “I think we’ll go back to the hard cast next week. It should help you heal faster. I know you had problems last time but I think you just needed a break from it. Does that sound okay?” I tell her it sounds fine. Another month, two months, whatever The skin on the right foot is still intact.
Aaron has Jean do the soft cast, but halfway through he takes over and does most of it himself. The two of them banter the entire time. The doctor from St. Vincent’s has stayed to watch. She comments on their rapport and Aaron says, “Ejon and I have known each other since we were twelve.” Ejon? What the hell is this guy’s name, anyways?
“So you’re like family,” the doctor says.
“We’re actually brothers,” says Aaron.
“Stepbrothers,” says Ejon. “We have different moms. But we grew up together.” The doctor can’t tell if they’re joking, and neither can I, but I seem to notice a slight twang in Aaron’s voice for the first time.
As they’re finishing up, Sally from hyperbaric appears. It’s good to see her. I tell her I miss her and the chamber, and she says I can come back anytime I want.
“Don’t I have to get an infection first?” I ask.
“Eh, we can fudge the paperwork.”
During the bus ride home, I get a text from our building’s super saying the elevator is fixed. It’s only been down a little over a week, much shorter than they predicted.
I put my phone away and see a man sitting across from me wearing ear buds and a brown sweater decorated with vegetables. He sings and sways and shakes his head, from time to time throwing up his hands and yelling “Christ is king!” I can only make out a few words at first, but eventually I realize he’s singing Sarah Smile by Hall and Oates. He’s utterly lost in the music. I watch him shamelessly. I’m the only one doing so; everyone is looking at their phone. With one final “Praise Jesus!” he bolts out the door and dances across the street, beaming, confident the traffic will stop for him, or maybe not even knowing it’s there.
No comments:
Post a Comment