Three days after the accident I'm taken back in for surgery to clean out infection and possibly put the frame in.
All I want is cheeseburgers. It makes no sense but I'm out of control with pain and hunger for Cheeseburgers. Scotty brings me four in and I smash then like a man deprived of junk food for decades.
I'm going back in for surgery so that's the last food I've been able to eat.
I've entered a world of pain that I had never thought imaginable. I can feel the broken bones and they hurt like a bad hurting thing.
There is heat coming from somewhere but it's also inexplicable.
And flies, flies everywhere.
They send me down for another x-ray before my surgery and the young guy is just doing his job but he's obviously tired, probably overworked during the pandemic and he hits something with the trolley and it sends waves of immeasurable pain through my entire being. I groan and wish the flies would fuck off.
He shoves me into a waiting area that looks unfamiliar, I'm sure he's put me into the wrong area and start to panic but there is nothing I can do. The pain. The pain, throb throb throbs through my body like nothing I've ever experienced.
I look down and there are flies buzzing around my foot! I can see them as clear as day but no one seems to care.
I hit full anxiety mode and lock up in pure panic, somehow achieving a fetal position grabbing the side railings so tight my hands go pale. I can't let go, the flies are going to eat my foot and lay maggots in the wound!
My jaw is locked tight, I can't speak but I'm making guttural noises like a feral animal.
Someone comes and tries to wheel me off for an x-ray but clearly this isn't going to happen.
A nurse comes and sees my distress but I can't talk, I try to tell her about the flies but my jaw is clenched so tight I make sounds not words and the nurses confer.
I'm wheeled back away to my room and given Valium. I've having an anxiety attack.
I've had them before. They started when I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2009 and got worse not long before the accident as I had a huge 'relapse' with lesions blowing up along my spinal cord and brain.
I couldn't walk then and it took months of rehab to get myself back together but that kind of mortal scar can wreak havoc on your life plans - and voila! - anxiety attacks added to my list of woes. That relapse was almost exactly 12 months before this accident.
The nurse is really nice, a very motherly vibe about her and as the Valium clicks into gear I start to unlock but I'm also in wild pain and she gives me a button to press when it gets too much.
I tell her about the flies and she explains that is a side effect of ketamine and that's the pain meds in the button I'm pressing like my life depends on it.
I feel sick now. I wanna puke cheeseburgers everywhere but I still have to go for an x-ray.
I try to calm down and gradually I'm able to straighten back out on the hospital bed and they take me away for an x-ray.
Before you know it I'm back in a cold, cold place speaking to an anesthetist who gives me a cocktail of chemicals and I'm suddenly on cloud nine making jokes about my stupid mullet.
"I'm in for a short sides but don't touch the mullet!" I half joke with her as I'm wheeled into surgery.
Vaguely alive I think about how I should write about this experience later, maybe I'll keep a diary? Yeah that's what I'm gonna dooooo....
The drip is replaced with anesthetic and I'm out cold again.
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