radfrac_archive_full

It's like a story someone's telling me. I go where I'm told to go, and have blood and electrical readings of my heart taken. I buy what I'm told to buy, soup and juice, antibacterial sponges. It's like a game I'm playing; like theatre or a scavenger hunt. I tell several people a day that I'm having surgery on Friday, just because it comes up. ("So what are your weekend plans?" "Bit of a drive, spot of fusion.")

The physio called. He's fun. He had a hard time letting go of his own diagnosis (Heavily Implied MS). We were both kind of gloomily enjoying my probable doom. Then he sent for the MRI and examined it and did have to admit that my disc was making a leap out into the spinal column in a way we generally don't like to see. Today he told me firmly that I should seriously consider the surgery.

He was so commanding, in fact, that in response to his "You should get this done immediately," I automatically answered, "Yes, sir."

He did not remark on this. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was all scheduled.

I'm curious about this restructuring process. Just now I don't feel afraid, though I notice I am irritable. ("I'm not nervous," I told a friend, "It's just that everyone in the world is inadequate." "We are, you know," he said.)

The long-term is of some concern, but I can't control that. All I can do is observe it.

This state is quite different from the grave, contemplative curiosity I felt when I was thinking a lot about what else could be wrong. This is a little more workaday, a little less beatific. I wish I could have the other again. I liked it. It felt good to discover I wasn't as cowardly as I thought.

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So the MRI. Not as noisy as I expected. In fact rather musical. In an experimental electronica kind of way.

( Cut for the claustrophobic and the lyrical. )

The giraffes came along. inlandsea drove the whole menagerie out to VGH, and S. took the middle of the day off from painting houses to come sit in the hall with her while the big machine repolarized me.

I did count my breath, and I did try to do some visualization. Mostly I thought about holding still.

Afterwards, inlandsea drove me to the university, where I retyped my research paper on the library computers and submitted it. Still evaluating the timing of that choice.

It was sort of anticlimactic really. It's very beige.

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