Floating
By Jasan Zimmerman
I always want to prolong the floating that takes place right after the anesthesia is administered. Those 1 or 2 seconds, or, if I’m lucky, 3 or 4, are the best feeling few seconds I’ve every felt in my life. I see now how heroin addicts can chase that high and risk life and limb in doing so.
Last time I had surgery I asked the anesthesiologist to inject it slowly so that I could really enjoy it. Once I realized that I was floating the blackout started. It’s like a movie, where the scene fades out, into blackness. My vision grew fuzzy and the darkness came, covering everything, until there was a pinpoint of light in each eye. Then, nothing.
I always wanted to introduce myself to everybody in the OR, make it seem more personal to them. I don’t want to be “31-year-old male with 4th branchial cleft cyst” or “15-year-old male with thyroid cancer.” I want to be Jasan, the dude that needs a little help. The last anesthesiologist told me to call her by her first name after I told her to call me Jasan, not Mr. Zimmerman. Mr. Zimmerman makes me feel old.
The personal touch of me using her first name gave me immeasurable comfort. Dr. So-and-so can hardly be bothered to come down from her ivory tower to speak to me, but Christy is right there by my side, ready to do whatever is necessary to make me comfortable.
I never had time to introduce myself to the people milling about in the OR because I got knocked out too quickly. I want to know the nurses, and anesthesiologist, and surgeons, and want them to know me. I want them to know that I’m an individual whose life will be strikingly affected by their decisions in that room.
Everything seems so ordered in there—the big bright lights, the monitors, all the tools laid out, the equipment, everything in its own place. I’m part of it, but I don’t want to be forgotten, strewn aside with the used gloves and gowns and surgical detritus. I want to be remembered and thought of and, most importantly, fixed. I don’t want the surgery to be for naught—I demand success. If everybody’s on the same page, pulling for the same goal, something good is bound to happen. That’s a little sliver of control that I want to be able to exert over an otherwise uncontrollable situation. But, alas, the anesthesia only takes a few seconds to kick in, and I float away with all of my dreams and desires.
Decision
By Ann Emerson
Nightbirds brood under the migratory stars,
tiny lights in the dark; and this wide land
stretches past the margins of anything
I could dream. In the dark I kneel in tall grass
and seek myself, thirsty as a root dipping
into a windless lake, baring my need;
and strength is suddenly mine:
I stare into the glassy surface
of who I was, fear rattling down my spine;
into who I am, a delicate structure
of branches, a rich excess of leaves.
To mourn lost life
or bear its pain:
the choice is mine to make,
to stand and murmur to the wind
that this humble flesh might endure.
Befriending the Body
By Nancy Tune
I have tried for a long, long time to ignore my body. It did not serve me well when I was an adolescent. Upon realizing, at 13, that my brain was much more serviceable than my body, I took to relying on my brain. Even pregnancy could be dealt with by the brain. So many grams of protein per day, finding a childbirth preparation teacher and practicing what she taught every day, choosing a doctor for me and one for the baby. When I was very pregnant, I looked at myself in the mirror and thought of photographs in National Geographic. I was startled by how elemental I looked, but I turned away from that and back to thinking.
Cancer jolted me back to the body. I couldn’t think my way out of cancer. Couldn’t make myself better as I could when the ailment was depression or anxiety. After three years of clear scans, I have moved back into my brain, where I know the terrain. But just lately, I have a new feeling: a desperate desire to have my body keep going. I’m waiting for results of two scans, with no particular fear other than the low-key dread that has been in me since my diagnosis. I am hoping, with a terrible pressure I did not have before, that I will have more time, that I will be able to take care of my husband as long as he knows me, spend more time with my children, write, hike, make people laugh. I am not done, I think. Do not step on my future.
I have not yet emailed the oncologist for the results of the scans. I will probably not wait a week for my appointment to ask her, but right now, I’m just settled in here, treasuring my body.
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