Now I understand...

The long, rectangular, ceiling mounted flourescent lights were coming in and out of focus. In one instant I could see the vivid detail of each raised dot on the surface of the light's flat glass covering, looking every bit as jagged and imposing as the Andes Mountains. In the next, it was blurred and too bright. The doctors and nurses scurried around me, first rather quickly, and then not so fast, and then not at all. One of them stood over me, blocking the light, and making a shadow where their face should be and said something that was vaguely meaningful. I must've understood because I think I nodded and said okay to whatever it was that they asked me or told me.

It was cold in the room and my left arm was especially cold from whatever they were pumping into me through the intravenous stream. I tried to say something witty to one of the nurses buzzing around the room, but it probably didn't leave my mouth as coherent as when it was conceived in my brain. Lying on my back this whole time, I looked back as far as I could without rolling my eyes back into my head, trying to see the back left corner of the room and then the back right. I scanned around to either side and then as close to my blue "footied" feet as I could see. The anesthesiologist came back around to check on me. Well, not really to check on me, but to keep smiling that giddy smile that she'd had this whole time. It's as if she knows something so funny that she just can't contain it and it's almost hurting her to keep it in. It's too early for all of that. Who is that tickled at 605am? Should I be alarmed that the anesthesiologist seems to have had a taste of the goods to make sure they were suitable for consumption? She's not a chef. It's not like she's about to send a dish out of the kitchen and wants to make sure that it is properly seasoned first.

"Let me know how far I make it in the countdown. I think I've only ever made it to 97. My goal today is to get to at least 96. Let me know how I do...," I said, or at least I think I said. I definitely said it, but I don't know if I articulated it at all. It may have sounded like an old 33 1/3 record that is playing too slowly. Yeah, that must've been it because on came another onslaught of the laughter from Chef Joker. I started to say something else and then I lo--.


Now I'm sitting upright in a chair, fully clothed and suddenly coherent right in the middle of a sentence. It's as if someone has been talking to me and engaging me in a full blown conversation but I had been asleep until right now when the lights came on and I took control of the joystick again, flipping off the auto-pilot switch. I'm laboring a bit to breathe, but I'm okay, other than the fact that I feel like I've been asleep for 15 hours and am somehow still tired. The attending nurse was asking me questions about who is going to pick me up and also instructing me to engage in the exercise of flexing my ankles, pointing my toe straight out and then extending them back toward me, over and over again. She explained to me how they had done a little more than they thought they would be doing to my knee and about the exposed bone and the big bone chips floating around but it's not really sinking in. I'm not terribly concerned.

It feels like they removed my left leg and attached the leg of an African elephant in its place. It is so heavy as well as heavily bandaged, as I can see by looking at it covered by my blue sweatpants. The nurse gave me a percocet tablet and handed me a prescription to fill so that I could take another one in 4 hours, and every four hours after that. I'm only half listening to her right now. It's as if I'm in a movie and she's talking to me, and the other sounds from the recovery room, including the other patients, are all very audible but I'm not really paying attention to them. It's that point where the camera would zoom in to see that my eyes and my mind had moved on to some very distant place and then pans around and behind me to see what I'm looking at from my vantage point until I start to look down at the floor and it backs up to get the wider angle shot that gives a better idea of the melancholy mood that has overcome me so suddenly and without explanation.

Thirty minutes later I'm sitting at Doug's Restaurant waiting on an omelette, pancakes and some home fries when I find myself staring out the window as if that sunlight out there is millions of miles from attainable for me. I imagine that this is what a prisoner must feel like whenever they get a glimpse of outside. I'm listening to my friend talk about whatever he's talking about but I'm overcome by such a sadness that I think I'm going to cry. It's so intense and quite overwhelming. What's wrong with me? I can't recall ever feeling this bad, not even when somebody had passed away. The weight of the whole world seems to be upon my shoulders and it is entirely too much to bear. I'm saddened and frustrated at how hard it seems to breathe, even though my body is taking care of this quite effortlessly. Paying attention is very difficult. I don't know what he is talking about, so I'm trying to regain focus but it all seems so hopeless. Why is this happening to me?

I just want to sleep. I don't want to eat or talk anymore or sit here or anything. I just want to sleep...FOREVER. I don't like feeling this distraught. I wish I knew why. It's as if someone has just dropped the news on me that I have a terminal illness and only 3 days left to live.

The food came, and I ate it. It tasted okay, but I don't think I was really too concerned one way or the other. I usually really enjoy eating, but it was such a formality. I ate every last bit of it; the large omelette, the huge pancake and all of the home fried potatoes. It must've been this food that brought me around because it suddenly occurred to me what was going on. It was the drugs. I never really believed that...well, wait a minute. "Believed" might be a bit strong. I never really could relate through any first hand experience how commercials for drugs on television could make the claim that "this may cause depression or increase risk of suicide in some patients", so I didn't really think it was true. I had always reasoned that anybody who actually did that was prone to do it anyway and the drug just stripped away the inhibitions. Now I believe it. Now I understand.

Life is good for me. I've got no complaints. This big hearty plate of comfort food finding a suitable resting place in my belly allowed me to come back to Earth and realize just that. These drugs are amazing! How can they so cavalierly prescribe this stuff to people. Perhaps they should really have a serious conversation about the side effects and the need for supervision with patients. As soon as I got home to my computer, I did a search on percocet and found that it did indeed have depression as one of its side effects. I'm sure that this effect was enhanced by an order of magnitude by whatever else they had me for anesthesia. Wow! Now I really understand.