Monday 20110124: into The Absence
into The Absence
Yes, it was January 24, 2011, but mainly it was Monday. And by this time I had been up over an hour, showered, lathering from head to toe in antiseptic body-wash I'd been told was highly toxic and not to get in eyes, nose or mouth. Our little company, which by now had grown, besides me, Linda and Rayford, to Joe, Tass, Nicholas, Father Steve … waited in the lobby for the trolley, the little bus, to collect us on the bitter cold morning way up north, and ride us from the hotel to the front entrance of the heart institute. I do not remember being nervous or anxious, I had been approved for open heart surgery to do this, that, and the other thing, scheduled first on the list, and this was my one, single chance. If it went well, tomorrow would be Extraordinary Time; otherwise no matter, I’d never know!
Early I’d been up to write my final Stoppage Time piece for CaringBridge, predecessor to my +Time blog that started a week or so later. Anticipating dreams while away, while gone, I'd got my dreams lined up. Dreams didn’t happen, not at all, there were incidents of “ICU psychosis” later, but no dreams through the surgery. Maybe the heart-lung machine blocks dreams, IDK, but there was only Absence. However, I’d prepared dreams of special times, special places, images that special poems always raised for me, dreams that I wouldn’t have to explain if I talked in my sleep (let the reader understand!). But no dreams. Below is part of my predawn CB post. Below that is my memory of after saying goodbyes in the prep room, being wheeled away through the double doors, down the hall, more double doors, into The Absence
STOPPAGE TIME DAY SEVEN
TO DREAM
+++ +++ +++
On this beautiful spring morning I may walk in the yellow wood with Robert Frost, taking that New England road with him, the one less traveled by.
This morning I shall be walking on the beach. I’m skipping class, leaving my shoes and shirt in the car and walking the sugar white. Early I’ll be at the jetties but you may find me walking anywhere from there all the way out to Laguna Beach.
At liberty call this (late summer 1957) morning I’m hopping the Jamestown Ferry. Linda will be waiting at the ferry landing and we’ll head out in the green 1948 Dodge, across Narragansett Bay Bridge to Kingston for the weekend.
“Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God,...” recessional hymn Trinity, Apalachicola 1994, Linda is holding Kristen but she’s leaning and stretching out her arms for Papa to take her as I walk down the aisle. ... “He whose word cannot be broken...”
Disney Wonder is docked at Castaway Cay this morning. We’ll be here all day and the others may go swimming but I’m sitting here on the beach under this umbrella all day long. Except for lunch: a monstrous Disney double hamburger with cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayo, onion, bit of catsup, touch of mustard, cole slaw, ... . Linda and me, Kristen, Malinda, Ray, Joe and Patty, Nick, Lauren, Tass and Jeremy, Caroline, Charlotte ... Supper tonight: rack of lamb in Palo just Linda and me.
“I am willing and ready to do so; and I solemnly declare that I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation; and I do solemnly engage to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of The Episcopal Church.
Therefore, Father, through Jesus Christ your Son,
give your Holy Spirit to Thomas;
fill him with grace and power,
and make him a priest in your Church.”
Boooaaard! Sunset Limited departing New Orleans for Tucson this evening, ... We wish the dining car wouldn’t rock so ... but peaceful sleep ...
Last night I slept in Narnia, in the wigwam of Puddleglum the MarshWiggle; this morning a breakfast of delicious eel stew in thick heavy brown gravy, and then we set off to the north country, dragons and the land of the giants.
This morning I’m lying here on the chaise on my upstairs porch looking across at Shell Island. Soft salty breeze. Warm sunshine. I may relax and read here all day; and this evening stroll down front and stand under the cedar tree and watch a magnificent sunset over St. Andrews Bay.
To dream. This morning I may do all those things, perhaps through the woods with Frost,
leaving The Road Not Taken for
the road less traveled by, and
going again to places with loved ones,
and alone, perhaps
to Narnia with the children, and even
to Innisfree with Yeats,
leaving The Road Not Taken for
the road less traveled by, and
going again to places with loved ones,
and alone, perhaps
to Narnia with the children, and even
to Innisfree with Yeats,
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
Hope to see you in Extraordinary Time.
Tomorrow perhaps!
Tom+
Gurney Journey
Cleveland Clinic has an endless supply of thick blankets that have been heated and now cover me toe to chin as someone behind me pushes us through the double doors, down a hall, turn a corner, another hall, and through more enormous double doors into a long hall that seems like but probably is not as wide as Harrison Avenue. Expecting the angina to strike with a vengeance any moment, I’m clutching my little brown bottle of tiny nitrostat pills. We pass two or three huge, wide, sliding doors, ten or twelve feet high. They are slid open and I see operating rooms on each side of the hall. The attendant rolls my gurney to a stop and parks me by the corridor’s left wall beside my own sliding door to my own OR, wishes me well, and leaves.
I'm alone in this enormous corridor that feels like the inside of, not a freezer, but a walk-in chill reefer on a Navy warship. But I have my warmed blankets. Someone comes down the corridor from behind me, slides open the door across the hallway and slightly farther down, goes inside. In a moment, comes out pushing a huge, tall machine of some sort, across into my OR. More great machines, two or three of them, are wheeled down the hall from the other direction, one is rolled into my room, another into someone else’s OR across the way.
Traffic picks up. Another gurney glides by and is parked outside an OR down the corridor a bit. An attendant brings me a pill to swallow. I’d had this pill earlier, and suspect this is why I’m not anxious. As I watch the action, in front of me comes another enormous machine and is wheeled into my room. A man in scrubs, green maybe, comes out of my room to me, introduces himself as my anesthesiologist, and starts my drip. The corridor is chilly, but someone brings another warmed blanket and puts it over my feet. I remember that, when I’d had my pre-op interview Friday, the surgeon had asked if I was afraid. I’d said, “yes, I’m afraid my feet will be cold.” They were keeping my feet warm. People in various color scrubs came down the hall and into my room, as well a into the other person’s room across the corridor and down from mine. My team. Having met him Friday, I recognized my surgeon.
I didn’t have a watch on, no cell phone, saw no clock in the corridor, but must have laid/lain there on my gurney about 45 minutes as the OR was made ready and medics arrived. More than 30 minutes, less than an hour. Someone came out, spoke kindly, and wheeled me into the OR. To my left near a large machine, my medical team were conferring as my gurney was rolled up against a long stainless steel table. Someone or two stood beside me as one asked if I could slide over onto the operating table. I remember shuddering, thinking how freezing cold it looked. But, clutching my brown bottle, I slid over onto it. It was warm, heated. I lay down and saw the anesthesiologist do something. “This will never work,” I think as my blankets are removed and I lay there covered only by a narrow strip of modesty, “I’m still awake.”
Into the absence --
Thos+ in +Time+
20160124, 25