• Sixty-One

    13

    I lay awake in my hospital bed after surgery, the priority right now that I have to prove that I can pee. The anesthetic can put the bladder to sleep apparently, and if it doesn’t rouse that means the insertion of a catheter. They fitted me with one during the initial surgery some eleven days earlier. I woke to find the catheter inserted you know where, and an external fixator fitted to my leg – that’s like scaffolding screwed directly into the bones to hold them in place while they wait for the swelling to go down so they can then perform the actual surgery. I wore the catheter for…

  • The Other Me

    The Other Me

    ‘Pharmaceutical Daze’ i. Once I took an Ativan, everything grew still. Peacefulness swept over me. There was no anxiety, no unease of any kind; there was only a relaxation that was euphoric. The Rohypnol was different. When I took one at night, my whole body buzzed, like a bee was zipping around inside my head. Luckily, I was soon asleep, so I didn’t have to put up with the sensation for long. As for the Sinequan, I started with two a night. A month later, that was increased to three. Another month later, it was one in the morning, and three at night. But if they were making me feel…