September 9th, 2005, revisited

And you thought that I had forgotten. Nope, just waited until now.

There was one other milestone a few days ago, which is when I got off of dialysis after about 5 weeks. It’s a significant day, but I didn’t want to bore anyone with too many posts like this. But I do want those who may be interested to be able to read about the important parts, the major events that maybe we all share, the things that have redefined our lives. So on to today.

I think this is the day they did the tracheostomy. More to the point, this is the first day that I have a memory from. They started taking me off of the sedation a few days earlier, but after having that much in me for so long, it took a while to wear off enough. In fact, some of the effects lasted at least a year. But at some point on the 9^th I woke up enough to know that I was awake.

I remember two things, the first two things that I remember anyway, and for me they sum up the whole thing. I woke up, I saw my wife, and she told me that it had been six and a half weeks, and New Orleans was gone.

Everyone thought that I would be out for maybe three days. Somewhere in my head I knew that, and when my wife said six and a half weeks I was, well, I don’t think that there is a word for how I felt. Stunned works. With flabbergasted thrown in. And confused. I couldn’t believe it. I’m not sure I can even now. It’s too outrageous.

As for the New Orleans thing, well, I don’t think my wife said it like that, but I remember those two things so they get stuck together in my head. How could I have been under for that long? How does a city just disappear? Maybe you can understand my confusion.

Now, I’m not entirely sure that my memory of my wife telling me this is from this day. She told me several times and since I remember the 9^th I think of the memory as being of then – I put the two first memories, day and event, together. The truth is I don’t really remember that it was the 9^th. My first memory that stuck, the day that started a return of consecutive memory, was September 12^th. I remember things sequentially from then. I do remember that I was awake for three days where my memories were disjointed; I didn’t remember things in any particular order. I specifically remember one time when something happened and I thought to myself that I would remember it, but out of order. My brain was so mixed-up it noticed that it was mixed-up even in a mixed-up state. I don’t actually remember what that event was, though.

So I have a few memories scattered through the 9^th to the 11^th, and I’ll share some of them over the next few days.