Fourteen days

XIV

…Go with some show
of inconvenience; sit openly—
to the weather as to grief.

Or do you think you can shut grief in?
What—from us? We who have perhaps
nothing to lose? Share with us
share with us—it will be money
in your pockets.
Go now
I think you are ready.

—William Carlos Williams
'Tract'


Fourteen days until I dance with the Doctor.
Two weeks is the life span of some insects. It is the length of most vacations. Whole viral civilizations rise and fall in two weeks. Imagine what a human could do?

During a consultation with Dr. Green, after stumbling my way through the gauntlet of neurological poking and magnetic prodding, we had a discussion about the possible complications. [another interesting euphemism that. Complication, or Seriously Bad Shit.] He talked about the 1% chance of dying due to adverse reaction to the anesthesia. He talked about the possibility that it might not be successful, or that it might only partially work.
What do you say to such things?
Of course, he was optimistic. After all, he is the guy with the scalpel and the magic hands.
He has done this over 400 times.
The obvious question of course is: Have you ever screwed it up?
I didn’t ask…but I think I will before we dance.

Later I learned that like an iceberg there was a frightening amount of possible side effects lurking below the placid waters of their optimism and short list of possible complications. I suspect that Dr. Green and his minions, have a policy of not terrifying their patients. But I’m a bit quixotic, and given to poking my nose into things. Among the possible SBS that could happen [but won’t happen…I know it won’t I know it won’t] is something called Cerebellar Mutism.
Mutism is considered a severe incoordination of the volitional motor aspects of speech. This is a symptom complex including decreased or absent speech, irritability, hypotonia (low muscle tone), ataxia (unsteadiness and deceased coordination) and the inability to coordinate voluntary movements, most commonly seen after surgery in the posterior fossa region of the brain. Dr. Loice Swisher, who I thank for her conciseness, wrote this definition. Mutism presents 24-48 hours post-op and usually runs a 7 week course before leveling out and eventually disappearing. I don’t think this will happen to me, but learning that it might is a double edged sword. This applies to so much I have encountered in life. I have never believed that ignorance is bliss, in every experience I have looked back afterwards and concluded that I would rather know than not, however difficult the truth may be. But this new revolting development requires that I challenge my own propensity for forming Beliefs.

In the past I have said that I agreed with Frank Herbert when he wrote that he preferred ideas to beliefs. Ideas are easier to change, less set in stone, less brittle and less likely to come true. Yes, I agreed, but I didn’t understand.
Beliefs are so much more dangerous.
What you believe will occur has an alarming way of doing just that.
As to any disparities between belief and what actually occurs, well, I will be able to judge that for myself, in fourteen days.
—End Transmission—
Dawn McKenzie