I'm getting a great big slit carved in so I can be a cyborg. · 9:55pm February 19th
Two weeks from this Wednesday, I am going to be slit up a treat.
Over nine months ago, I broke my wrist trying to put up a dreamcatcher my spouse Aedina made for me. I was standing on a slippery table in socks and when the room spun I knew I was in trouble. My autonomy put out my dominant hand to break my fall, and it did so, by dispersing impact energy through snapping the bones of both my radius and my ulna. Right near the caps at the end, close to the wrist. A classic 'old lady' osteoporotic Colles fracture. At the time, I refused immediate surgery, because I was terrified of it for a lot of reasons.
It didn't heal well. I've been in pain, and I've been mourning the compromised function of my wrist, fingers and hand. I've been in constant pain and/or discomfort.
So, I'm going to have my wrist surgically re-broken.
What they will do is slice me up "down the street, not across the road", and use retractors to pull the flesh wide open like a purse. Then the surgeon, Dr. Hwang, will carefully carve around the tendons and nerves and retract those out of the way. Wide open, he will take a tool and lop the head of my Radius - the long arm bone closest to the thumb side of the arm - then position it more correctly. Then come the titanium plates and screws straight into the bone to hold the pieces in place. Then it's happy fun sutures all around, and three months of agony and hell as the bone regrows to fill the gap. I will be bionic. A cyborg. Part metal. I will have implants. But, sadly, no floating holographic display. Where's my Conversion Bureau Era Permatech? Oh, I'm eighty years too early for that. Damn. That would have been cool. Oh, yeah, as I was saying, it's going to hurty-hurt-hurt.
But. There will be drugs. "Being human is a condition that requires a little... anesthesia." (Bohemian Rhapsody, 2018)
Hopefully lots of drugs. Not a fan of agony. I've experienced a lot of it in my life, and it sucks. That's a Protip, by the way. Agony sucks. Good to know. Don't recommend. No stars. Avoid. I'd add 'thumbs down' but I can't do that right now. Hence the surgery.
If all goes well, I may be able to one day use my dominant hand to help myself get up, carry heavy things like dishes to the table, and even unscrew caps on bottles and tubes. I might even be able to bend it enough to wipe my own ass. That's a very handy thing to be able to do, by the way. Nobody likes having a smeary baboon ass. Except maybe baboons. Apes Love It! ™
Now, obviously, I am "terrified beyond all rational thought" (Ghostbusters, 1984) about this entire issue.
This Friday I go in for an EKG to see if my pre-damaged heart can take the slicing and dicing under anesthesia. Ain't life grand?
So, why am I burdening you all with this? I have no other forum of worth to whinge and whine in. Some of you might care. Or at least find it mildly interesting. And for me, writing it down publicly makes it real. It also makes it so I can't back out. Shame is a powerful motivator, perhaps the oldest social technology for compliance.
And I have a history of this being a problem, one I have fought before.
When I was having my transition surgery, forty years ago, as I was laying on that cold table, my legs started moving of their own accord. By themselves. It was as if a ghost had possessed them. They started running, by themselves. I have never experienced anything like it before or since. I didn't know that was a thing that was possible.
I had to grab the sides of the table I was laying on and hold on for dear life as my legs tried to - rather clumsily - drag me off the table and onto the floor. They kept going at it for some time. I couldn't believe what I was experiencing. It wasn't me. No part of my conscious mind was moving my legs. They were being controlled by something primal and deep, something not part of normal consciousness at all.
Eventually, they started to slow down. They ran out of energy, ran out of whatever signal was making them move in a complex running motion. A few more, now weak, flopping attempts, and my legs came back on line to my control again. I held on still, for a few moments, just in case. I tested my feet and toes. They were tired, but seemed completely back under my authority. Shortly after that, I was wheeled in.
By writing down the fact of my getting hacked and slashed in two weeks, I am holding on to the side of the table, through the mechanism of social shame. I've said what I am going to do. I am deeply affected by shame. I cannot back out now.
Even though this scares me shitless. No, that's not correct - I'm shitting uncontrollably from the stress. It's scaring me shitfull. No, that definitely doesn't work. There needs to be a proper term. "I say, old bean, I'm currently frightened to the point of shitfullness!" Almost sounds Victorian. "I've gone completely shitwilly in here! Somebody call the maid!"
Oh, Goddess.
Oh well.
Thanks for hearing my piton, hammered into the rock of social compliance. Now I have to go get slitted and fit for fixtures. It will be some time, after my surgery, before I can type again. I get to do physical therapy all over again - Huzzah! The therapy hast been doubled!
Wish me luck.
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Good luck. Hope the pain meds are good ones.
Oh god that sounds horrifying, wishing you all the best! May Mecha-Chatoyance have mercy on us
There is no truth in flesh, only betrayal.
There is no strength in flesh, only weakness.
There is no constancy in flesh, only decay.
There is no certainty in flesh but death.
I've never undergone anesthesia yet (probably will this year, turning 45 and that means colonoscopy), but I will probably make my final words before going out, "I want to emigrate to Equestria."
Just in case.
Best of luck, Chat. See you on the other side, and may your rapidly vacating bowels be as unjustified as they can be.
eek! The horror! Surgery is not my idea of a good time. As for forums of worth, why whinge and whine elsewhere when you already have the best right here?
Perhaps you can install one of those speech to text doohickies to get by while you heal. Heal quick!
Best of luck! They've gotten much better at the sort of thing, nowadays!
We do care, and on the bright side, speech-to-text has come a long way so yay? For all the gruesome details, this sounds straight forward. The therapy will be the real misery in this. We wish you strength to endure and triumph!
I hope the surgery goes well, and the recovery better! 💐
I hope it goes well for you.
An augmetic radius! Ave Deus Mechanicus!
Glad you're still alive and kicking. Hope things go, if you forgive the term, smashingly.
Good luck~! I've been anesthe-whateveried more times than I can count and am still kicking, so maybe that will give you some secondhand 'it wont be so bad' hopefully~!
"Good luck" sounds kinda wrong in these circumstances, but still... Good luck! Take care of yourself.
Best wishes and have a speedy recovery.
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By it's action, flesh reveals the truth which is hidden;
Fragile and puny, flesh tames the skies and drives the glaciers;
Through decay flesh transforms the world;
Flesh is forever dying and yet is immortal.
I wish you well, Chatoyance. May your healing be smooth and less painful than you fear.
aye best of luck lassy and may the Omnissiah bless your new found augment.
Yeah, definitely best of luck to all involved. I really wish you, dear Chatoyance, to be surprized positively after everything that should be done will be done.
I am a little bit cyborg myself, with a plastic lens in my eye :-)))
So... keep strong. And we will wait for your return.
Ouch. Best wishes for a speedy recovery to you!
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Is that your original?
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Well yes, it's a reply to yours! It's an evolutionary ecological take on the influence of life on this giant space rock we've colonized.
"We are so small beneath the stars
So large against the sky"
- Leonard Cohen, Stories of the Street.
Good luck! I hope everything goes well.
And luck i wish, to you Chat!