Shit happens

This is a list of the physical traumas that I experienced growing up.

1. Circumcision Age 1
2. Tonsillectomy Age 5
3. Cancer: Aggressive fibro mitosis; yearlong earache Age 6-7
4. Radical Surgery to remove cancerous tumor Age 7
5. Reconstructive Surgery Walter Reade Hosp Age 8
6. Reconstructive Surgery Walter Reade Hosp Age 9
7. Reconstructive Surgery Walter Reade Hosp Age 9
8. Reconstructive Surgery Letterman Hosp Age 10
9. Reconstructive Surgery Letterman Hosp Age 10
10. Reconstructive Surgery Letterman Hosp Age 11
11. Reconstructive Surgery Letterman Hosp Age 11
12. Reconstructive Surgery Letterman Hosp Age 12
13. Reconstructive Surgery Los Angeles Hosp Age 13
14. Cancer: Tumor on arm; removed Age 14
15. Broken Arm Age 15
16. Looped testicle & knotted cord; max painful Age 16
17. Detached retina; right eye Age 17

A person is not made by their experiences but by their reaction to their experiences.

To better understand the effect my experiences relating to cancer from age 6 through 14 had on me I will describe the details of the events followed by my reaction and the effect on my thinking and feelings.

Things began when I was 6 years old with an earache. It went away and the episode was taken to be as a facet of a cold or flu. We were in the process of moving to Germany. After settling in Deutschland the earaches continued. Intermittent at first, then chronic. The doctors tested and probed for explanations, taking x rays, blood tests and prescribing drugs of various kinds to combat potential causes. All to no effect. In fact the earaches worsened in intensity. They had persisted for almost a year. The lead doctor became so concerned he recommended sending me back to the states, to Walter Reade Army Hospital in Washington D.C. where they had a state of the art, bigger x-ray machine. Arrangements were made for me to fly on a military transport. My mother with two small children and father with military obligations were unable to get away. I went alone. I was taken to the airport in Germany and put on the transport. The plane flew first to the Azores then across the Atlantic to Washington D.C. where arrangements were made to take me to Walter Reade. I checked in to the hospital, was taken to a ward where I would stay while doctors x-rayed and probed and tested me. It was assumed to take about a week then I was to fly back by military transport to Germany. The next day I was examined by the doctors and the testing began. I would not get back to Germany for thirteen years.
The bigger x-ray machine revealed a large tumor growing through the skull (which helped mask its presence in the smaller x-ray machine). The tumor was almost through to the brain. The doctors said it was an aggressive juvenile fibro mitosis of the lower parotid gland. A week of testing and examination determined it was life threatening and immediate radical surgery was recommended. My parents were informed, written permission to operate sent back from Germany. My parents began the time consuming process of returning to the US-requesting transfer approval from the Military command and reassignment to the Pentagon in the US, waiting for the military to grant permission to move and issue orders for replacement personnel. Then initiate the termination of assignment and moving out of housing and packing and transport of belongings, all the while taking care of two young children and arranging transportation back to the US and a temporary place to stay once they got back.
Meanwhile I remained in a ward in Walter Reade while the doctors planned and arranged for the radical surgery to remove the tumor. It was to be a complicated operation requiring 5 teams of doctors. Availability of critical doctors and required facilities determined the timing. Surgery was scheduled a week later.
I sat in a hospital ward watching TV like Disney World and Lassie and whatever the soldier patients watched as well as the weekly B movie shown to entertain the patients.
I had no idea of what was going on. The doctors who examined me never informed me of the results. Some days later I was told they were going to operate and make the ear aches go away. I had no idea what an operation was or what was going to happen during an operation. I asked no questions because I had no idea what to ask. Being an Army brat I had ben trained to be quiet and talk only when talked to. I did what I was told as best I could without complaint or reaction. There was nothing else to do. I knew something was wrong. I had been put on an airplane and flown alone across the Atlantic. I ended up in a hospital ward with 10 other soldiers where meals were delivered bedside three times a day. I made my bed every morning. I was seven years old. I wasn’t exactly alone, there were doctors and nurses, the other patients on the ward were young men in various states of recovery or awaiting surgery. Most kept to themselves. There wasn’t much to do. I wandered around the hospital.
The scheduled operation became immanent. I hadn’t talked to my parents in two weeks. I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t confused. I wasn’t anything. My mind was largely blank. I awaited the future without expectations. It would arrive the day of my operation.
The day of the operation was different. No breakfast came for me. I was told to stay in bed. After a while I told the nurse I was hungry and thirsty. She looked at the clipboard hanging at the end of my bed. You can have some water. She went and came back with a glass of water. I drank it down. She told me “The operation is scheduled for 11.”
This was the first I was told anything about the operation. It was always “the operation is scheduled for… or tomorrow is the operation”. She came back an hour later and told me “You need to go to the bathroom. I’ll be back for your shot in an hour.” No body told me about a shot. I went to the bathroom and returned to my bed and waited for the shot. She came and gave me a shot in the butt. “This will help you relax.” She said. Soon I fell asleep.
An orderly woke me up. “It’s time.” There was a gurney near by. The orderly picked me up and put me on the gurney and strapped me down. He took the clipboard from the end of my bed and put it under the strap.
He wheeled me out of the ward and down the hall. We turned and went down a corridor and through some swinging double doors. The walls were a light pea soup green. I stared up at the ceiling. In the middle fluorescent lights passed by. We went on and on turning left then right and finally came to a stop. He moved the gurney up next to the wall, took the clipboard from under the strap and disappeared through a door down the hall. I lay there. Finally the orderly came and wheeled my through the door. The room smelled of antiseptic. It hurt my nose to breathe in. He undid the strap, picked me up and put me onto a pad under a giant spot light that glared down on me. He strapped me down across my stomach patted me and left. I lay there under that lamp. Nothing happened. I could hear activity all around me but I could see nothing. Finally a doctor came into view and told me we were about to begin. He disappeared and then returned. He had something in his hand. It was heading for my face. Liquid dripped from it. He put it over my mouth and nose. It stung. It smelled awful. I held my breath. I resisted. Moving my head back and forth then kicking. I freed my arms from under the strap and grabbed at the doctor’s arms. He let go and moved back. I calmed down breathing deeply. There was some shouting. A couple of minutes later the doctor returned into view. Someone grabbed my legs, then each arm. Finally someone grabbed my head and held it down. I watched in panic as my mouth and nose was covered by the noxious smelling thing. I tried rocking but couldn’t move. I began to spin, my hearing was echoing. Different colors passed by me. I was falling down a tunnel that disappeared into the distance. Different colors on the walls of the tunnel flashed by. There were tunnels going off the side every so often. Down and down I fell. Then I got control and started to fly moving side to side looking down the tunnel for something. I spotted something and moved next to the wall my right arm almost touching. I spotted a tunnel going off to the left. I arced away from the wall heading across to swoop into then fly down the new tunnel. I sighed and passed out.
The next thing I remember was a groggy awareness, blurred vision, muddled sounds. I felt sick, my head hurt. I was spinning. I threw up. I passed out. Woke up. Someone was holding a glass of water to my mouth. I took a sip then another. I don’t know how long it took before things stabilized. And I became dimly aware of myself.
It is worth describing what I was told about the operation itself. It lasted over 16 hours and took 5 teams of doctors. The first team of doctors were the anesthesiologists, responsible for putting the patient to sleep and keeping him there for the duration of the surgery. Since the operation lasted over 16 hours several teams of anesthesiologists were needed. They monitored blood pressure, heartbeat and other vitals to determine consciousness. The preferred anesthesia of the time was ether. Like chloroform, or laughing gas it was inhaled. Sodium Pentathol eventually replaced ether to put patients to sleep, due to the inexactitude of controlling the amount inhaled. Some took deep breaths or were agitated and absorbed more others less not enough to maintain unconsciousness very long and becoming conscious during surgery was not only traumatic but as dangerous as over absorbing and depressing the body fatally.
The next team of doctors were responsible for initial penetration and removal of tissue to reveal the tumor. Skin was cut, things in the way were removed or shifted out of the way. Part of this team remained during the rest of the surgery sucking up blood and removing debris as the operation continued. Specialists performed necessary procedures to remove direct obstructions but also other body parts affected. A lot of things on the left side of the head were interrelated and affected. After access to the tumor was made, a team of specialists came in to remove anything in the vicinity of the cancer that might have cancer cells. This is why it is called radical surgery The lower part of the external ear was removed, the hearing and balance organs were removed. A muscle that ran behind the left ear and down the neck was removed, affecting my left shoulder blade, the jaw hinge bone was removed. The seventh nerve was cut which resulted in loss of all sensation and muscle control on the left side of the face. The lack of feeling was probably a godsend in that it mitigated the amount of pain I could feel due to the surgery. In addition cutting the seventh nerve resulted in the loss of control of the left side of the mouth so I was unable to smile, it also resulted in drooling and finally and most importantly the loss of the ability to automatically blink the left eye. A team of specialists were brought in to deal with this. Without blinking the eye surface would blister and self-destruct rendering the eye useless. The team performed a lidectomy which involved sewing the left edge of the top and bottom eyelids together. This restored partial automatic blinking covering the top ¾ of the eyeball. The next team was responsible for removing the tumor itself. These were bone specialists since the tumor was imbedded in the skull. After cutting it out the skull region was scrapped to remove potential cancer cells. Finally the last team was responsible for putting things back together as best possible then closing up and suturing then bandaging. In my case, there were bandages to cover the left eye and the left side of my head. Bandages were wrapped completely around my head. Finally the anesthesiologists were responsible for terminating anesthetics and stimulating the body to assist wakening. After over 16 hours I was then wheeled out of the operating room and taken to intensive care.

I was a vastly different person when I woke up from the operation than the day before.

Before the surgery I had only a vague idea about what an operation was and what it meant to be a patient in an operation. Ignorance is bliss. After the surgery I knew exactly what an operation was and what it meant to be a patient. It was indelibly burned into my body and seared into my mind. It was something I would never forget, could never forget.

What changed me? What changed in me? What had happened?
Before the operation I was tabula rasa. Completely blank. Without a care in the world. Life was a comfortable series of moments. I was seven years old. A typical, average, normal kid. Nothing special. I was brought up in the cocoon of military order, discipline and safety. If at seven years old I could hop onto a military transport alone and fly across the Atlantic and check into a hospital by myself, be examined by doctors who informed my parents but not me that I had cancer, was scheduled for an operation I was told nothing about, all those days on my own, alone, might seem extraordinary but to me it was not extraordinary or special. It was just something I had to do. To not do it would have been a problem. In a sense it was memorable but what do I really remember of those days before the operation. I remember looking out of the window of the military transport during the flight, looking at unknown lands or islands or vast sections of water called the Atlantic that we flew over.. Outside of that I was mindlessly filling time. I wasn’t dissatisfied. It just was what it was. Not bad, sort of good. Watching TV and movies, wandering around, a place to sleep, meals brought 3 times a day, nurses to watch over me, long before the threat of random violence or crazed killers and the artificial aura of fear that permeates this century
That clarity or absence of thought or worry reminds me of some kind of meditation.
It was a memorable life if only for the lack of memorable moments, but not a bad life. In a way it would be considered a relief life if you had been through hell in the previous life. The changed me however considers that previous life I lived to be a waste of time, a life of wasted time. That was one change.
So how and why was I changed by my experiences during and after the operation.
I came out of the operation with a spinning mind, a mind on fire, a mind that is still spinning, still wary, Looking for answers, trying to make sense of it all. Once kick started, still going after all these years. The operation began with a bang, the anesthesiologist trying to smother me, then having his minions holds me down, trying to kill me, without warning, without explanation. I died on that operating table but my spirit escaped through tunnels to another world another reality. My death made me realize I had only myself to rely on. My parents had abandoned me, everyone lied to me if only by withholding the truth. I could trust no one but myself. My mind was aroused from its slumber, alert, energized, spinning with questions searching for answers, for sense, for knowledge that would protect me, keep me alive, guide me, work together with other facets of myself now aroused by my experiences. I frantically worked to make sense of it all, to figure out what to do since I was on my own, there was no one to trust, no one. I pondered, contemplated, questioned, sought answers. I had time to think. I was alive, there were no operations in the immediate future. My needs for food, rest, and safety were taken care of. There would be few interruptions, but people would leave me alone to recover, to work things out. It took awhile to make any progress. Everything was a jumble. I sought the master solution, the cosmic answer that would resolve all questions. After collapse of collapse I started over finally settling on slow but steady progress-two steps forward, one step back, repeat. It felt right. But it meant it would never end, never could end. I was OK with that. It’s still spinning. A changed person. There were other changes.
I was alone from the day I left on the transport from Germany until the day of the operation. But it was what came after the operation that changed me. It would be three weeks before my parents visited me in the hospital having just arrived from Germany. In fact considering all that they had to do (from officially requesting reassignment and waiting for the wheels of the military bureaucracy to approve and arrange a replacement officer to packing and moving belongings, arranging transportation and housing in DC with two kids in tow) was pretty remarkable. But a seven year old doesn’t understand such things. I was alone and hurting, confused. With the loss of balance organs I had to learn to walk again. I had to learn how to eat and drink without drooling. Seeing with one eye. And all the while telling myself that the pain meant I was healing. Once I recovered enough I would wheelchair up to the mezzanine window at the front of the hospital and look out into the parking lot watching for my parents. Day after day. I was changed on a very deep level.
There were other effects that are discussed in other articles. To deal with the changes my spinning mind searching for answers arrived at a solution to help decide what to do. This was a solution to the quandary of deciding what to. Otherwise I realized without a method I would be unable to do anything except eat when hungry, sleep when sleepy, and shit when needed. These were the first rules or guides to clear the muddle of my nascent mind.

The operation wasn’t the only experience that affected me in a way that changed the direction of my life.

This is a list of experiences that I feel dramatically affected my life.
If the experience hadn’t occurred I would be a totally different person.

1. The “Sensation” sliding down a pole; entering adolescence
2. Cancer Surgery and following reconstructive operations
3. Taking LSD for the first time
4. Going to Stanford
5. Returning to Stanford & getting a Master’s Degree