I am fascinated by the isolated moments my memory can dredge up. Just flashes of a few seconds often with absolutely no context. What prompted my brain to store that moment? How weird that I barely noticed a moment not knowing I would recall it forever!
My tonsillectomy provides context for a few flashes. It is very rare for me to recall several moments from the same event but the time I had my tonsils out provides an exception. I remember three moments from the two day period when I was five years old.
I remember looking out the window of the elevated train as my mother pointed out the studio where they broadcast American Bandstand. (3 seconds)
I recall a nurse asking me if I didn’t want to eat the ice cream on my dinner tray and saying no although I really wanted it very badly. (5 seconds)
I recall being told to count backward from 100 and can envision the spiral I saw as I slipped into sleep. (3 seconds)
That’s it.
Takeaways:
My mother took me to the hospital on public transportation but not public transportation that ran anywhere near my house. I thought my mother said we had extra time so even though we wanted to go east, we rode to the west end of the elevated line and then turned around. I never thought about how we got there but realize we probably rode with my father to his office and then got the train. We were on his time schedule. All my life whenever I thought of that moment, I thought we took the ride because my mother liked to go. Anywhere.
In those days a tonsillectomy required overnight hospitalization in the children’s ward. I don’t know what they served for dinner but I didn’t like it. At home there was a rule that if you didn’t eat your dinner, you couldn’t have dessert. I was so ridiculously obedient and honest, I didn’t eat the dessert even though the nurse encouraged me. I enforced the rule myself. I still say I am obedient to a fault. I got Bs in obedience in second and fourth grade, but As every other year. What happened to that rebellious little second grader? At least now I would eat the ice cream.
When administering ether, the doctors asked you to count back from 100. I got to 97. I am surprised a five year could do that but apparently we all could. That was the common practice. The memory of that spiral is enough to make this much-more-than-five-year-old nauseous (or nauseated - I’m not here to argue).
I think I am going to start a list of these flashes. Maybe there is more to them.
© 2024 Jane Kelly
