Invisible Man

pro·pri·o·cep·tion

/ˈˌprōprēəˈsepSH(ə)n/

perception or awareness of the position and movement of the body.

Comfortably Numb 

There is no pain you are receding

A distant ship, smoke on the horizon

You are only coming through in waves

Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying

When I was a child

I caught a fleeting glimpse

Out of the corner of my eye

I turned to look but it was gone

I cannot put my finger on it now

The child is grown

The dream is gone

I have become comfortably numb

David Gilmour, Roger Waters, 

When I came out of the OR, I was pretty conscious. I remember being parked on the gurney, waiting as they got a room ready (What, you didn’t know I was coming? Kidding.). I remember the ride, being wheeled up to the room. I remember B coming in, staying for just a few minutes, and a lot of what else happened then. So even though I couldn’t speak, I was pretty together from the perspective of awareness. It’s funny, I don’t remember being freaked out by not being able to talk, they must have explained that to me pretty early on. But I must have still been feeling some of the effects of the anesthesia. Just physically groggy. More physical than mental. To the point that when I was supposed to move, to slide myself further up the bed, it was like I forgot how to move. And it was weird how it took at least of couple of days for that to come back to me. If you want to move or be in a different position, just move your limbs and it will happen. Will it to happen. But I guess there was also comfort in the letting go, in being invisible, enjoying the sensation of “no body,” a type of weightlessness. Thinking now, it feels, not so much like an out of body experience, but rather like Decartesian dualism come to life. 

I mention this because even now, three or four week out, I am able to walk and to move about, I am making good progress on the recovery, I can even sleep. And yet, there is this deep “unfeeling” in my muscles. I can move them at will, they are not numb, but I can’t feel them. It’s not that I don’t have control, it’s that I need to “know that they are there.” I need to feel each one. I need to be able to feel deeper inside of me, to do more than just be able to control my skeleton.

I had done some light self-massage of the “donor leg” in the hospital. Working around the wound, and working on the left foot hoping to stimulate the nerves. Doing a bit on the thighs, forearms, and hands. But even as I started to move around more at home, this feeling of being “internally invisible” continued. And so I went and got a massage.

It was like the nervous system was re-awakened. I could feel again. And when I got home, the first words out of B’s mouth were that it looked like my color had returned. 

So let’s put the marketing material aside and simply say, “Go get a massage. It will make you feel human.” True dat.