Saturday, March 11, 2006

Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar

It wasn't much of a surgery. I don't know why I was expecting it to be a full, cinematic surgery experience like last time. This time, he just sat me down in a chair in the trauma room. He gave me a massive dose of painkiller in the shoulder. I didn't feel anything during the operation. I did pass out right at the beginning. I don't know how long I was out. I woke up and didn't know where I was. I was on the verge of panic, because I couldn't figure out where I was. I wondered if I was dead, then immediately decided that it didn't matter if I was "alive" or "dead," because if I was experiencing consciousness, that was all that mattered, and I am all that exists, and everything that I was seeing was an illusion. Then I finally realized where I was: I was on Earth. And that reassured me. I yet didn't know more than that; whether I was in Mongolia or Australia or Mexico, or in a hospital or my kitchen or on a horse, I didn't know. They were clear thoughts, but they weren't formed with language -- they were like "thought-feelings." Then I realized that the doctor was asking me, "Zugeer uu? Zugeer uu?" And I started mumbling in English, which he doesn't know, "It's okay, it's okay. Fine," and finally, "Zugeer." I was fine after that. It seemed the first pin took no time at all, but maybe I had been passed out for most of it. The second one seemed to take a long time. He had a pliers, and he was pulling and twisting and yanking for ten or fifteen minutes. Eventually got it out, and stitched up the cut. Two stitches. No worries.

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