Day 5: The Week that Never Happened

Feeling Good!

A couple months ago I had surgery to repair a hernia. I took a week off from work to recover from having my belly cut open and a mesh sewn inside. Usually when you take a week off from work you leave and come back with things like: souvenirs, photos of your escapades and sometimes sand in your luggage.   

The week following my operation was a Vicodin-induced blur wrapped in pain and Netflix. Apparently Katie said that I didn't act too strange - in fact I seemed pretty much normal (for me at least). The problem is that I can't remember much about that week. Since the surgery, a few small things keep flooding back to me. Usually something has to happen in order to trigger them though. 

Just a few days ago I was looking in my Google Drive folder when I found a number of stories that I had written during “The Vicodin Times”. I was confused at first because I had no memory of writing anything during my recovery. I checked and sure enough the dates on the documents correlated with that week.

I read through each one carefully. It was the strangest feeling because they made perfect sense. I knew I had written them, because of the writing style and the way my brain works, but I obviously had no recollection of doing so.  

One of the stories was about two brothers stranded on a desolate planet shortly after a planet-wide apocalypse. They were alone, trying to get off the planet while surviving on canned beets (of all things). I read the story aloud to Katie and she started laughing, mainly because I was going into major detail (paragraphs) about how the beets were manufactured. Part of me wonders if the story was an emotional reflection of “Vicodin Dane” and his plea to escape the house. I don’t know where the beets came from though; I don’t think I had any while recovering.

Another story I came across was about a plant named Chuck and his adventurous journey from a nursery to a person’s windowsill. As I read the description of the plant and the house, I looked over at the windowsill and concluded that “Chuck” was in fact a real plant and the house in the story was my own. I found the realization kind of eerie and it almost gave me chills. It just felt like it wasn't ME that wrote it. I was stuck in the same recliner for most of the recovery week. The plant was probably my only companion while Katie was at work during the day.

I got upset a couple weeks post-surgery because I went to the fridge and opened up the box that contained my Harry Potter chocolate frog (from our trip to Islands of Adventure). I opened it only to find that it had been half eaten. I asked Katie about it and sure enough she produced a photo of "Vicodin Dane" holding up the frog with a big bite taken out of it. Apparently he did this while watching the chocolate frog scene in Harry Potter. He did save some for me, so that was thoughtful.

I’m sure that I’ll continue to regain some of my memories from that week, especially if I keep coming across things that trigger them. I still feel sad that I can't really recall the time off from work, but at least “Vicodin Dane” was kind enough to leave me a few laughs.