So, I went to a glorious Pavement gig on September 21 with none other than Herr Gordo. It was great catching up, having a raucous night in the city, and feasting on some Nobu afterward.
However, a concert that was largely about celebrating the work of a great 1990s band wouldn’t be complete without another kind of flashback – to the Dinkins days, as Malkmus jokes in the liner notes to the S&E reissue. Evidently, I took a vicious blow to the back of the head that left me feeling concussy (as in, memory loss, profound disorientation, etc) and bloody, and staple-y (9 in the back of the head to close the wound.) I got the staples taken out today, and lord do I feel better than I did at around 7 am last Wednesday morning, when I woke up in Bellevue with nary a clue as to how I arrived there.
What have I learned? Well, basically, beyond the need for caution and occasional modesty about my levels of alertness after scotch, I’ve learned that it’s absolutely insane to allow football players to get back into a game after a concussion. The experience of thinking a thought but not being able to integrate it into the rest of my brain was incredibly confusing. I would think of an obligation, or something I wanted to do in the not-too-distant future, and instead of having that thought “downloaded” (for lack of a better word) and integrated into the rest of my brain, into whatever I was doing, the thought would just kind of float out there, with no apparent relationship to me or to my thought process.
Not having any memories is sort of a blessing, from a PTSD standpoint. I’m still fighting with Bellevue to get a copy of my medical records faxed to my doctor – a process that is unnecessarily difficult and laborious given the flintiness of the hospital’s medical records staff. Given that my wife works in a hospital, she’s aghast at the exchanges we seem to have with Bellevue every day. It seems to unnecessarily add salt to the wound of what was already a pretty harrowing ordeal.
Oh, and there’s no way they should have discharged me that morning. My memory of the morning is very episodic – Memento-esque, if you will – and not at all linear. I don’t know what kind of operation they’re running over there, but it’s not one that appears to put a premium on patient safety…
1 comment:
I still can't believe this is how your evening ended, and I apologize on behalf of New York City. (Although technically I can no longer speak for Manhattan.)
Still, 90% of that night was a great time, and I hope that in the long run that's the part that stays with you. And I hope your records ordeal ends soon.
Having a concussion sounds terrifying, I hope you never have another one. I'll stick with a good old-fashioned hangover, thank you.
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