heart of pinkness

The dichotomy of the love-hate war I feel every day of my life is much easier to see in detail before, during, and after anesthesia. While I insist that I'm naturally predisposed to a certain amount of terribly unempathetic judgmentalism layered in childhood as software programming over hardware autism spectrum, all it takes is just enough sedation to knock aside a mountain of pain to reveal I'm a tenderhearted soul with a deep need to let people know they're awesome and I love them.

Ever wonder what you say under anesthesia during procedures and tests? Because you can still respond to questions, and I'm one of those people who never shuts up and then remembers some of the stuff I'm technically not supposed to be able to remember later. I make really stupid jokes and laugh and talk to everyone around me like we're best friends, like a schloppy drunk who loves the world.

Ha, you didn't know that was a word, did you?

And then it all slowly creeps back over several hours (I'm one of the slow ones, nearly 2 days for me before it completely wears off) and the mean comes back because things get hard again. The hardest part was the few hours just before pre-anesthesia- no sleep or pain medication and almost no food for almost 48 hours, and no coffee that morning. To say I bit @bonenado's head off, chewed it up, and then spit it out doesn't even touch how awful I was. To say I'm grateful he doesn't crab back and dump my butt in a ditch on a highway is understated.

I'm deeply attracted to the layers of mirroring throughout the Sherlock series, both physically and psychologically, so I think it's cool someone else picked up on some of that.

failure to tweet is the main problem here

Yesterday was a debacle. I think three attempts to sedate me with valium is enough to call that one quits.

My counterintuitive med reactions get a little ridiculous, so my severe claustrophobia was heightened to "cat clawing its way out of" fill in the blank. Basically, the SpongeBob side of my brain kidnapped the Spock side and we all just left the building.

I'm skipping a few details. I'm pretty sure I looked a little psychotic, especially holding my chicken.

I immediately dug into deeper research (users comparing notes online) and feel confident, thanks to a couple of very heavy medicators, that just sticking to what I know is probably preferable for this morning's attempt. Xanax it is, then. But MOAR.

Panic disorder is a real thing. Aspienado growing up with panic disorder will hopefully help a few parents out there understand what in the world is going on inside their screamy little children. In the meantime, I learned yesterday that injection sedation is no longer used in MRIs without airway (yeah, been in this rodeo before, I know way too many things about sedation), so if I want to know what's going on in me, I must be brave and trust the xanax. Given my pill phobia, I'll get double points for bravery if I can do this.

I don't mention it very often, but I own nearly every Jackie Chan movie ever made and practically memorized his autobiography. Falling is an art, a skill developed with practice. My whole life has been about turning epic fail into epic fall. I'll try to remember that today and grit my teeth through another sedation attempt. I've mentioned before I'm the sort of person that wakes up from full sedation and talks to people during surgeries, right? If I could tweet from inside the MRI tube I'd be fine...