It can be a wonderful thing to be a patient, because there at the hospital, the facility as we call it, @ people are there taking care of you; they tell you from time to time that things are "getting better," that a "cure" of sorts is in sight; there are other patients there to compare notes with. Such places can be inviting, or should i say, well-structured, living spaces with white walls, long corridors, vending machines, aquatic prints, fountains and garden paths; the food here is reliable if never delicious, the beds are high-enough off the ground, the ceiling lights adjustable. Coffee is available and with some effort kindred souls can be found here to converse with. That is encouraged in fact. And they promise people like ME field trips - to help jar the memory banks. Although I am quite old (as far as one can tell) I am suffering not from dementia, but from bouts of amnesia - i.e. having trouble holding all the episodes of my life together like a pack of cards: identity is an issue - not what I know - nor my memory of certain environments that seem familiar to me, but just that continuity of self or ego that we commonly hang out hats on. Yes - I recommend patient-hood, but the downside is the paranoia - the sense that one is different, that perhaps it is a form of punishment and that others connected with this facility cannot be entirely trusted - beginning with the doctors. Oh - the nurses and orderlies are fine as far as that goes, but it is not so clear when it comes to doctors, therapists and their motives. The small talk seems encouraging on the surface, but one cannot help but notice the biting subtext of a physician who is skeptical of one's condition - and who suspects a malingerer... Some days I am quite lucid with no trace of brain fog: I remember details from past decades, the weeks, months and years line up in orderly fashion. For a brief time - voila - everything in focus. Am I to blame for that? The mind will play tricks and we all know. One does not care to always think upon, dwell upon various eons of time - memories become selective and involuntary. And what happens when one begins to hear whispers - or the subtle laughs when they gather in quorums? And what about that too-abrupt "pat on the back" conjoined with the "Coming along nicely aren't we?" - a gesture of physical sarcasm to accompany the verbal dig. Am I such a lost cause? Do they not trust that my mind gets confused, sometimes, often, daily? Do they suspect a fraud? I tell you I DO have specific memories and yes - I can remember parts of a career, a personal life, colleagues, recreation, a facility for cotton sweaters (?), backgammon (?), an marriage (?), and children who've disowned me (?)... As has been said a million times - there is plenty of grant money to throw around - to experiment upon our specimens. I feel special in a way to be part of a study - to have lived through such-and-such a time and born the brunt of historical fate - with music from the 1970s imprinted on my psyche and images of open coastline along the Pacific, ranch homes, diners, record stores, and old television commercials taking up precious brain space. I had mentioned before the routine field trips. And yes - they at least know that taking me to lectures or book talks or to meet luminaries at the university is somehow stimulating or otherwise provocative for a person of my historical coordinates.
Today they have chosen a professor at the University of M..... - someone who perhaps knew of me in a past life - since this is the same institution that I was affiliated with once upon a time as an archivist. His expertise lies in the field of philosophy and anthropology or some other discarded version of the humanities. I imagine him to be an aged keeper of the flame with gray wisps of hair playing along his forehead, a bow tie, a tweed jacket, a pipe - someone right out of central casting. The doctors have predicted that it will make me quite envious and irritable to encounter someone so securely placed upon a perch of academia, patting me on the head for the day as his honored guest. Perhaps they are right to a degree - and that some part of me is aggravated by the whole endeavor. But life is such a chore for someone with repeated bouts of panic and episodes that can only be described as meltdowns and emotional outbursts - precursors or after-shocks of some nervous breakdown that i have blocked out - but which Nurse Amanda reminds me of before taking my medication.
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