Something is afoot!

This post will likely meander. There is a literary bent to it though, so stay to the end!

While not everyone knows this about me, I used to run, jump, constantly push myself to new limits as an athlete. I've run half-marathons and hiked atop glaciers. I never suspected that pain would stop me in my tracks, but here we are. It's devastating not to have the range of motion I used to have.

After multiple doctor visits, hours of stretching, and acquiring hundreds of dollars of orthopedic gear ( I seriously own TWO FOOT MASSAGERS), I am finally having surgery on my feet! WOOHOO!

This goes down a week from Thursday.

I'm excited - of course I am...who wouldn't be? I'm also feeling more than a little defeated (pun totally intended). If I thought my mobility was shitty before, well, it's about to get challenged on a whole new level.

I am at my most vulnerable.

For those who are curious about the precise nature of my ailment, I have bunions. You have probably heard of these occurring in the elderly population, or if you're older, you might have experienced the discomfort first-hand. Bunions also affect a second group of people - the highly active. When you were born with bad feet to begin with, any and all stress wreaks havoc on the foot. When you lean to the other side to reduce the pain, you can cause join problems.

The whole thing sucks. And sometimes surgery is the only option.

I am not afraid of a knife cutting away bits of bone. I'm not bothered by having stitches or needing to eventually get them taken out. It's the anesthesia that scares me.

Irrational? Probably? But also really fucking scary.

I've been put under once and it felt like no time elapsed. I was counting down and then I was waking up. No time had passed. It couldn't have. Yet, 4 teeth were gone. My tongue explored the little indentations in my gums where my wisdom teeth had once been. It was sorcery plain and simple, and I never meant to experience it again.

Fast forward to 2022. It IS going to happen again, and my brain is churning.

I asked a community of horror readers for recommendations centered around the notion of anesthesia and what happens when you go under. Exposure therapy, I guess. GIVE IT TO ME RAW.

There are apparently few works on this topic.

To clarify, I don't want books about people waking up in the middle of a procedure or prone bodies that feel pain and can't communicate it. I want something that explores

where

we

go.

If we were just asleep, wouldn't it feel like it? Anesthesia feels different.

Deep down I know that there is (PROBABLY) nothing devious going on, but this also feels like a delicious liminal space worth probing and I fully intend to write a collection of stories about it in my first week of recovery. Will I succeed? Will it be any good?

That remains to be seen.

Here's where you come in.

Recommend me things to read! Yes, I have plenty of books. You might still be able to sell me on something new. Who knows? Perfect your pitch and hurl it in my general direction.

Otherwise, I may actually have to fall into a black hole of dubious Netflix programming. And I'm not confident I'll be able to escape once that happens.

I'm scared shitless, guys. Tell me jokes and recommend books, and tell me I wrote a thing you liked (Preferably before I fall under the spell of the hydrocodone)