Drugs

I talked to my friend, Scott, yesterday, who is at the tail end of a program of study to become a Physician's Assistant.  He gave me some basic information about one of the drugs I got in my IV before surgery.  I thought it was called Tercet, but then I remembered that a tercet is a three-line stanza in a poem.  A haiku is a tercet, and a longer poem may be composed of tercets.  There is a fine metaphor hiding somewhere in here.  I do not believe I was injected with a three-line poetic stanza, although my memory is a little shaky. 

So then I thought that this drug was called Verset--starts with V, acts similarly to Valium.  But a verset is a short lyrical poem.  Again with the poetry theme.  A verset also has something to do with sacred music.  It turns out I got the spelling wrong.

Vercet is a drug commonly used before surgery.  The brand name is actually Versed, which brings the poetry theme around a third time.  Vercet is supposed to relax a patient to reduce anxiety before surgery.  That's what I got.  It can also put a patient to sleep.  What I learned from Scott was that it has amnesiatic properties as well.  So Vercet got pumped in through the IV and I went to the land of the fairies before all the slicing and dicing began.  As you may know, the fairies are very secretive.  They don't want anyone to know they really exist.  So they make you forget everything.

When a patient is under the influence of Verset, he may actually be awake and conversing.  I imagine I was asking questions, as that is what I had been doing throughout this whole build-up to surgery.  The medical staff could have told me anything and I would not have remembered it.  That is some powerful and effective stuff that I was not expecting.  I had heard about the Valium possibility, but not the possibility of amnesia.  I had not been looking forward to the sedation--how it might be administered and what I might feel--so that is one less potentially unpleasant experience to worry about.  It's Vercet's silver lining, if I may offer a slightly used metaphor.

When I began having back pain and sciatic nerve woes, I had vowed that surgery would be the last resort.  I would try everything else first.  I have no regrets about my choices.  Here I am, surgery behind me (so to speak), taking Percoset, having taken a whole slew of drugs I had never heard of before this.  I am a modern medicine poster boy.

The Percoset has made me woozy yesterday and today.  In fact, I feel a little light-headed right now.  My big adventure yesterday was walking to the mailbox at the end of the driveway and back.  I think I will put that off until this afternoon.  The couch and I are going to continue the conversation we started yesterday.  She is taciturn, but she is wise.  I am hoping this morning that she will share with me some more of her poetry.