A memory from January 2001.
I flailed to consciousness, the way a submerged and drowning person reaches for the surface. Or at least it felt that way—the involuntary and instinctive struggle toward light and air and voices. Then a second or two of surprise as I realized that I wasn’t immersed in a cold tide but lying in a hospital bed, tied down by sheet, blanket and tubes going into almost every orifice. The rhythmic distant roar of the surf I had heard in my disoriented state was the hiss and sigh of the little motor inflating and deflating the anti-embolism cuffs on my calves. A nurse bent over me, and offered me ice chips. I sucked at them eagerly—I was parched, for all my dreams of water—and tried to focus my eyes as I took stock. Continued…
