A memory resurfaces. I am standing in a blue-curtained booth in A&E. A young nurse or doctor walks in and asks me where the patient is. I am the patient. I am here.
I am leaning on something. Probably medical equipment – it’s got wires and bits sticking out of it. There is nowhere to lie down and it hurts to sit. She asks me to describe my pain. Is it stabbing? Radiating? Is it dull? Acute?
I am struggling to think, and I tell her: if I were made of Lego, I would ask you to remove this section. She is patient and kind: OK, so the pain is there, but what is it like?
A longish pause. I perspire slightly while I fight the nausea. Then: if I were made of Lego, I would ask you to remove this section. I don’t know what else I can tell her.
I don’t know the right words for the pain. It’s just there. It just is. Please take it away.
The memory recedes. That was at least two years and one surgery ago.
I am here. I am now. I perspire slightly while I fight the nausea. Endo is never gone; it only sleeps. Or whatever the word is.
I am surfing Wikipedia to distract my mind. I learn what a lexical gap is. It also called a lacuna.
God, I could do with an effing lacuna right now. Right there, right where the pain is, right there.
If I were made of Lego, I would ask you to remove this section.
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