The Longbow Papers

I have just learned from my orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Liu Zhongjun, that I will finally enter Beijing Hospital # 3 this next weekend, May 30, for a very difficult, high-risk surgery to repair both old and new injuries to my spinal chord and spinal column--two metal plates will be screwed into place in the hope that I will walk freely again. I have been lying in bed for 4 months now awaiting this surgery. I will not go into the reasons it took so long for this to happen: after all, this is China. And most folks, most of them Chinese, think I am absolutely out of my mind crazy to have such problematical surgery here rather than in America.

My answer is always the same: China is my home now. I left the USA six years ago and no longer have a home there anywhere. Also, the people I most want around me as I go into surgery, and one would hope out of it, are here.

I have no delusions. This is dangerous surgery and I will be a "foreigner" in a setting that quite rarely has accommodated same. I am scared. Very scared. Yes, I have had 3 lumbar fusions in the States back during the 80's; I have broken most of the major bones in my body, including my neck, and have had operations to remove any number of body parts, from a big toe to my gall bladder, plus tumors in my lung and intestines, and the surgical inflation of a collapsed lung, among so many other maladies that come with living life immoderately. For various reasons, however, this surgery scares the hell out of me.

But, come what may, I will do it here; in China. The surgeon has an excellent reputation, and I trust him.

I have made many enemies, and generated many critics, in my life and through my published works. I regret only some of them. I have made even more friends. I ask for friend and foe alike to take a moment in these weeks to come to send good wishes my way cosmically, and prayers, even though I am not a "believer." I need all of the luck and good will that is possible for a life-long heretic such as myself to engender. Please.

I have posted the picture above, from the recent gala event celebrating the opening of the Chinese film, The One Man Olympics, because not only did I defy doctors orders and leave my bed and home to attend the event, in great pain and with much risk, I am laughing greatly for the first time in a long time. They have just presented one of the many awards of the night, a real "starters" pistol to Li Zhaolin, a graduate from China's Central Academy of Drama, and a true athlete, who stars as Liu Changchun in the film--we just called him "The King" on the set ala Elvis Presley. For many different reasons I had a good belly-laugh at the moment.

I truly hope I will have many more such moments.

 

8:37 PM / Editor / permalink    1 comments

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1 Comments:

Dear Prof. Bosco,

You'll get over the surgery.I trust Dr. Liu Zhongjun. And more importantly, I trust you. You deserve many more happy moments.

You'll be all right,really you will.

Best wishes,
Jade

By  Jade, at 3:47 AM  

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