The Great Wall of China19. Hailey's Curious Labyrinth

I vividly remember the dream I had that night. I was in a maze, like a hedge maze, but it was under water. In order to get up to the surface to breathe, I had to find the end of the maze. In the real world, I have made my way through a few hedge mazes, some more difficult than others, but none of them required holding my breath. Even simple mazes, like Alice's Curious Labyrinth at Disneyland Paris, would be fatal without oxygen.

I woke up the next day fully aware of where I was and what was happening around me. A doctor I did not recognize looked at all of the machines and asked me some basic questions to make sure I did not lose my mind overnight.

For breakfast, I was given a small bowl of 黃粥, a type of rice porridge. No one ever said hospital food was five star cuisine, but this tasted like a bowl of styrofoam. Generally, when I am in a strange place and facing strange food, I will smell it first before tasting. Your nose knows when food is bad, whether it is something you eat every day or something you have never seen before in your life. This porridge had no smell whatsoever, which matched perfectly with the taste.

Following an MRI, the EVD was removed. That was an unusual experience that I cannot wholeheartedly recommend. Having a tube pulled out of your brain is one of those experiences you probably remember for a long time. Unless you forget. If you need a tube in your brain in the first place, forgetting things is always an option. The external ventricular drain is a catheter inserted into the skull to drain CSF and monitor ICP. I was unconscious when they put it in, but fully awake when they ripped it out. A nurse performed the procedure, with a doctor supervising. That did not make me feel better. Was it her first day on the job? Had she recently killed a patient while performing this very procedure? Could I get the doctor to do it for a small bribe?

The nurse removed the dressing on my head, sterilized and medicated the area, gently removed the sutures around the catheter and then yanked the thing out of me. I knew there was a tube in my head, but when I saw how long it was, I kind of freaked out a little. An hour or more – or less – later, Nurse Xihua came in to clean and redress the wound. Right after that, I was taken in for another MRI.

“Will I be radioactive?” I asked someone on the way to the MRI.

“Yes, of course,” they answered.

One of us might have misunderstood.