Chapter 18

Suspend Disbelief

Those who can suspend disbelief are becoming a rare breed. A favorite saying in medicine, "If it's not written down, it didn't happen." Registered Nurses don't nurse ... they Chart.

DD had total recall, everything anyone had tried to teach her had made it in just so far, the tumor had kept it alive and safe, stored ... no ... BLOCKED ... in the 90 percent of her brain a human generally doesn't use.

Sitting there humming ... learning like a cognitive computer. Teaching itself from sheer boredom. How many terabytes of storage does the human brain have available in the dusty corridors of unused space?

How much information is stuck in inaccessible sectors in your personal hard drive?

Where did the answer, "Gary Cooper," come from when you were asked,

"Who was the Sheriff in High Noon?"

"Fuck ... I haven't seen that movie in 49 years"... (Even recalling the movie was released in 1952 is a miracle. Doing the math? Amazing.)

But it's there ... it might take three years to dredge the answer out of the dusty corridors ... just in time for me to wake my wife out of a sound sleep ... say "Gary Cooper" and fall immediately asleep. I even missed her, "That's right." She knew EXACTLY why I woke her up.

DD's tumor kept the information locked up. On inaccessible sectors on her hard drive.

With the tumor in place, the information stuck inside, oh, flashes of information 'leaked', just enough to keep DD from being a vegetable, enough to let her function subpar but not enough for even simple addition ... except for her almost uncanny ability to count change ... an idiot savant function? Almost everything else she had, she had from 'experience.'

Psychiatrists have ever debated whether man is intuitive or experiential, learned or innate, they, blown about by the 'next innovation' in the Art, for psychiatry is an ART and not a science, following this one or that one ... they seek a one size fits all science.

Carl Jung thought Sigmund Freud mad. Remember that the next time you think your wife or mother in law is crazy...

there are those Psychiatrists who will agree with you...

there are those Psychiatrists who will disagree with you...

there are those Psychiatrists who will wonder, "How long has this guy been paranoid?"

In any event, the tumor was gone ... if the truth be known, the good surgeon was 'practicing' on a cadaver ... he wasn't all that careful where the scalpel went.

DD was dead ... big deal.

The one thing no one had counted on? Our good fellow surgeon made his own scalpels ... from the sharpest material known to man ... obsidian. A two molecule wide edge ... Obsidian blades don't "Saw" they slip in between two molecules of skin and separate. Incisions made with obsidian heal faster, quicker and with less damage and trauma than the sharpest steel.

Fucking around in DD's brain with a piece of glass was exactly the correct thing to do.

Recovery was slow ... the cracked pelvis didn't help. Remember, no one told her she couldn't dance.

HMO's ... medical groups run by Accountants. The bottom dollar. Hospitals are expensive ... send 'em home. Get them out of that Ten Thousand Dollar a day bed and let 'em recover while they take care of the kids. And, for the most part ... it works ... for the most part.

DD wasn't in the US ... her pelvic surgery and her recovery cost Two Million Dollars, and she was out of the country two weeks. US to Switzerland to the US ... Two FUCKING Weeks. With an insurance conscious HMO running it, she would have had two, three days ... tops.

Her brain was healing ... it wasn't healed.

When Pyewacket came strolling down DD's street, she knew exactly where she was going. Pyewacket was heading for a brain that could suspend disbelief. The gates were slowly opening ... the flood of information had to be channeled before man could defuse her with disbelief. If anyone was the witch ... it was Pyewacket.

DD's brain was 'clawed'. Pyewacket...

DD's brain was 'on fire'. Pyewacket...

DD ran. Pyewacket...

The hundred mile an hour fastball. Pyewacket...

The accuracy. Pyewacket...

The rock landing in the driveway bloody side down. Pyewacket...

Thought transference. Pyewacket...

Pyewacket ... the magician ... before there was science.