PARAPHILIA TRASUMANAR

systemic levels simultaneously.

Even worse, all of was shrink-wrapped in the absolute and terrifying, continuing, morale certainty that the present moment was to be my very last. This was offset only slightly by an ever-dawning horror that even the blissful sleep of death was not to be in my immediate future.

At least, not yet.

Actually, if language could be compared with my early days in The Unit, I might say that my description to this point depicts an overall feeling that is perhaps five or six times less disturbing, painful, and terrifying than the actual experience.

But most important of all, it was here, in this endless and agonizing horror-trip occurring very near, if not directly within, the bottomless central plane of hell, that I picked back up on my lifelong pattern of laying down newly created memories that I here begin to retrieve.  Very, very slowly and all-too-suddenly, I became slightly more accustomed to these unpleasant bouts with human consciousness. Armed with this awareness, I began to take a cautious and very disturbing inventory of the modern-day inventions in the center of which I was entombed.

The massive black ski boots on my feet and upper ankles were called extraction boots. I later learned that these had prevented my comatose feet from a tendon-shrinking condition known in hospital slang as dropfoot.

My lower legs, from my boots up to my knees, were encased in very large and very tight inflatable plastic socks that were preventing the formation of blood clots in my calves and shins.

My thighs were apparently left bare, covered only with my hospital gown and dozens of painful red dots; telltale of the five or so intramuscular jabs I received on a daily basis.

Slightly higher up, a thick tube led from under my gown to a urine-filled bag tied to the side of my bed.

Unsettling…

Moving up to my mid-section revealed clear plastic cling wrap which covered most of my upper pelvis, belly, and lower chest. This mess, which was the center of attention, will be discussed in later chapters. Onward to my upper chest, which was covered with electrodes.

These apparently sent signals along thick, black cords reaching to the beeping computer monitors above and behind my head. I later learned that the computer readouts could also be monitored by the nurses and doctors sitting at a central command post that was not in view of my doorway.

Jutting out both sides of my upper ribcage were the chest tubes that had been stabbed between my ribs and into my lung areas to allow for the drainage typical of double pneumonia.

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