One of the Homeric tales in my family, retold at gatherings with my brothers, is called The Epiphany on the Big Dipper. Here is that tale…
From the late 1960s to the mid 1970s, my family made an annual visit to Geauga Lake, an amusement park in Ohio. One of my older brothers was taken on The Big Dipper, the original wooden roller coaster of that park, for the first time ever by our dad.
Anyone who’s ridden a coaster knows how the tension builds as you ascend that first, big hill. If it’s the first time ever on a coaster—as it was for my brother—the tension is doubled. You have no idea if you’ll even like a roller coaster, and you have no idea how big that first hill really is. Being a nine-year old kid, you have nothing to compare it to, and you might just freak out.
My brother started to freak out. Seated next to my father in the rickety box-car on a rickety, old, wooden roller coaster, tears filled his eyes and he cried out, “I want my Mother!”
Our father grabbed him by the back of his shirt and forced his head up. “Your mother can’t help you now so you may as well enjoy the ride.”
Surgery Was a Success
Last week, I had surgery to remove my prostate. (It was a success, thank you very much!) Having never had cancer, or any major surgery, I had no idea what was in store for me. I was like any of us riding a roller coaster for the first time, and the lead up to surgery was unnerving, like the goddam click-click-click you hear as the rail cars are dragged up the coaster’s tracks.
There was a lot to do before surgery and a lot to worry about. You have to get blood drawn, get a medical clearance from your doctor, and prepare your body. If you have a medical directive, you have to find it and provide it to your next of kin.
Among all this, you have a liquid diet the day before, plus you have to purge your bowels, plus you have to chug Gatorade in the hours leading up to the hospital so that you’re hydrated. It’s exhausting.
On top of all that, you have to consider the possibility that you won’t wake up, so if there’s anything your family needs to know, you have to tell them or write it down. Granted, there was no particular risk in my surgery, but you never really know until you wake up after.
The rest of the week was like the bumpy ride on an old, wooden roller coaster, with post-op bullshit and a bladder catheter to deal with.
Probably the one bright, shiny thing that resulted from this surgery for my prostate cancer is that I used the deadline of surgery to compel myself to finish this revision of the next novel.
Meanwhile, at My Writing Desk…
On the night leading up to surgery, I finished all the new scenes and inserted all the needed setup material to have a decent version of the latest novel. I emailed it to a loved one (just in case, you know?) and went into surgery knowing the rest of it was out of my control so I may as well enjoy the ride.
By the way, if I ever go to an amusement park and see a ride called “Bladder Catheter,” that’s going to be a hard pass for me.
Meanwhile, I have since placed that revision of the story with two other beta readers and one more will be added this week.
Maybe You’d Like
This Picayune I’ve joined with other Sci-Fi and Fantasy authors for a Free Sci-Fi and Fantasy book giveaway. Check it out and see what the covers say to you:
https://storyoriginapp.com/to/6HuK10s
Next Picayune
I’ll be back in two weeks for another Picayune at the end of July. Until then…
Thanks for reading the Mickey Picayune!
All the best,
Mickey
P.S. The Big Dipper seemed scary as hell to us kids in 1970, but it was nothing compared to today’s coasters. Same with The Blue Streak, which was the monster coaster of Cedar Point for decades. This new breed of coasters scares me to death; my mom can’t help me anymore, so I just don’t ride them.