Flashes and blurs…

The next thing you remember are the lights rushing by overhead and the bone-rattling vibration of the gurney underneath you.

Images come in flashes after that. Bursts of noise and color. The momentary panic of feeling a hard plastic oxygen mask clamped around your face. The sound of doors crashing open ahead of you. Trying to move and realising that your brain is too slow and your muscles aren’t working.

You’re in surgery for nine hours, and your last memory is of a nurse staring down at you, telling you to count backwards from ten. You don’t even make it to six.