Ether
The Scent of Death

In July of 1958, while visiting my friend Ake and his family in Stockholm, I broke my right arm.

A covey of pre-teen boys, me included, were macho-ing (swinging) across a narrow and shallow crevice on a rope tied to a branch high above and spanning this gulf—hanging down from it for us to grab as we leaped. It was a thick rope, sturdy and dry and hard—if not impossible—to miss unless you meant to. We’d make a running start—four, five steps were sufficient—leap, grab the rope, swing forward, swing back to gain momentum and gather our wits, then forward again to then let go (timed just right) to land, safe and sound, on the far side of the baby-chasm.

So, no problem in other words, easy as pie; only when I ran, jumped, grabbed the rope, swung first out and then back and then out again for the letting go for the far side of this crevice, instead of smoothly landing I toppled and moved to stop my fall with my now outstretched (and all-too straight and rigid) right arm, and as fate would have it, and freakily, one of the bones above my elbow just snapped from the precision straightness.

I knew right away that something was wrong, but not sure exactly what until I looked down at my freaked-out arm and could see the end of a bone poking (though not breaking) the skin just above the inside of my elbow from below.

Big to-do, naturally. It didn’t hurt inordinately, mustn’t have (was I in shock? I wonder), for I made it home to Ake’s eighth-floor apartment under my own steam (I still remember the elevator ride)—accompanied by my friend, naturally—and from there, once his dad took a quick look at me and my useless arm, all the way to the not-so-far-away hospital quite with it, still. No, though it strikes me at strange today, looking back, I don’t remember pain, not much of it anyway.

July is the holiday month in Sweden and in 1958 most people took this tradition very seriously—religiously almost—so most city-dwellers had headed out of town for their summer cottages and the emergency room was virtually empty.

I remember the waiting room being quite dark and unusually cold: a cold marble floor, cold gray or light-yellow walls, and a cold stone bench to sit and wait on. Ake’s dad, Sven was his name, had told me that I had broken my arm but that they were going to fix it just fine here at the hospital. I was sitting on the cold bench hoping Sven was right, though I didn’t get to hope for very long for I was probably the only casualty they had to deal with at the time and dealt with I was, at good speed.

I was scared though, really scared. It was as if the shell of the shock had begun to crack, letting fear percolate to the surface. Something terrible had happened, and it had happened to me.

Off into another cold room, where X-rays soon confirmed the break, as if you couldn’t tell by looking—but I guess they needed the gory details to set the bone properly—and then it was me upon a bed of sorts (I don’t think it was an operating table, not that I recall) and a white mask was placed over my nose and mouth and then somebody told me to count backward from one hundred to one. Fine, I probably nodded or said, “Yes.”

Then fell the first drop.

“One hundred, ninety-nine.”

And then the second drop.

“Ninety-eight, ninety-seven.”

And the third.

“Ninety-six, ninety-fiiiiiive.”

And the fourth, or fifth or…

“Ninety-fo…”

Next thing I know, I am re-entering our solar system, from I have no idea precisely where, on my way back to planet Earth. This is a clear and distinct memory. It is a memory of an occurrence; it is not a memory of a dream or of an illusion. Even today, I will swear on a stack of Bibles: It happened.

Bodyless, I am speeding through space, returning from farther away, returning, returning, and then I returned all the way into the hospital and into my head and then opened my eyes, very disoriented, no idea at all what was going on.

Then the mask again.

Drip, drip, drip.

And back to darkest sleep.

I found out later that they had actually run out of ether during this procedure and that I had woken up while someone was sent to find some more. That someone returned with a fresh bottle and I was soon put under again and so they completed the setting and plaster-casting of my arm.

From just below my right shoulder all the way to my wrist, my right arm was now a big, white, right angle of soon to hurt and then to hurt some more and then to itch, and itch, and itch, and itch until four or so weeks later when I went into our local hospital up north to have the cast removed.

Sans cast, my arm actually fell down straight—my muscles had atrophied to the point of me not having the strength to keep the arm bent. So, on to physical therapy, but that’s another story.

The break was not set perfectly, though; for I have never been able to completely straighten it and I can still (sixty-plus years later) touch a particular spot inside my right elbow and send uncomfortable tingles through my arm, as if there’s still a mini break there. No, the arm was never quite right, but at this stage, seventy-five years now in the rear-view mirror, who really cares?

Back to childhood.

About nine months later, now spring of 1959, I’m diagnosed with a hernia and need an operation to repair it (close it up). This is scheduled and a couple of weeks later I’m parentally delivered to our local hospital for preps and procedure.

Two to a room here, and I’m sharing mine with some guy who is not looking forward to spinal anesthesia, which he’s heard hurts very, very much. “I’m not going to have that, what he is, am I?” I ask the nurse. “Oh, no, you’ll have the normal ether anesthesia. We’ll put you under for this.”

Oh, good, is my reaction and answer.

So, they make very sure I empty my bowels and that I don’t eat and drink for a day or so, and then they wheel me off into the operating room, and then they put the white mask over my mouth and nose and then they tell me to count backwards from one hundred and then the first drop falls and then all hell breaks loose.

I actually have no clear recollection of my thoughts or feelings at this point, but now I am fighting for my life. I am, on some primal level, utterly convinced that I am going to die. They mean to kill me. This smell means to kill me. Looking back at my reaction, I can see it no other way.

Some sub-level of awareness saw my previous ether experience as a death of sorts—I mean, what was I doing outside our solar system anyway? And now, here was that smell again, that lethal, that killing smell that told me that if I wanted to go on living, I must not, must not breathe it in and instead fight my way clear of. At any cost. The embodiment of panic, I was clawing and clinging to survival—for dear life, as the saying goes.

I was eleven at the time and not particularly strong, apparently quite a match for four grownups: two nurses, the anesthesiologist and the doctor—who I bit quite severely, I am later informed.

Yes, of course, they managed to wrestle me down, hold my head still and drip, drip, drip me under, and next I know I wake up, with a very dry mouth, in my hospital bed. I think Mom was there to welcome me back. And I think she told me I had put up quite a fight—more details to follow (and did) as the days and weeks went by.

It took a few weeks for the incision to heal and then they removed the little clamps they had used rather than stitches, and then I was pretty much back to normal and very much alive.

Now and then over the years since, Mom, while she was alive, would bring up my fight with the doctor again, perhaps marveling still at so much strength and violence in such a small body at the time.

Often enough to set me pondering: what on earth had happened back then, what had brought this insane, panic-driven, biting monster out of that normally quite placid and nice little boy, and the answer eventually rose to the surface: I was fighting for my life. They were going to kill me.

I haven’t smelled ether since. I’d know if I had. I can, however, smell it with my mind’s nose, that warm, thick, sweet, stomach-turning odor of decay and death.

I wonder how I would react should I smell it again today, with no doctor nearby to bite.

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