Reconstruction of Memory: Jason Chen

Bad luck, again. It came out of nowhere, I think it was just a small bump, it was nothing to worry about. But the doctor said otherwise. The words came out of his mouth, benign tumor and surgery. Thoughts came rushing through my head. I remember thinking of that day, running down the field as fast as I can go to catch the disc. But to avoid hurting a freshman I jumped to the side, messed up the footing as I landed and there I was in agony on the ground with turf in my mouth. All I could think about was the pain. I couldn’t move a single part of my body because the shock was too great. To this day I don’t even remember clearly how it happened. What side of my foot did I land on? It happened quickly, too quickly. And there I was unable to walk, and my ankle looked like a inflated balloon.

I couldn’t remember the number of doctor’s visits I had, but I do recall many doctors telling me that it’s most likely just a sprain. Just a sprain? That’s a minor injury I believed. But of course that was just a opinion, the MRI results clearly said otherwise. With the next visit, the doctor that was going to perform my surgery came into the room with a big fat smile that it almost scared me. He told me that I fracture my fibula and dislocated my peroneal tendon. Surgery was required to put my tendon back in place. I wanted to be able to walk, run and live a normal life so I had to get this surgery. With countless tug of wars to try convincing my mother to do the surgery, There I was being prepped to be taken into the OR. My memories are blurry to this day, but I remember the surgical assistant talk to me as I watched the anesthesia slowly drop down the IV into me and my eyes slowly give out. I woke up feeling like all my insides wanted to come flying out of my mouth. It was painful, but I did it and it was over with. But here I am sitting in another room being told I have a benign tumor. I needed another surgery to remove it, and there I was sitting in the hospital with a tube in my neck.

Author's Note

In my reconstruction of a memory I tried to use the techniques that Margaret Atwood and Ken Kesey has used. The small section that we analyzed from Atwood had questions that was brought up to show that the memory wasn't clear. It made it more realistic because the memory actually was not clear. And the technique I took from Kesey is how the scene was something being remembered and how something triggered that memory. For this, it was based on a person experience and what triggered that memory was having a surgery for a second time.