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121 8 The Side Ef­ fect of Side Ef­ fects On Au­ gust 8, 1990, I had “a neuro­ log­ i­ cal event.” I know it was Au­ gust 8 be­ cause the only thing I was able to say for sev­ eral hours was How could it be Au­ gust 8? I know it was 1990 be­ cause I was about to par­ tic­ i­ pate in the clin­ i­ cal field trial of a new drug that might be able to treat the viral ill­ ness I’d ­ contracted ­ twenty ­ months ear­ lier, tar­ get­ ing my brain and leav­ ing me so neuro­ log­ i­ cally shred­ ded I was ­ judged to­ tally dis­ abled by the So­ cial Se­ cur­ ity Ad­ min­ is­ tra­ tion and my skep­ ti­ cal in­ su­ rance com­ pany. To qual­ ify for in­ clu­ sion in the drug trial, I had to have a spi­ nal tap. It ­ didn’t mat­ ter that I had one a year ear­ lier for di­ ag­ nos­ tic pur­ poses. Re­ sults of med­ i­ cal re­ search have to be stan­ dard­ ized, and each sub­ ject in the drug trial had to ­ undergo pro­ ce­ dures an­ a­ lyzed by the same lab in the same way at the same time. Ei­ ther the tap, it­ self a ­ breach of ce­ re­ bro­ spi­ nal in­ teg­ rity, or a leak of spi­ nal fluid from the site where the tap oc­ curred, or the re­ sult­ ing de­ hy­ dra­ tion de­ spite all the water I du­ ti­ fully drank, or a fur­ ther wors­ en­ ing of neuro­ log­ i­ cal dam­ age ­ caused by a re­ ac­ ti­ va­ tion of the A Spinning World 122 virus we were hop­ ing to counter­ act or of my im­ mune ­ system after the intro­ duc­ tion of a nee­ dle into my body, or some other un­ known trig­ ger had ­ caused me to wake up on the morn­ ing of Au­ gust 8, 1990, un­ able to fig­ ure out where I was in time or space, what was hap­ pen­ ing, or what I could do to make sense of it. Ap­ par­ ently, I found the morn­ ing news­ paper and saw the date. Then I ­ called my for­ mer wife, said how could it be Au­ gust 8? over and over, in re­ sponse to each com­ ment or ques­ tion, hung up, and went back to bed until the door­ bell rang. I ­ opened the door, naked, and ­ greeted the woman—our new re­ al­ tor, who lived down the ­ street and had been ­ called to help by my for­ mer wife—by say­ ing how could it be Au­ gust 8? She ­ looked at my eyes, her gaze never drift­ ing, told me to get ­ dressed, and ­ waited on the porch. I woke up on a gur­ ney in the emer­ gency room at Ore­ gon ­ Health Sci­ ences Uni­ ver­ sity, not far from where I’d had the spi­ nal tap. My daugh­ ter was there, was not, was. My doc­ tor came in, wig­ gled the IV line re­ hy­ drat­ ing my ­ system, nod­ ded as he spoke. It was not a ­ stroke. It was not a tumor. It was a neuro­ log­ i­ cal event. These ­ things hap­ pen. Not his fault. I will be all right. I nod­ ded back. Of ­ course of ­ course. A horse is a horse of ­ course of ­ course. I will be all right. What, ex­ actly, does he mean by all right? When? I can’t go home until I can pee. I was in the hos­ pi­ tal, so I was no ­ longer lost in space. My daugh­ ter­ looked the same age I re­ mem­ bered her being be­ fore, a month shy of eigh­ teen, so I was no ­ longer lost in time. Or not too lost. Be­ cause I still had no idea how it could be Au­ gust 8. Tem­ po­ ral un­ cer­ tainty: an­ other way of say­ ing where I was. Tem­ po­ ral lobe: an­ other way of say­ ing where my brain le­ sions were. Tem­ po­ ral bone: an­ other way of say­ ing where my skull was about to ex­ plode. Just over eight ­ months later, the drug trial was sus­ pended. No one got bet­ ter...

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