Fall reads

I have three books to share with you this time around.

The first is Autobiography of a Sea Creature: Healing the Trauma of Infant Surgery by Wendy Patrice Williams. I learned about this book after meeting its author and talking over lunch.. I was shocked by what she told me. Before the 1980’s, infants up to three years old were not given anesthesia for invasive medical procedures and surgeries. It was  thought they did not feel pain, (who could be so stupid?) so instead, doctors gave them paralytic drugs so they didn’t move during the surgeries or procedures. This makes me so angry on their part and so sorry for the children. Also, Wendy writes, “In those days, infants were isolated from their mothers and other family members and sequestered in sterile rooms, no visitors allowed.”

What was horrifying to me personally is that my son as an infant in 1972 had a surgery and as a mother, I was never told this was how it was done. I wondered why he screamed anytime he saw a man in a white coat. I was not allowed to stay with him either before or after the surgery and when I returned to take him home, I found him with a soaking wet diaper, unchanged dressing, and uncovered. I gave the nurse in charge a piece of my mind and wrote to the head management at the hospital. If I’d known all of what occurred, I would have no doubt come unleashed.

“You read the Chamberlain article and learned that most infants in the United States before the 1980’s weren’t given anesthesia for invasive medical procedures and surgeries. In experiments in 1941, babies were systematically pricked with blunt safety pins: their grimaces, cries, and withdrawal of limbs chalked up to reflexes because, it was believed, infants’ nervous systems weren’t developed enough to transmit pain impulses.

“You learned that sick babies were given a muscle paralyzer to stop them from fighting back”

Wendy had a stomach surgery when she was only a few weeks old and the trauma from that governed her growing up life. She never knew what made her do the things she did; what made her feel the things she felt. As a baby, you have no words so how can you make sense of what happened to you. How can you remember? But—the body remembers. Wendy’s mother told her what she looked like coming out of surgery, with all the tubes sticking out of her. All her growing years she thought she was ugly because of her scars and because her mother stressed all the negative things about the operation, how she looked like an alien from outer space.

“Reality hits: You were tortured as a baby—tied down, a tube shoved down your throat, drugged with a paralytic, and forced to be awake through surgery. You scream, collapsing over the steering wheel, sobbing. Finally, you can let it all out.

“Your roller-coaster life now makes sense. You aren’t crazy. Your life has been a normal response to trauma.”

She continues, “Long after my surgery was over, its repercussions continued to resound throughout my life. In many adults’ lives, the trauma of infant surgery is still an issue even if they’ve healed completely as babies and the physical condition that required surgery has long since resolved itself. Depression and emotional disturbance plagued me for many years. How ironic that a baby is operated on to save his or her life and as an adult, this person may kill him or herself because coming to terms with issues the early surgery presents has not been possible.”

As an adult, Wendy sought out therapies to help with her depression and PTSD and says the thing that helped her the most was EMDR, Eye Movement, Desensitization and Reprocessing. This therapy encourages the patient to focus briefly on the trauma memory while simultaneously experiencing bilateral stimulation (typically eye movements), which is associated with a reduction in the vividness and emotion associated with the trauma memories. She believes this worked best because babies who undergo this kind of trauma when it occurs have no words, so basic talk therapy isn’t going to help. 

Wendy’s counselor, Jan Osborn, PhD, RN, MFT writes, “When someone comes in with infant trauma however, the work is with the body, before words and well before words about the words.”

She hoped by writing this book that counselors, psychiatrists, health professionals, doctors, teachers and spiritual and religious advisers would be trained so that they treat the trauma persons carry in a beneficial way. I know she also hoped that maybe someone who had undergone the same kind of trauma could now understand themselves better and seek help.

I asked Wendy why we haven’t heard more about this awful medical stance and practice, and she said it was something the medical profession didn’t want the rest of us to know about because they were fearful of repercussions. Since more of those who practiced this way have died, I think it’s time for Wendy to write another book and perhaps do a documentary. 

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I read a couple of other books which were lighter in nature because the times we live in require that right now. Even though many pan his books and point out his inaccuracies, I enjoy the books Dan Brown writes and I zoomed right through The Secret of Secrets, about non-local consciousness. The basic idea is that our brain is nothing but a processor, a receiver, and our consciousness comes from beyond where we all are connected in a greater consciousness. That’s why we might be able to move through space/time and why we experience deja-vu. I love thinking about these things so I really enjoyed this novel of intrigue where things happened at a swift pace. 

“Langdon considered it. Scientific models were never proven in any kind of absolute sense. They gained acceptance by consistently explaining and predicting observations better than alternative models. Katherine’s concept was convincing and also could explain many anomalies like ESP, out-of-body experiences, and sudden savant syndrome.”

Besides the intrigue and mystery, and how Robert saves the day and his one love, Katherine, I also enjoyed the map of Prague and descriptions of the buildings where action occurred, because I’ve not been there and probably won’t ever go there but now I recognize them if someone talks or writes about them. 

On this one, just suspend your beliefs, and go with the flow. It’s fun. And it makes you think about things and that shouldn’t scare you.

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I had heard about this next light novel and it had been recommended to me, so I finally got to it:  Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt. This was also fun to read. The main narrator is an octopus in a marine center, a very intelligent octopus who can read, read humans, and get himself out of his tank for a stroll around the building to grab anything that piques his interest once the humans are gone. He wants two of the human characters of this book to realize they are related and because of his shenanigans, they finally do. The human characters are flawed but loveable and you will love to spend time with them.