Waves of Homesickness

Get well card from Henry

I'm going to write about something here that's either going to strike you with some sort of resonance or is going to make you think that perhaps the anesthesia did get to me after all.

Some background. Ever since I can remember, I've occasionally had a sort of memory sense experience that I can only express as a sort of very brief, wave of intense longing for home. As in childhood. As in a primal, maternal enveloping. At the risk of sounding totally off my gourd, I'd say it's like a longing for the womb, but that makes it sound way too specific and way too new agey. It's never a longing for anything specific, like a hug from mom or a particular childhood memory. It's just a kind of sensory flashback that washes over me, kind of like deja vu wrapped up inside of that "someone walked over your grave" sort of feeling, only without the tingling. I've experienced these strange flashbacks maybe a few times a year, if that, since I was a kid and as soon as I'd get one, it would be forgotten.

I mention this now because since my surgery, I've had a radical increase in the number of these sensory waves. Since my surgeon had mentioned the Day 5 Meltdown being related to hormones and breast surgery, it occurred to me that these waves might be similarly triggered. I never made that connection before, since it felt more like a deja vu sort of thing and never occurred in any sort of cycle. It's been a weird and totally unexpected side-effect from the surgery and as time goes on, they are happening less frequently.

I've never spoken about this to anyone before but thought it worth mentioning in my post-mastectomy chronicle. Have you ever experienced anything like this, outside of or related to surgery? I'm curious.

Okay, and the weirdest thing of all? As I typed this concluding paragraph, I actually had a strong sense of deja vu about tapping this post into the computer.