Spreading Positive Memes To Improve Post-Op Outcomes

“Is it going to hurt?” I asked while semi-distracted by the glint of the needle illuminated by the fluorescent lights of the sterile room. The drop of the mixture formed a visible meniscus at the interface of the sharp bevel. I focused more on the immediate pain of the injection rather than when the medicine would cross my blood-brain barrier.

“That depends on you. Drop your pants,” the nurse said in a husky voice. I heard his voice just about the same time I felt the cold alcohol swab hit my right upper outer quadrant. Cheeky little bugger this nurse was.

“When it hits the blood-brain barrier, it will burn and you will likely black out for a few minutes, and then have no memory of the pain,” added Professor Gointu Amabala. I trusted Dr. Amabala but I was still a little unsettled. Any time the doctor tells you it is going to hurt, oh baby, fasten your chinstrap.   

My vision gradually returned after a few hours. It was blurry at first but I had enough acuity to realize that I was lying down with an incredible feeling of rejuvenation. I was surprised to see I was not flattened like a pancake by the Mannheim Steamroller that seemed to have rolled over me. Beautiful music (Toccata actually) was playing. I have no recollection now of whether it hurt when the serum hit my blood-brain barrier.

Pain is an experience and if you cannot remember it, was it really painful? It is kind of like the proverbial tree falling in the forest deal. Does it really make a noise if there is no one in the forest? Hell no, not if you are not there, right? Perception is reality, especially in the pain world. Now what was in that powerful amber solution?

Are you ready? I stepped up and received the first injection of an anti-meme (rhymes with team) cocktail, specially formulated by Dr. Amabala at my request to rid myself of a lifetime’s accumulation of mental junk. That is right. I ordered a double decaf cranial colonic from that wizard of neuroscience. What is a “meme,” you may ask? “A meme, ma’am is a thought virus,” I said. (Don’t feel offended gentlemen. I had to use ma’am here for proper word play.)

Now this is some pretty heady (pun especially intended) stuff that occurs within the noodles of all of us 7.2 billion people walking the planet. It is even starting right now in the 374,000+ humans who were born today. “Dude, what’s a meme,” you may ask? “Dude,” you say, “where’s the beef behind this science?” 

Did you say “dude” 15 years ago? I bet not. You were infected with a meme that created a thought virus subconsciously putting the word dude into daily conversation and you are likely propagating its viral expression to others. That is a meme. Do you remember that little old lady who is irate with her tiny little hamburger and cries out “Where’s the beef?” while spreading the hamburger buns? It is likely that when you hear that phrase, albeit less commonly now, you envision that gray-haired little lady with the clearest mental picture. You were infected with that meme propagated by Wendy’s through that holiest of beasts—the idiot box. In fact, as a vector, the TV has likely infected more minds with memes than mosquitos have infected humans in the history of man.

But hey, we are all infected. Get over it. You wear what you wear, you drink what you drink and you eat what you eat because of memes. The point is to try and get infected with the “good” memes and not the “bad” ones, and to perhaps recognize when you get infected by one. Ergo, my infusion with the amber ambrosia.

In the mid-1970s, the famous biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term meme. According to Dawkins, “The ‘meme’ is the basic unit of cultural transmission or imitation.” Since that time, a new science called “memetics” has emerged and the field is starting to gather some serious attention in many scientific disciplines now. Hey, that means he is the “Adam” of memes. Who would be the “Eve”?

Now that I was coherent enough to talk with Amabala, I had to ask him some questions. “Did you give me the full recipe?”

Scratching his chin with a look of irritation, he responded curtly. “You asked. No, you begged for it.”

I nodded in acknowledgement of that fact. “Can you read the list to me? I feel very crainially cleansed.”

He shuffled over to his desk, turned down the music and turned on the light. Pulling the paper up close to his presbyopic eyes, he started to read. “The following anti-memes were administered: the ‘I don’t believe that I can do it,’ the ‘I’ve always done it that way,’ the ‘self-doubter,’ the ‘that’s not what I was taught,’ the ‘dismissing of patient complaint description and jumping to conclusion,’ the ‘I already know that,’ the ‘there’s no hope’ and the real biggie: the ‘close-minded’ meme.

“Oh,” the mad neuroscientist added one more. “The ‘what’s going to happen five years from now’ worry.”

So ladies and gentlemen, memes are very real and lead to replicating thought viruses. We can put these to our use or, for that matter, be absolutely used by them. You might ask how we can use them to our advantage? If you do not want to ask, stop reading and go turn on your TV. 

However, if you do want to ask, study up on memetics because you can do some programming (read “infecting” here) of your patients for better outcomes. Really? Yes, really. Your surgical outcome is only predicated by one thing and that is what neurotransmission is occurring on their prefrontal cortex.

Spread some good memes like “there is hope” and “you will be able to reach that personal goal if you really desire it and work at it” and “it may always hurt some, but you can still function and the hurt will go away.” When you are rendering some lower extremity treatment, take some time to peer into the patient’s coconut. You might be really surprised (and sometimes dismayed) by what you see.

I would highly recommend that you read anything written by Dawkins, especially “The Selfish Gene” and the book “Virus of the Mind—The New Science of the Meme” by Richard Brodie.