An Old Story Finally Told

I will be the first to admit the following story and associated memories are fragmented.  Which is why I under went x-rays of my skull in June 2006 and a CAT Scan of my brain in August 2007.  So, there would be no doubt, I agreed to a CAT Scan with intravenous dye enhancement. Just to prove a lobectomy took place in early 1960. 

At the time of the CAT Scan, I was in the care of a psychiatric nurse and a psychiatrist.  What I wanted, was for the nurse to interpret the results.  To tell me what part of my brain was removed and what it was responsible for.

The nurse never got the chance to tell me the results because the next day, I was removed as one of her clients. (news travels fast in the medical community, and doctors protect doctors!)

At the time of this alleged violation in early 1960, MK Ultra was in full swing.  I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

The procedure took place early 1960.  I know this because my younger step brother was born in December 1959.  Shortly after his birth, my adoptive father came to me and said “let’s go for a ride.”

He alone took me in the car and told me “We’re going to see a lawyer.” It was about that time that my adoption was finalized (January 14, 1960). I got to ride in the front seat, you don't know what that means to a four-and-a-half-year-old. I don't think I could even see over the dashboard.

We met a lawyer, and he said “This is your boy?”  Then my adoptive father and the lawyer spoke quietly on the other side of the room where I couldn’t hear.

My adoptive father led me on a trek across New Westminster, following the train tracks.  We went through a tunnel as I recall, then climbed up a hillside to the Woodlands facility.  As we climbed, he kept repeating, “we’re climbing Mt. Olympus, and you are Ulysses!” When we reached the grassy slopes of Woodlands, after being exhausted from the trek across New Westminster, I was told to lay down on the grass. I soon fell asleep. The next thing I know, I'm being carried on a stretcher toward the building, while my adoptive father is calling to me; "You need your tonsils out."

Although I don't remember what happened that day I do remember leaving the facility in an ambulance, not before the staff told me "That's Bergen-Chappell first name Ulysses and don't you forget it!" That must have stuck in my mind, because it is now my legal name (since 2005).

When I was loaded into the ambulance, I heard them say “St. Mary’s.”  That’s how I know where I was going next. The strange thing is, the ambulance was stored inside the building, something not done in these days.The driveway into St. Mary’s Hospital was a steep decline as I recall.

My next memory was at Royal Columbian Hospital, where I was seated in an overstuffed chair, much too big for a four-and-a-half-year-old.  The nurse stood in front of me with my parents and told them “tonsils are gone, he’s also got a head wound.”

We stopped at Woodlands facility on the way home.  It was either to make a payment or to discover if they had used a hammer and a can opener on me. (with impunity)

The detective assigned to ‘Woodlands Historical Abuse’ told me, what Woodlands did in their day was legal!

Forward to the results of my CAT Scan in 2007.  My psychiatrist read part of the report to me: (asymmetric, greater on the right side)

He also called the procedure a Lobectomy, while mistakenly, I had been calling it a Lobotomy.

Quite so.