I lay awake. Eyes closed. Awake. I allowed my Vicodin to wear off to just check in with my body and see where it was on the fantasy road of recovery. I had been feeling pretty good, stiff but good, exhausted but good. I needed to know if the narcotic was masking pain or creating exhaustion. So I let it wear off.
And, I lay here with stabbing pain in my belly. I take another Vicodin so I can sleep in peace. My mind races. Knowing too much. My mom said that a couple of people told her lately that they were sad for me because I have to know so much for my age.
The thirties. I set out in my thirties thinking it would be pretty terrific. I had suffered a date rape and two miscarriages in my twenties so the thirties were going to be fabulous. I had two healthy babies, a family, a home, and a promising art career. My body had a good decade before it was scheduled to start aching and falling apart. Or, so I thought.
And here I am contemplating all that I know about narcotic medications and how to effectively use them to balance pain control without the risk of addiction and side effects. I take a bite of banana and sip of water to avoid nausea. I have dealt with a mild pain sensation that, sure, would not exist if I upped my dose or took the Percasat or even the Oxycontin. Alas, I know that the stronger opiates make my mind crazy and tummy do somersaults if the pain is not severe enough. I know that the Oxycontin and morphine are effective pain killers for extreme situations. But, once the pain receptors begin to calm a bit, they start attacking the brain or something, and I begin to trip. I remember when the pain started to reduce with my mastectomy. I woke in the middle of the night with this horrible dream so bad that I won't detail its graphics other then it had to do with millions of flies. My mother called the on-call nurse who told her it was time to step down to the next, lesser, rung of pain medicine.
This surgery, I left the hospital with this knowledge but not because I was instructed by the nurses of this procedure. No, I didn't even have a prescription. I had told them I had left over pain pills and would like to use those first. But, I mused for a moment to the fact that I knew too much. What if I didn't know anything about pain control? What if I was up all night with a stabbing pain, no three stabbing pains, and no idea how to soften the blow to get some sleep and heal? Or what if quite the other side, and I took too much or too strong a medicine and started to freak out?
Really? Is this what a thirty-five year old is supposed to be up at night worrying about? I know too much. Maybe other thirty-somethings know too much. But, why is it that way? Didn't I earn a break, a time of my life? Maybe that is yet to come. Maybe I will have the freedom of forty. Because, heck, my body has already fallen apart. Thinking I should schedule to have my tonsils out, ovaries removed, and...is there another useless organ I can dispose of before I am forty? Then maybe I can walk around in a bikini with all my scars and show off my wonderfully still alive forty year old body.
PS I can tell you all kinds of things about how the reproductive system works, temperatures, when to conceive, and how I can have a pretty good idea if you are carrying a boy or a girl by how high your belly is on your frame. Maybe I need to go into the medical field; a midwife, maybe. Now, if you know me at all you would be chuckling and thinking: well, dear, I guess that Vicodin you took ten minutes ago is starting to work.
No comments:
Post a Comment