Battle Scars

The kids like to look at my battle-scarred torso. Now, I don't know what lasting scarring this is inflicting on their little psyches, but since we're trying to be as open about it as we think they can handle without being stricken by terror, I let them, occasionally. But I like to look at it also. Not pretty at all, mind you. I look like I was shanked in some very exciting, probably gang-related prison fight, by a very inept attacker who missed all things major. But I'm sorta fascinated with it, startling and colorful as it is...and mostly wondering two things: what the hell is going on in there, and did I really ask for this, like, voluntarily? Right now, in my liquid Vicodin-aided haze (yes, it comes in liquid form, improbably termed an elixir, or at least you think so until you receive its pain-abating blessing. Elixir, indeed. 'Fess up. You're a little jealous right now.)--anyway, with Vicodin standing in for blood, this seems like an awfully drastic step I just took, and one with immediate consequences I just did not see coming.

I think I'm really glad I have no clue what I looked like right after surgery in the ICU. Only my mother, my spouse, and my nurses saw that, and they can all be silenced. I did hear small snippets of "yellow" and "puffy" that kind of put me off asking for a mirror...and then the next day, when I was moved to a room WITH a mirror, they all told me how much better I looked...and I saw what I looked like then...um, scary, no thanks, I'll destroy your cameras if anyone tried to capture the before, I mean it, I will hunt you down. I ain't playin. So that wasn't a scenario I had played out in mind ahead of time.

I really don't have a good idea about how things have been changed around in there, despite the many videos I watched, and lectures I was forced to listen to...I know this got disconnected from that, and reconnected to this thing up here. That's the sum total of my practical knowledge. But I kinda want just a sneak peek, without seeing anything that would make me lose my (very tiny) lunch.

And then, the pain, which is inseparable from the gas. See, during surgery they like to pump gas into you to help move things around in there, and then sew you up and leave it there! Apparently the theory is your body will absorb it and know what to do with it (which explains being repeatedly asked about your hi-jinks in that arena until it stops being embarrassing and just gets boring). This perhaps also explains the "puffy". Did you know you could have gas pain in your neck? Shooting up into your ear canals? "I'm sorry, I can't hear you, I have gas in my ear." What fun we can have with our innards, if only we apply ourselves! These were not facts I ever came across, or ever considered needing to have access to. For those of you who may experience this one day, at least someone told you! And that still doesn't really talk about the pain...which I really don't want to talk about. It's there, it's pain-full, don't wanna focus on it. I have my good friend Vicodin.

Then there's the fist that seems to have popped into being deep in my left side. That's what it feels like, that somebody got a handful of my soft & squishies and is using that handful to relieve stress. Good for you. I'd like my soft parts back now.

The really comforting thing is, this is all "normal". So evidently I somehow could have found out about each and every one of them, and been prepared. Failed as a fact checker! Woulda been good info to have!

Hiccups hurt. That I find childishly cruel.

And I did it all to myself, on purpose, with a goal in mind, with a doctor's blessing (several, actually), me, me, no one else but me did this.

Hence my fascination with the train wreck on my torso--no midriff baring tops in my future, that's for damn sure!

Must look for positives: I no longer drift off, or suddenly find that I'm awake but the lights are out, because my eyes have taken a coffee break, right in the middle of a conversation. This was useful if I was trying to convey to the speaker a) boredom with the topic; or b) pity for me at my obvious fragility. Not useful for actually trying to, you know, talk. Or being so bored I finally opted for an edited-for-content movie in my room that I actually wanted to see, only to find that I can listen, but not watch, at least until I truly fall asleep and dream I'm happily married to David Spade (even in the dream, my dream self was fairly puzzled by this choice, but committed to the role like a pro). And he wasn't even IN the movie! Analyze THAT! So...no longer have to deal with that.

The weird abrupt power-downs occur less often, and less imperatively--I described it to my aunt as having an off-switch that someone else was messing around with. So I only have to get horizontal--fast, mind you--for maybe 20 minutes, not 82.

I've lost twelve pounds, which is skewed and weird and I know won't last, but hey, that's sure a pretty little silver lining you've got there!

Big positive, actually got out of the house today with Mom's help, and got my toes all prettified, and my heels sanded down. So from toe to ankle, you can't even tell I'm just days out of the hospital--unless you wonder at the dragging, halting pace, and the slow, majestic paths that lead from one cushioned object to another. Hallie got hers done too, with the same color as mine, and the same white flower on the big toe. She was so excited, she was nearly catatonic. Couldn't move, speak, smile, nothing...until we told her not to move. Rookie mistake, we know better. It was all kind of hilarious, and great to get out of the house, even if I was a menace on the road afterward because I kept shaking myself awake--remember the power-down things? Awkward when you're driving.

So...summing up time...it's all getting better, and I'm sure I'll remember at some point that there was a really good reason I did this, I just have to stop hurting to find it again. I think I left it under the Vicodin.