I know why people would become addicted to pain meds. The difference between my state last night and where I am now is so dramatic that I would be willing to suffer many indignities to achieve my peace again should I lose it. When one is able to move around, shower, and pose for stylish semi-punk photos and not feel like ripping off his face…one can do anything.
I am sad, and my face hurts. This is my second day all alone. Things seemed okay, until the doctor had to fix one of the splints in my nose. Supposedly I was going in today for him to remove the dangling tubes and clean things out. He did so on the left, but the right side needed to be pulled forward. The stitches that held it in place were broken when they inflated the balloons to stop my bleeding. (Ugh…this sucks.) So today he had to literally reach in and tug it forward. Imagine that scene in _Total Recall_ when Arnold removes the probe from his brain via his nose. Imagine poor Zeus if he had to give birth to Athena through the nasal cavity. Imagine me…scared…sad…being beaten up by my doctor. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but I will admit it didn’t make things easy today. I don’t know which is worse, the current pain I’m feeling from this morning’s trama, or the fear of the pain I’ll feel on Friday when the doctor has to remove both of my splints by tugging them out my nose. Sheesh. I need a drink…
As I mentioned a couple months ago, see Deviated Septum, it was decided that I should undergo surgery to fix persistant problems inside of my head. And that time has finally come, in fact, it is happening in about 9 hours from now. I just wanted to take some time to reflect upon the possible negative things that could arise:
1. Hemorrhage–incidence 1 in 200
2. Cerebral Spinal Fluid Lead–incidence 1 in 500
3. Infection–incidence 1 in 500
4. Intraorbital Hemorrhage–incidence 1 in 100
5. Eye injury–incidence 1 in 1,000
6. Loss of ability to Smell–incidence 1 in 1,000
7. Voice changes–incidence 1 in 200
8. Numbness–incidence 1 in 200
Besides these main 8 there are minor possibilities of crusting and leakage, both of which seem to be pretty much guaranteed.
Now a look at the “incidence” factors would seem to some to be enough to allay anxieties because most seem so rare. My problem is that when I was in the 5th grade and had my tonsils removed I was the 1 in 1,000 (or was it 10,000?) who had problems with bleeding from the scars in my throat and had to be stat-flighted to another city because I was vomiting up profuse amounts of blood. So am I worried? Yeah, a bit.
But more than likely everything will go fine, my face will heal in about a week and for the rest of my life I won’t be plagued by the annoying sinus infections and problems with flying that I currently deal with almost daily. So really these are risks worth taking. Quality of life risks, I suppose you would say.
But if the worst case scenarios do occur, you (and I, really) should take comfort in knowing that they happened in the best possible circumstances. Because I am well loved by my friends and family. I have received many well-wishes and phone calls today pumping me up and broadcasting good vibrations. And they all mean so much that it is hard not to feel a little bit happy in the face of excess worry.
Especially with my number one secret weapon, my boyfriend, who has so graciously taken off the weekend from work so he can be with me and care for me as I go through this ordeal. There is no way to thank him enough for the love and support he already gives me every day of my life, let alone the extra helping I’ll be getting this weekend. I love you, Mister Boyfriend, and am forever thankful for all that you do for me in my life. I hope you know that, and I am glad that everyone else knows, too.
So what are the potential complications of tomorrow’s surgery? This warm feeling that I have at the moment, the recognition of love. I’ll take it.
…doesn’t always come easy. I’ve spent the past few days stock-piling digital distractions on my new iPod. I’m not quite done. Not sure what my end-goal is once I have everything accessible in my pocket, but hopefully it will provide a bit of inspiration so that I may begin to write. Or do something else besides what I’m currently doing.
I just had the thought that I have wasted my day. I decided it was of no real value, or accomplishment, and all I did was exist.
This now begs the question, is there something we are working toward? Is there progress we must make toward some goal? Some experience or sensation we must compound day by day? Or is waking up enough? Because that’s all that I’ve done, a couple times so far.
our protagonist, me, has roughly 10 minutes to get ready for work and he chooses to sit down on the couch and type for 9 of them. This really isn’t that dramatic of a decision because he would only take 30 seconds to throw on a shirt regardless of the rest of his activities.
Two things happened last night: I had a BIG conversation with a friend and then I had a BAD dream that a student at my school assaulted me. These things aren’t really connected except through the whisky that served as a backdrop for both.
And now, this morning, I am desperately tired and have quite a bit of a headache.
If I were in AA this would count as a relapse, but since I’m not it is simply regretful. Why regret? Well, as I mentioned above, I have to go to work and I REALLY don’t wanna…
1. Found Objects
Yellow radio sits on the bicycle’s handlebars. A quaint system playing that song I somehow associate with you although we are hardly connected. The man riding is making no statement at all, just spinning wheels to facilitate his travel. Portability means different things to different people.
Birds align on rooftops until one decides to take off. A flying circus. I have no place to go and my ears are getting cold.
Split in two, left behind, something like a fork and spoon lies perfectly framed between the cracks. White against the concrete. I’m not sure which exists. To pick it up would be responsible; I chose to make a photograph. Evidence makes meaning. The street smells like garbage.
At home again, or not at all, dust scatters in the light. The neighbor lets his dog bark. I am at a loss.
2. Prescription
Acetaminophen for headaches, both natural and unnatural.
Prevacid for stomach, acid reflux related pain, eating too much or too little.
Lexapro for anxiety, fictional or nonfictional.
Antibiotics for sinus-related infections, severe or insignificant.
Vitamins and decongestants taken as needed.
Alcohol for everything else.
3. Drop Dead
“I swear to god she’s going to live forever.”
—
“Sure it’s a good thing, but it would be better if I didn’t have to waste my weekends taking care of her. It’s not like I don’t have my own problems to deal with.”
—
“Well who else would do it? She has no friends, she is too selfish for friends.”
—
“No I won’t. If I ever get like that I need to drop dead.
—
“Of course I’m upset. Didn’t I tell you about the cat?”
—
“It had a tumor the size of a soccer ball on its belly. But in order to operate the doctor said it needed to gain some weight. So I had to go over to her house 5 times a day and feed it this special formula.”
—
“No, she said it was going to drop dead anyway so why should she bother feeding it.”
—
“Well, I fed it all day Saturday and 4 times on Sunday. But when I went over last night for the final dose…it was dead.”
—
“The opposite. She actually broke down and began to wail about her poor cat and how could god take him from her. I’ll tell you who god needs to take…”
4. Neurotics Anonymous
…and then showering and going to the allergist and doing taxes and rushing home to clean up and do some work to allow time to eat and exercise and find a job and settle down and get a 401K plan or Roth IRA or whatever the financial planner thinks you should get so you can make joint decisions and be smart with money and no dairy or carbs or smoking or drinking or anything else that might potentially cause later harm because the future is all you have or most of what you should worry about because who knows where social security might be and the government these days can’t seem to manage anything so look both ways and get saved or donate something to charity and save receipts for tax write-offs and good karma and nuclear families not nuclear bombs ’cause what is war really good for and in the end the love…
5. Gone
Puppy love. I named him Chip. He had a predominantly black coat of hair on top which was complimented by the white hair on his undersides. His face had little tan spots under his eye and his tail was a gorgeous, shaggy spiral of black with a white stripe down the middle.
That bushy tail was his trademark–his calling card.
Chip pranced like a deer. He played frisbee, tag, and slept in my tent whenever I decided to camp out in the backyard.
But just like me, Chip eventually grew restless on our farm. He began to take weeklong trips, but he would always came back. I would see his beautiful tail moving through the field, and then he’d pounce up into my arms and lick my face for hours.
Then one day he didn’t return. His food bowl left untouched.
Four years later Chip showed up, pouncing and licking. But he had no tail. Just a stub, flapping in excitement. I spent the night sleeping next to him on the grass, searching his face for a clue as to what happened. The only thing he could tell me was that the world was too big to stay in one place. And that it isn’t good to be too attached to anything. In the morning he left, never to return.
Me and Mr. Jones 