Okay, here's the deal: My nerve is slipping. I was doing okay, I've been so happy about this surgery - about the direction my life is finally taking ("you can make the pain stop?! sign me up!") - wait testosterone break, maybe i'm just low on my Y-chromosomes BRB - okay, stocked up on the T, some phenagren for my stomach and pycnogenol to keep my blood circulating. Where was I? Right, hyperventilating.
There is something reassuring about having a rhythm, a routine. Just taking the pills calms me, reminds me I'm here now and that is always good enough and sometimes better than anything else. I've been working on refining my writing, to make a career out of stringing words together. This is no secret, it's the impetus for this blog and really the only thing I've wanted to do my entire life is make people feel good, to make people think, to have folks to sing along with, to have all the laughter I can gather.
My boyfriend's ex is in the ICU right now and the situation is wearing on me. My first thought gets the selfish/fucked-up award for the week: "Shit, now she's in the hospital before me! I'm always second!" I laugh aloud at it, but that's really what I thought. Her situation is serious. And so is mine. So tonight he mentions the chance that I could end up in the ICU - you know, we were talking about how my mom would be in the hospital with me for every moment that I spend in the hospital. That's my mother, maybe not your mother, but it's my mother. She watches me breathe and I love her for it. Night nurses are demon spawn - I'll take my mom any day!
So, anyway, he's like "yeah, well, if you end up in the ICU she won't be able to be in there with you." I'm sure he didn't mean to slip a razor into my happy veil of upcoming surgery, but damned if I haven't been having problems breathing since then. Amy Winehouse's bluesy gritty voice and sharp lyrics help me laugh, but the laugh is a little pneumatic still.
Going into surgery I don't care to think about the downsides: I know when I wake up I won't feel anything for a while and then the pain will slam into me like a Mack truck and I'll have to start dealing with Recovery. Here is a hint: Surgery ain't shit when compared with recovery. Recovery is your body launching full-on attack because it's come under heavy artillery fire, but you were sleeping and could not respond at the time. Recovery is a war - all internalized. And in my case, all my organs will rearrange themselves over time to where they were supposed to be in the first place if I'm lucky.
Keep me out of the ICU. I have no desire to be intubated - it screws your throat. Will my insurance pay if I end up in the ICU? okay, really, that was a joke, but No ICU for me, please. No death. Just the major surgery and let me suffer all the indignities of recovery. let me recover. let me recover.
Right now Amy Winehouse is moaning "do me good and all this craziness will disappear." I'm pleading for a Mulligan, a do-over, a Get Out of Jail Card from the ICU. I can do club med for 7 days of demoral and an additional $23 hours per day for a private room (the hospital repeats that on their "holding" message), but no ICU. I'm not too young, just let me be too lucky.
Okay, she just vamped through Me & Mr. Jones and let's be real: I can't ask the universe to promise me anything except a few laughs. I think I'm going to call it a night, have a nightcap, and see what tomorrow brings. I've got to laugh at myself, it's not yet time for crying.
A final thought from what I'm listening to: "I want to touch you, but that would just hurt." Makes me hug myself, gives me a chill.
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