I've had a rush of feelings over the past two weeks. Relief, pain, disappointment, joy, frustration...I could continue but instead let me start.
Once I was on the operating table, opened up, the doctor realized the tumor was not where he thought it was and things took a complicated twist. A urologist was called in to assist him with the removal and things went well.
As I lay in the hospital bed, loopy from the morphine, I was astounded by the number of my students that came to see me. They were not afraid only curious and gentle. Their parents were kind and comforting to them as well as me. My family came often and we were all overjoyed when the pathology report came back clean - Aah, relief!
Then came the pain as I began to have a severe reaction to the morphine. The headache was unbearable and I could keep no food down, my temperature began to rise, and fear set in for Warren because he lost a dear friend just the week before who died from complications following a simple routine surgery--she to had all of my symptoms and he was frightened...During this time I remember my friend Tom coming in to see me. I remember pain on his face and he seemed preoccupied, rushed, anxious...I wanted to comfort him and ask what was wrong, but my mind just wouldn't let my lips form the words.
There was joy when I got better and was able to come home and the healing process has been slow, painful, and frustrating. I can't figure out what I do that makes me feel so bad the next day. There is no pattern so I don't know what to avoid doing. Often is seems that doing nothing is eventually as painful as doing everything...
And this is where this story ends now as my words have upset far too many people!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Hey, Anita--
ReplyDeleteRemember Psalm 41:9: "Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has lifted his heel against me..."?
Betrayal comes in many forms--but the phrase is intereting "lifting a heel against." Perhaps that is lifting them to stomp a face when the person is down. Or lifting a heel to move a foot in another direction when someone has need of that foot, and the person wearing it, back over this way.
I am sorry that your friends have let you down in this way. I know after my own surgeries a complex of issues kept people away. Some feared to see me in pain, and not just because it was me--more because it was pain. My own sister and one of my best friends cannot stand to see anyone hurt.
Some think they are doing you a favor by staying out of the way--"she needs to heal," they say, "and she does not need me intruding into that. She does not need to worry about the house. Warren and the kids have got other things to do than entertain us..."
It does not feel better when that stuff is in play, and a call to explain would help a lot. But I have noticed, on both ends of the equation, that a lot of recovering patients are more or less alone in their recovery. It can be a lonely thing, to be sure. Don't I know it.
Anyway, I hope you are feeling better every day. And I am glad you had students come see you.
Tom