It’s hard being alone with intense pain late at night, as I was last night and the night before. Then again, pain that never stops is hard to cope with at any time of the day. Last night, and other days and nights, when my pain is particularly bad and sleep eludes me, I try to think of things to do – aside from amputating the offending body part(s) – to distract myself. Unfortunately, depending on the pain’s level of intensity, I’m not always successful at turning my thoughts away. However, I do usually end up creating something interesting to look at.
As the pain level rose in my legs and pelvis the night before last, I didn’t have a plan for what I wanted to create. I started to place random dots on a clean page in my sketchbook with a black Sharpie pen. Then I connected the dots together with short straight lines and they became triangles, but the sight of a page full of small triangles didn’t feel satisfying. That led me to connecting the triangles at their various points creating a sort of web, which still felt incomplete. I looked at the page for a short while then started drawing lines within each triangle transforming them into prisms. With each line I added, I saw multi-pointed stars appearing on the page that made me wish for an opportunity to experience weightlessness among them on the off-chance I might not feel any pain without the pull of gravity…
Drawing lines didn’t help make my pain go away on recent nights, but it distracted me from thinking of it for a short time as I imagined creating a new galaxy of endless stars.
“I don’t trust you,” she said coldly. The same person I recently held in my arms while she cried and told me her troubles said those words to me.
I’m never going to forget being told those words because I have the kind of memory that stores information with great detail and rarely dislodges any of it. My earliest memories were created when I was a toddler and I still see the things, people and places in them as if I interacted with them yesterday – much like I can see this person on the playground of our elementary school. Sometimes I wish my memory didn’t work this way but at other times, now for instance, I’m glad I rarely ever forget. I’m glad because it ensures that I won’t allow myself to be caught in another web of deceit like the one made by a person who chose to abuse my friendship and trust.
As an adult, I’ve been accused many times of being naïve and too trusting of people, especially those I allow into private areas of my life, and with whom I share the most intimate parts of who I am. That characterization may not be too far off, but I prefer to look at it from the perspective of trusting until I’m given a reason not to trust. I approach life that way because it takes too much energy to walk around suspecting that every person one engages with is going to harm you in some way. The never-ending hypervigilance and suspicion would surely make it impossible to enjoy one’s life, and could, quite possibly drain you of your will to live.
Besides, when someone betrays or deliberately hurts you, it’s the unmasking of who they are. Therefore, it has no bearing on your character. Furthermore, when that same person has the audacity to mockingly ask, “What are you going to do about it?” in relation to the action they have taken against you; or “Who do you think you are?” after you call her or him out on their vile behaviour; it’s further evidence that they were never worthy of your friendship. Words and behaviour like this also makes one realize that the air of toughness someone might have projected for years, is just the lack of a conscience and the inability for her or him to form genuine human connections.
In the end, one must decide what bearing such a betrayal is likely to have on any kind of relationship continuing to exist. In my experience, that chance arcs sharply towards zero, because in all likelihood, there may be nothing to salvage. After all, it would be more than naïve to allow any person who treats you so poorly to get that close to you again. And if there’s any doubt about this decision there are always these wise words from Maya Angelou to remember, “When someone shows you who they are believe them; the first time.”
After some juggling of schedules, I’m finally having surgery today because last Spring the results from my follow-up abdominal ultrasound scan showed that I have a uterine/endometrial polyp. My Gynecologist decided it was best to remove it, and not leave it alone and subject me to abdominal scans every six months to monitor it for changes. If I had demanded he leave it alone – say because I feared extreme post-surgery pain – any changes that showed up in later scans could have signalled cancer. Even the slimmest chance of that happening was enough for me to accept my Gynecologist’s decision.
To be honest, I expected to have the surgery in the fall, but I had to place a priority on the treatments and programs I already had scheduled for my chronic pain during those months. My continued pain was also a big part of the focus for my surgery pre-admission appointment last week. I spent about four hours in the hospital’s Pre-Admission Center on Friday, meeting with nurses, technicians, and doctors to discuss my medical history and identify any current health issues, have blood drawn for tests, and get a general physical. The nurse was the first person I met with and at one point, while looking through my electronic medical files; she rightly stated that I spend too much time in hospitals.
During my meeting with the nurse, I had to recount the history of my illness, the outcome of my last surgery and recent treatments, and the long list of medications I now take to cope with my pain. As pleasant as she was, while I sat there and went through all those details, the interaction put a sharper edge on the pain I was feeling. At one point, she noticed my creased forehead and asked if I was all right. There wasn’t much I could say in response, except that it was just my usual pain, which thankfully she couldn’t tell was a lie. Before I moved on to the next stop in the pre-admission process, she gave me some literature on my surgery, a Hysteroscopy, and although I’ll be under general anesthesia, will not require any abdominal incision(s) because it will take place entirely within my uterus. Oh, joy!
Next, I met with the blood technician who took three or four vials of blood. I’m rarely sure about how many vials get filled for blood tests because having my veins pierced by the needle always hurts like hell and I never look. I am concerned about what the results from the blood tests might be because recent tests have uncovered that I have low iron – which means I’m anemic – and I have low blood (hemoglobin) levels. If I have below normal blood levels again, my surgery might be rescheduled until I get a boost. Thankfully, when I later met with the doctor for my physical, the session was short and didn’t cause me any extra pain.
My last stop, in the pre-admission process was with an Anesthesiologist, who is a member of the hospital’s Pain Team. I had to meet with someone from the Pain Team to discuss the possible outcomes of the surgery with respect to my pain. The type of surgery I’m having is usually a Day/Ambulatory Surgery procedure, meaning that you get to go home once you wake up and don’t show any adverse reactions to the anesthetics. In my case, the chronic pain I live with daily is factored into when I might be allowed to go home. If, when I wake up, I don’t have unmanageable pain I can go home on the same day. However, if my pain can’t be controlled I’ll be kept, at least overnight, until my pain reaches a level I can cope with at home. I’m hoping for the former because I want to come home and sleep in my bed after it’s all over, but knowing what I do now about my pain’s unpredictability I have to prepare for anything.
♦
This is what I was listening to as I posted this morning…
My Small Surrenders 