I often feel like my pain is a predator. That it takes pleasure in the chase and ultimately taking me down.
The questions, to which I have no answer, re: How do you fight an enemy you cannot see? How do you win against an opponent about whom you know so little but who knows every corporeal detail about you?
Some days I feel like a helpless animal that will succumb, at some unknown moment, in this battle that I did not start.
It appears that the Penny Dreadful television series had an unexpected impact on me: the darkness, the fear, the gore, and the intensity that held it all together.
One episode in particular, Episode 4 of Season 3, ‘A Blade of Grass’, where the character played by Eva Green, Vanessa Ives, relives the trauma of her forgotten institutionalization really moved me. The loneliness, pain, and terror she experiences in her padded cell are raw. Watching her live through every moment was frightening and made me cry at times.
However, a few words from that episode clung to my mind: “not even a blade of grass.” The context in which they are said is meant to convey hopelessness, but I felt inspiration from them.
It took a bit of turning the words over, in my head and in type, but I was finally able to weave them into poetry.
I read a post from someone who visited my blog earlier today and it reminded me of what I went through this time last year. I was in another downward spiral because my reluctant surgeon couldn’t seem to move far enough forward in her thinking to get me into surgery. For almost a year, in one appointment after another, she sent me staggering emotionally from hope to despair about what my life might look like based on one worst-case scenario after another. She eroded any confidence I might have held in her. Thankfully, even through the fog of all my pain medications and my endless pain, I was able to feel and recognize that I deserved better than what she was offering.
The few visits I had with my second opinion surgeon, led to swift action and although I wasn’t cured of my pain, at least the thing that was growing inside my pelvis that started all of this is gone. Without the confidence and compassion of my second opinion surgeon, my fears and anxiety would have grown exponentially. Instead of making calm, informed decisions, the way he did, and now the rest of my current medical team help me to; everything would have continued to be reactionary based on my desire to stop feeling pain without understanding the suspected source and mapping out the best treatment plan for me.
I hope Snowdroplets finds the same compassion, expertise, and thoughtfulness I did as she seeks out her second opinions and makes her choices. I also hope that mirroring her words back to her will help to keep her positive and confident that seeking out doctors that make you feel comfortable and secure is the best medicine.
My Small Surrenders 