Life After Surgery

Before I got my appendix out, I was not doing well emotionally.

I'd been down in the dumps basically since Christmas. Then came An Interpersonal Crisis. I try not to share other people's private stuff on the Internet, so all I'm going to say was that I lost someone who, although we had our differences, I thought would always have my back.

Everything felt impossible. I wasn't sure what to do with myself. Like, do you remember the Phineas and Ferb special where Phineas, Ferb, Candace, Isabella, Baljeet, and Buford get stranded on a deserted island? And Phineas is all, "There must be something we can do!" Even though they have literally a rubber band, a couple of trees, an oversized map, and a big fat ox. Which are things that don't seem to work well together, especially in the context of escaping from an isolated island.

That was me. I felt stuck in a terrible situation. When I took stock to see what I could make of things, I felt like I lacked resources and thus lacked recourse. I distracted myself by go-go-going and immersing myself in my calling and trying to help others and such. And hey, at least it seemed like things couldn't get much worse.

But then my appendix had to go and get taken out. And I had to drop everything and face what I was feeling. I don't know your life and I don't know what your lows are like, but my lows now involve a complete emotional breakdown over An Interpersonal Crisis while lying helpless in a hospital bed awaiting an appendectomy, and them lows are pretty low.

BUT ANYWAY WHERE WERE WE?

Oh yeah...surgery.

After I blacked out from the anesthesia, the next thing I remember is trying to take off my oxygen mask.

I was vaguely aware of being in a "recovery room," where there seemed to be rows of hospital beds full of people waking up from surgery. I was one of the people. I tried to pull off my oxygen mask. I also tried to sit up. A new episode of Star vs the Forces of Evil was coming on Saturday, and as I slipped back into consciousness most of my brainpower found itself theorizing about what was going to happen in the episode. Which, obviously, would be waaaay easier if I didn't have a dumb oxygen mask on my face and I could sit up! I attempted to take it off twice before someone just gave up trying to stop me and removed it.

When I was more awake, they wheeled me back to my private room. I was hungry but also nauseated (not a good combination). Even though I was nearing the 24-hour mark of no food in my tum, they wouldn't let me eat anything more substantial than strawberry Jell-O (which admittedly ended up being delicious). Also, I had to get a nurse's help any time I wanted to go to the bathroom. And my stomach was uncomfortably covered with gauze and tape and other things I couldn't see because of the gauze and tape.

They let me go home that night. However. Because the surgeon was back and forth on whether I'd be returning home or staying over, she never got me a prescription for pain meds before releasing me. On the one hand, I don't like narcotics, and it seemed like a bad idea to give me happy pills when I was feeling so low. On the other hand...

Ouch. I did just have my entire stomach cut open in three places. And I was feelin' it.

So there I was, lying on my parents' couch, in terrible physical and emotional pain. People came to see me. They checked up on me and brought me trinkets and treats. If there's one thing I've realized since my Interpersonal Crisis, it's that there's a lot of people who care about me and who will go to great lengths to show it. #blessed. But people aren't interchangeable, and I felt like a huge part of my support system was missing. I didn't know how I would pick everything back up and keep going.

My mom could tell that I was sad and kept asking me what she could do to make me feel better. Um...nothing? Everything was outside of her control.

Finally, though, on my last day off work, she turned to me and said something like, "You were feeling bad before this happened, and now you feel worse. That's normal. You just had major surgery. Things will get better, and you'll feel better, every day."

Guess what? She was right. Physically, I feel much better now. Most of the pain is gone. Emotionally, I feel a little better, too. That pain remains...but things have a way of coming out right. We'll see what happens.