On Pain, Strength and Pride

{This isn't very well written or thought out.  I basically just vomited my feelings onto the page.  My apologies.}

Today was a no good, horrible, very bad day, and I have my own pride to blame for it.  If you are squeamish, don't read this (this is your one and only warning).

I'm now five days post-op.  As with my previous surgeries, I have a burst of energy after the surgery itself. In four days, I slept 13 hours total, and I did more than I usually do in a day.  Just see the St. Patrick's Day post below as an example.  It's mostly a side-effect of the steroids.  Yesterday, I could feel things were beginning to change.  For the worse.

I had a follow-up appointment today with my ENT.  While this man is probably the best ENT in the area, and I'm thankful that he agreed to do my surgery, he is a bit emotionally distant, perhaps even immature.  He doesn't communicate particularly well, and frequently leaves me with feelings of guilt because of my own fear.

My sinuses have been stripped down to nothing.  Most of the bone has been removed, and he took a tool that has a spinning end on it and scraped the insides of all the sinuses.  The sinuses on the side of the nose, the sinuses around the eyes, and the sinuses in my forehead.  He removed several polyps and removed infected mucous, all through sinuses that were completely inflamed and closed. There has been lots of blood and pain over the last few days, although I hear that my healing is the prime example of good healing.  No active bleeding, no drainage, and I've been 100% compliant with directions.

I prepped myself for my appointment today in the best way I could.  I found one of Mark's rowing t-shirts and put it on.  Knowing what Mark has gone through, and the strength he has exhibited, being a rower, I felt that I could gather some strength from that silly shirt.  He has been non-stop sick this year and yet has continued to push through the pain and been successful.

Today, I went in, not knowing what to expect because my ENT never tells me what to expect.  Turns out, he had an assistant numb up my nose as best she could by packing my sinuses with gauze laced with lidocaine.  He then came in, pulled out the gauze, took a 6" scope (a metal rod) in his hand, pushed it all the way up into my sinuses, and then inserted a vacuum through the scope.  He sucked out leftover blood and mucous and pulled off any scabs that had formed.  All of this while I was awake and scared to death.

Luckily, he had run into John yesterday at the hospital and had told John to have me take my pain meds before my appointment.  Vicodin makes me very, very sleepy, and I worried about making the 45-minute drive to his office on the meds.  However, I did it, and thankfully didn't fall asleep.  The meds didn't do much to stave the pain of the scope however, and while he was still cleaning out my sinuses, I started to cry.

Not sobbing, or weeping, but the tears were flowing.  As strong as I always am, I couldn't hold back the tears.

He told me that in all the years of doing this, he had never seen anyone cry.  He's had people pass out from the pain, but never cry.  He told me that I was making him feel bad, and if I didn't stop crying, John might call him up.

I respect doctors more than any other profession.  I know the stories of wacko patients, and I know the lives that doctors live.  I pride myself on the fact that I never complain.  I never blame a doctor.  I never see them as less because I know how hard their lives are.  With that, I don't want to complain about Dr. Caughey.  Again, I'm thankful for how he's helping me.  It's just my appointments with him aren't the best.  In fact, he chastised me for driving myself to my appointment on the Vicodin.

After the appointment, I wondered why I was crying.

In fact, I spent the entire 45-minute drive back home, crying.

I think I was crying for two reasons:  fear, and loneliness.

As I've written before, I had no health problems before we moved to Germany.  I was the epitome of strength.  I used to lift weights, and I've run marathons.  Even when I was in pain, or sick, I never let it stop me.

Feeling so much pain, and realizing that I can't function how I want to scares me.  He could have cut off my head today and it would have been less painful than what I was going through.  Too, I didn't know all of this was going to happen.  I had no mental preparation, no deep-breathing exercises, no "if I can just hang in there for 3 minutes of this, I can make it".  I can't scream while he's scoping my nose, and I certainly can't run away.  All I could do was cry.

Too, I felt completely and utterly alone.  Here I was, in so much pain, and there was nobody there to tell me that it was going to be okay.  I just wanted someone to hold my hand and tell me that I could do it.  I wanted someone to be with me so that I didn't feel alone.  I wanted someone to help me get to and from my appointment, so that I didn't need to worry about falling asleep at the wheel.

I have severed this opportunity because I refuse to let people help me.  My friends are busy, and I have no family around.  John had clinic and couldn't get away.  I just wanted to be able to tell someone how scared I was and have them comfort me.  Sarah Moran, if you had been closer, I would have dragged you to this appointment with me, and I would have been so grateful.

It's my own fault.  I need to let people help me.  I need to let myself not be so strong.  I need to admit that I can't do all of the things that I used to do.  And I think that's the thing I fear the most.

And I'm crying again.