My Recovery in the hospital.
“I will not lose for even in defeat, there’s a valuable lesson learned.”
These last few days have been so hard. I am getting the best of myself.. I’m skating on thin ice with depression I think. BUT the important part is I still got my skates on. I figured if I write about how bad things were a few weeks ago, then I’ll feel better about the ‘lesser’ bad now.
I’m not sure how much time passed between the surgery and waking up in a hospital room- but when I woke up, I looked like Crazy Eyes from Mr. Deeds. No joke, I could see North, East, South, and West all at once. I was also having extremely vivid dreams about killing people I love that seemed so real I was waking up plotting how to get away with it, and almost called my accomplice at 4am to hide the body for me (it was after that I sent my phone home with my fiancé so I didn’t try to make any more incriminating calls at 4am). I was also terrified to get discharged because I thought I’d be going straight from the hospital to prison. It was a nightmare that didn’t stop after waking up. I think it had something to do with my brain getting cut in to. Or maybe I really secretly hate people I think I love, who knows.
As awful and unescapable as that all was, that wasn’t even CLOSE to the worst part.
The worst part was I recovered on a pediatric oncology unit. Yeah, I was surrounded by children suffering with cancer for DAYS. And, I have my own child. No matter how bad your life is, it’s better than those poor babies and their poor parents. If that didn’t put things into perspective, nothing would’ve. I was trying to focus on myself and my recovery while my 8 year old hospital mate was screaming in pain and fear, and her mom was helplessly crying. So instead of focusing on my recovery, I was focusing on how bad I felt for them and how lucky I was that it was me going through this and not my son. I was also scrummaging through the bags full of candy that all my loved ones had been bringing me wondering WTF type of candy she liked so I could cheer her up (when people are trying to help a situation they know they really can't, they just buy you candy and shit and hope it cheers everyone up).
Why was I on this unit? I had a brainstem glioma, most common in children. My neurosurgeon specialized in not only this type of tumor, but this extremely crucial part of the brain (4th ventricle/brain stem) as well. Apparently, I’ve had it since I was a young child. Explains a lot. The surgeons and oncologists were mind-blown I made it “this far”. SURPRISE. I’m here and not going anywhere.
Here I am, 5’9 using beds designed for children not even 5’0. It was bad enough I could hardly stand after surgery, but squatting down to that toilet was so hard. It was like 5 inches off the ground. Everything was so mini - and I am so not mini. I felt as if everything in the hospital was “Barbie Size".
When I woke up in recovery, I had spidey-senses. I guess since my eyes weren’t really working, my other senses were over-working. I could smell EVERYTHING. I thought I could smell a lot when I was preggo - but this was a whole new level of scent. I could smell people before they even entered the room. Literally. Also, I knew some Spanish before the surgery, but when I got out I was practically fluent. My hospital mate was a little 8 year old girl from the DR, and I became not only her hospital roomie, but also her translator. I was surprising myself and everyone around me. People were like "I didn’t know you were fluent in Spanish” and I was like “me either”. I tried writing down something for her and that is when I realized I couldn’t write anymore either. Every letter was on top of each other.. I looked at my fiancé, looked back down at my attempt to write, giggled and said “What the fuck?” (trying to make light of another thing I went to sleep being able to do and woke up unable to do).
For the first few days post surgery the only words in my vocabulary were “Mom” “Hot” “Cold”and “Ice”. I would yell “Mom, Hot!” and she would take off my blankets. Then I’d yell “Mom, Cold!” and she’d put on my blankets. Then I’d yell “Mom, Ice!” if I was hungry or thirsty and she’d feed me ice, one cube at a time. Picture Will Ferrell in Wedding Crashers yelling “Ma, THE MEATLOAF!” and that gives you a pretty solid idea of the relationship between me and my mom at this point of my recovery.
After 2 weeks of recovery in the hospital, my bed was finally ready for me at the Out-Patient Rehab so I was transferred. When the ambulance got there, the EMTs came in and transferred me to a gurney to bring me to the ambulance. I was excited to be leaving and be one step closer to recovery. I was excited to not fall asleep and wake up surrounded by children in agony. I was excited to get out of a hospital with such dry air that gave me bloody noses every night. When they wheeled me outside, I cried for the first time since my surgery. I was overwhelmed and happy to feel the cold air on my skin… I guess I didn’t realize how much I missed the fresh air.
