I received a note from a friend today about my blogs. Now, my friend will probably quit reading or sending me notes concerning my blogs since I am blogging about it, but I have faith that she will get over it.
First, she took issue with my comparison to the pain I am randomly feeling now to childbirth. She said that the pain I am experiencing now is nothing compared to childbirth. Just for the record I have spoken to many people that have children and also had a testicle removed and they all agree that having a testicle removed was much more painful (short term). I am guessing her research is solely based on having children, and no data gathered from the nutectomy crowd. And I will partially agree with her, the incision itself probably probably feels a lot like a Caesarian, because the cut is basically the same place. However, the pain I am complaining about is much worse and more intense than any pain I have ever felt before. I have described it as a monkey walking up and stabbing you with a white hot knife and slicing, and that doesn't really do it justice. Maybe take a half dozen rusty razor blades, put them in a straight line, and smack them across my incision with a sledgehammer. That's not quite it either. Have you ever sliced a pizza fresh out of the oven really quick, and you accidentally run the little pizza slicer wheel against your finger with the hot cheese and tomato sauce? Cut about twenty pizzas so it's nice and hot, then do that from your waist to your thigh. Or maybe get bit in the incision by a King Cobra with a broken fang, Parkinson's (to give that shaking/slicing feeling) and rabies, maybe kinda like that. Actually, none of those will do it justice. Do all of them together and you may come close, EXCEPT...
The worst part of the pain I have had since this weekend is the randomness. Murphy's Law takes effect and it always seems to happen when you DON'T want to double over in pain and fall on the floor, or drop whatever food and Pepsi you are carrying, or when it is totally inappropriate to yell the "F-word" at the top of your lungs, as opposed to when you don't mind all that stuff happening. Put all that together and then you will see why I am pissing and moaning (and sometimes literally pissing and moaning).
Now the person that wrote me the note today has been a very good friend for thirteen or fourteen years now (WOW, it has been that long hasn't it!). She knows me pretty well, but still had to lecture me about overdoing it this weekend. Through all the various medical experiments that I have been subjected to, she knows that I pretty much always do more than what I am supposed to do on each and every one. When they tell me to eat a small meal after my scope, I would stop by Ponderosa, Ryan's, Golden Corral, or anywhere else that would allow someone coming out of a Demerol stupor to make several trips to the buffet, followed a short time later by several trips to the bathroom (so that's why they tell you to take it easy). For my stomach surgery, I don't know how many times I busted a stitch by doing stuff too early. It was a little embarrassing when the doctor questioned how he screwed up one of the incisions and I had to admit that it was healing fine until I started codeine-induced flying tackles in my sister's yard on her roommate. The point is that my friend has known me long enough that if I doctor says, "Come in take this test" or "Don't drink alcohol or you'll die", I listen, but if at any point during the sentence he says the words "take it easy", I tend to delete that whole sentence from my memory.
And taking it easy is a lot easier said than done. Even with six hundred channels, there is only so much you can watch. There is only so much you can surf on the web until you find yourself just repeatedly hitting "refresh" on your favorite pages to see if anything has changed. I have so many projects I want to finish and start, and I can't do any of them right now! I feel like that guy from the Twilight Zone that was the only guy left on Earth and finally had time to read books and he broke his glasses. I have time, lots of time to do whatever I want, so long as it doesn't involve lifting, twisting, running, walking, moving, blinking, or breathing moderately hard. I am little afraid to see my "Can do and Can't do" list for chemo on Thursday. Sure, I should be more healed when it's time to start that, but then they knock you immune system so low that you can't step on a bug without laying a paper towel over the bug first, then put on snow boots with two pair of socks, wear rubber gloves, a surgical mask, and a hairnet, then take a shower with antibacterial soap after you throw the ex-bug away.
I guess deep down I know my friend is probably right, and deep down I know that I will probably do more than I should again before this is all over. But I still feel like, as far as my cancer fight is concerned, I am heading in the right direction, even if I am heading in that direction hunched over, dragging my foot, and screaming the "F-word".
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