surgical drains – Pink Stinks

Current Status: Pending. Better.

It’s been about a month past the actual surgery, and I am slowly, slowly, feeling the tide of “normal” energy return. It arrives briefly, a teaser, and then fatigue kicks in again.

But it’s coming back. I can feel it. And this gives me strength.

Pluses:

The surgical drain will be removed this week.

woman in pink dress doing jump shot while extending arms under white clouds — I would probably pop a bunion if I did this, but still.

Freedom! What people don’t tell you about surgical drains is that they are clumsy, they stink, and they make normal movement difficult. Here’s a link for more info about the Jackson-Pratt drain system.

I can drive again.

low angle view of cat on tree — I will be alert. I will look both ways.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is also a freedom. No more do I have to call Uber. No more will I be confined to the walls of this (admittedly loved) house, trapped between naps and half-hearted attempts at chores. I can get drive-thru coffee. I can drive to forests.

Woot!

The holidays are coming.

This one is balanced with some cons as well. I struggle with envy of those who are healthy, have intact, functional families that come from all around to visit. Cutting back on social media – the showcase of our hoped-for selves – will be a requirement. I can’t handle the perfect Facebook posts and the full-haired mothers and clean houses and cousins and grandparents. It makes me sad, and jealous. This is petty, isn’t it? I should cheer, root for them all. I should be a better person, meditate on it, extend the full light of compassion. And in my better heart I do. But not now. I’ve still got grief on my shoulder, fatigue on the other, and the twins of hope and fear to contend with. They take up a lot of my time.

On the other hand, there is the food. And the color. And the celebrations and neighbors and friends and candy and presents and watching my daughter open presents. There’s my husband’s goofy good cheer when I cook his favorite roast. There is the yearly ritual of baking a fabulous cake. There is packaging, pumpkin spice, coffee and pastries. This whole season: It’s too much sugar and carbs and drinks combined with the ancient warmth of huddling together against the darkness. Diwali, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or just the tree. It is this rallying-together-against-the-cold, this gratitude and kindness across the set table that says I’m here – that I love. It’s the human condition. It’s us.

And hallelujah for that.

I can write again.

Recovering from both chemotherapy and surgery dragged me into a depression. Fatigue sapped my thinking into some vague void where words float, linger, don’t connect. This meant that writing anything – even reapplications for disability, let alone phone calls to the wireless service – were Sisyphean tasks that were best left gathering on the kitchen table. And they piled and piled until this past week.

New motto: When all else fails, make piles.

But leaf by leaf, this leaning tower of smog certificates and insurance notices is coming down. Like The Thing from the old Fantastic Four comics says right before a fight: “It’s clobberin’ time!” Instead of fists, I’ve got a dark roast, my papers, and a pen.

Cheers.

I Hate Surgical Drains.

Imagine a large, plastic worm that drools liquid constantly. It is shoved through your chest skin and into your armpit, and its stomach sac, attached with a lengthy tube, wanders and slips over your belly like a rogue balloon.

Imagine that this worm’s belly must be drained twice a day. In the lengthy, slow, meandering draw down from your flesh into its rotund collections, there are flesh bits that look like fingers, raw chicken, fetuses.

Sleep on your back. Do not raise your arm.

Hourly you must shove this worm’s unruly flailings back into your pants.

Imagine that the reddish-orange fluid that gathers in the pool of this squirming hellion’s plastic gut is not blood. It is liquid detritus to be removed from the flood site. At times the colors of it evoke a sunset, which is pleasant enough except for the pus.

Getting dressed: 1. Place your shirt overhead first. 2. Let the garment rest on your shoulders for a few seconds. The tube must settle. 3. Slowly, so as not to shift your inwardly slithering medical reptile “buddy,” raise your arm and slide it gently through the sleeve. 4. Wait 10 seconds. 5. Repeat with the other arm. 6. Breathe a sigh of relief: the drain stayed.

In considering architectural innovations, ponder the labyrinth. Who is the monster? Who is the girl?

Drain, sucker.

Each flesh bit that leaves the body may be a part of the disease. One might celebrate. Might.

Imagine removing your clothes. The shower water rushes. The wildly gesticulating worm of tubular regurgitations must be subdued and restrained for the cleansing, and so, like a madhouse warden, you tape and tape and tape it not to a chair, but to your skin. Supervise its movement. There will be no violence today.

Absolution? Only with its removal. Call the doctor.

Call again.

Oh parasite, oh lollygagging and lengthy leftover lap lap lapping and long-remaining lily of the surreal translucent and post-surgical liquid stem linking loss to luck, little to less, longing to love and back again, you’re a lazy lurid river, a milliliter lover, a sewage leaver, convenience killer, a bendable lamentable wily water lure, a makes-it-hard-to-hold my daughter and my husband lank and lowbred dirty and late single-string lyre.

I hate you.