I watched the numbers on the odometer slowly roll to the
next tenth of a mile and my eyelids seemed to be tugged further down as each rotation
triggered another yawn. I wondered how I
had driven 14 hours to Georgia,
just two months after my lobectomy, when I am now struggling to stay awake on a
simple 20 minute trip to Pennsylvania.
This was the third lung surgery in 18 months, and I am
starting to doubt that I am as recovered as I thought. Though the initial pain has subsided, the
occasional sharp twinge and hyper-sensitive patches of skin serve as a constant
reminder of the fact that I am still unable to turn the page on this chapter of
my life. This last surgery removed a nodule the size of a golf ball, yet the
lab results are still inconclusive.
Perhaps the stress of the unknown is why I feel my mind wearily
wanders from the task at hand, and I feel I’m viewing life peripherally, completely
unfocused. Two years…first the bloody
cough, then the news that there are spots on both lungs…the words lung cancer”
tossed about like an errant ball in the hands of children, coming ever closer
to the neighboring window. Eighteen
months of fighting with the insurance company over bills that should have been
paid from the first two surgeries, but haven’t, because of a simple typo on
their end that they can’t seem to fix. Anxiety levels getting ratcheted up a notch
each time a CT or PET scan was postponed, waiting for insurance approval.
I’m unable to throw away collection notices, which, in my
mind have become ransom demands, because of the
Stockholm syndrome-like bond that has formed between me and the insurance
company.
I continued to bounce from test to test, surgery to surgery,
waiting for the inevitable shattered window, which came the day I was released
from the hospital in the news that a family member had lost her fight with cancer.
It was hard to celebrate my good fortune
of leaving the hospital, being told my tumor was not cancer, when the life of
someone so young with two little children had been cut short so prematurely. A
kind of survivor’s guilt overcame me, and I kept wondering why I was so
fortunate. I previously said I’m waiting
for the other shoe to drop, but now I wonder if it hasn’t been thrown, hitting
me in the head and leaving me in some post operative state of confusion.
Nothing is sharp. Not
that sharp would be a word I’d use to describe myself! My face is round, as is every part of my
body. Even my hair gets round with an increase in humidity! The only thing
capable of being sharp would probably be my tongue.
I’ve heard of disorders such as postpartum depression, and
post traumatic stress syndrome. I have to wonder if there is a post-op
perplexity disorder and I’m the new poster child. I feel like I am in a room, surrounded by
people having a toke from some community reefer, and I’m stuck in the middle, feeling
disoriented from the contact high!
There are so many horror stories of hospitals performing the
wrong surgeries on patients and amputating the wrong limb. If it weren’t that I
distinctly remember the doctor marking the surgical site with indelible ink, I
would swear he performed a lobotomy instead of a lobectomy! My memory is
shorter than the life expectancy of a mayfly. I would like to think if there
was a problem like Alzheimer’s, it would have shown up on my periodic brain MRI,
which monitors a spot found on my right frontal lobe. I would think if it had grown, I would have at
least gotten a courtesy call. Hmmm, that
is…I don’t remember getting any call…..
