I am very afraid of getting dependent on pain killers. I don't like treating pain with a heavy hand, and for every 10 times I say I feel like I should medicate pain away, only once do I actually follow through with chemical assistance. I have to fight against my instincts after surgeries, especially when it's only one week out from the biggest one ever. My whole day exists between the scheduled swallowing of pills. I have a little dry erase board I keep on the bed, and I use it very much like the one I stared at all of last week. Not every one of my nurses updated theirs, but those who did gave me a better sense of security that I would be believed when I called for fresh meds. There were just enough instances of delays and denials of assistance when I really needed it, that I used that board like a security blanket. This morning, I missed my own meticulously-kept schedule. I woke every couple hours (in pain, to be discussed in detail below), and the last pre-dawn stirring was around 4 a.m. It was too soon for the next Percocet, so I shifted in bed a little, wedged some pillows around me, and went back to sleep. Explosive pain woke me at 6:09, an hour past pill time, and I started the negotiations and whispered pleas that herald the fear of death. Fresh pills took me from wondering how I would survive an ambulance ride, to counting the minutes until I could call my surgeon's partner at 9, to have my drain removed.
Since the first time I became alert after the surgery (I'd say 5 p.m. on Monday), I was aware of an extra level of sensitivity down near my appendix, and I complained about it from day one. It felt like I was constantly getting pinched or scraped or something. I thought it was where the arm of the laparoscopic machine went in, and maybe it pinched a nerve or nicked a tendon. I noticed the pain was worst when I relaxed and slept, or was just still for a long time, and then tried to move. It kept maxing out the pain scale, going well beyond "the worst pain you can imagine," because I never thought I could feel like this and still live. To put that in context, that weekend two years ago when the diverticulitis was at its most acute, before I knew what it was, that was the first legitimate "10" I remember in my lifetime. When I went in to see my surgeon's stunning partner (seriously, great bedside manner, drop dead gorgeous, and a brilliant surgeon--she wins at life), she listened carefully to what I described. She prescribed muscle relaxers to work out the spasms, and she declared it most likely wasn't an abscess. Once she pulled out the drain tube, and she showed me the length of it, she and I agreed that it was possible that the tube itself was responsible for the pain. It was long enough to go from its entry on my left side, across the pelvic floor, to the neighborhood where the psoas major on the outside and adductor brevis line up with each other. Since I have been home, I've been all kinds of sore, but I haven't had a repeat of the 10++ pain. I might actually start to feel like I'm healing now, and that will lead to weaning off of the pills. Just not tonight. I'm due another Flexeril. Where's my water?
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