Before this, I'd had my babies, I'd had my wisdom teeth removed, I'd sprained my ankle a few times, I have a shrinking meniscus after the marathon...but nothing serious.
We did Miss B's heart surgery open heart surgery and her various other hospital stays for Pneumonia, Round Two of Pneumonia, and RSV + pneumonia so we are no strangers to Major Medical.
But it's different for me, personally. When my kids are sick, I am more than willing to do anything that makes them comfortable.
They feel ache-y? Here's some Tylenol, sweetie.
They are cold? Let me wrap you up in a blanket.
You get the idea.
But I have a tendency to subject myself to unpleasant experiences and think I can "make it through it" or I can just compartmentalize whatever pain I'm in and go about my business.
No wonder I had symptoms of a brain tumor for A YEAR before I went to the doctor.
Which means I hardly take any medications. I don't like cold meds because they make me feel fuzzy afterwards. I hardly take Motrin or Tylenol because, despite having wicked headaches, I get so busy doing other stuff that I ignore it. And I really don't like taking over the counter migraine medicines because they make me feel all jittery afterwards.
Plus, I've never had coffee or alcohol. I've never smoked. I've never done drugs. I don't even drink soda because my cross-country coach in high school asked us to give them up for the season. I figured that after not having them for 3-4 months, I could just cut them out forever and other than a few sips of sparkling cider on New Year's Eve or our anniversary, I haven't had a carbonated beverage in almost 15 years.
The biggest buzz I usually give my body comes from running or maybe a sugar-high from eating Oreos or some other delicious dessert.
The whole point of this is...when they gave me the pain meds in the hospital, my body was Not Prepared.
In general, it was WEIRD.
And I was on Cloud Nine.
Yipppppeeee!!!!
I now have a much, much better understanding of the term "loopy" because I literally felt like I was mentally making slow, happy loops.
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| Image from Depositphotos. |
The worst of it was one afternoon when they were switching me over from the IV meds to the Oral meds. The nurse gave me a dose of the 45-min. IV med, then gave me the strongest dose I could take of the Oral med.
I'm not sure what happened, but my body found that drug cocktail very entertaining.
The only way to describe it is that I was seeing in kaleidoscope.
And it felt very much like this:
Complete with the star crash at the end.
And to top it off, my friend Marie was babysitting me so Dr. C could go to work. And my friends Kristin and MaryAnn happened to stop by at the same time.
Dear friends,
I have no idea what I did or did not say to you.
I was on drugs.
So sorry.
And of course that was also the moment that the Physical Therapist decided that it was time for me to walk half way down the hallway and then learn how to get my sluggish left side to cooperate as I tried to get in and out of a bathtub.
I have NO idea how or if I accomplished those tasks; I was on drugs.
It was Quite. The. Trip.
Thankfully, now, my pain is manageable with just a low-dose narcotic/Tylenol mix that I only have to take a couple times a day.
And hopefully, soon, my head will heal and I won't need that at all.
Then, someday, I'll go running again and that will be the only high I need.
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