Pain Management: Part 1 (Post op)

Pain.  There's a bunch of different kinds of it, and over the last week I have become a connoisseur.

There is muscle pain, such as when someone slices into your pectoral and then expects you to move your arm.

There is incision pain, such as when someone slices into your skin to remove a body part.

There is nerve pain, such as when nerves are severed and then flip all over the place like live wires snaking all over the ground, sparking and flipping out like in a horror movie about tornados or earthquakes.

There is deep pain, so deep you don't even know it until you realize your teeth are clenched and your face is frozen into the permanent rictus of a brave half smile.

There is surface pain, so evanescent that even a breath of breeze, or a wrinkle in the sheets, or a sleeve brushing up against the skin makes you inhale sharply and say (to yourself) (usually) what the FUCK?

And there is everything in between.

This week we've been exploring these things.  And let me make something clear: it's not been horrible, it's not been excruciating, I've never cried from it (well, more on that later).  On the scale they tell you to rate these things it's been a continual 3 (at the best) to 6 (at the worst).  Usually like a four.  Which, all things considered, is really standable.  The thing that finally made me cry is that it's just been incessant.  Grinding me down at a low, psychic level, until I caved in and started really being unable to deal with it.

That's the end point of this week, the second full week after surgery.  Let me walk you through the whole timeline.

After the surgery: fabulous!  Dancing the fandango.  I had this orb thing hanging around my neck, plugged right into my body to keep a steady infusion of numbing agent dripping into the area.  Fantastic.  No pain.  Loved it.  This was supplemented by a steady regimen of two Percocets every 4 - 6 hours, whether I wanted it or not.  Loved that even more.  Nighty night.  Slept like an angel.

Coming home.  Still pretty good.  Infusion thing still dripping into me steadily, everyone saying keep ahead of the pain.  Lovely blissful long moments of just lying in bed and breathing deeply, feeling lovely, wandering through the gardens of my thoughts for hours, enjoying the relief of being post op, the sense of being taken care of, the flowers and love permeating the house.

Three/four days post op.  Well, the annoying little infusion thing ran out, as it was meant to.  That caused a little bit of a problem.   Now I was living completely on the Percocets.  Starting to get a bit nauseated with food, when I ate, which was seldom.  Starting to need to deal more aggressively with constipation.  A little tenuous on the pain spectrum, but hanging in.

Then, the weekend.  On Sunday I realize I'm going to run out of Percocet before my doctor's appt on Monday.  That's when the fun begins.