Day 71: no more cyborg

After three or so failed attempts at writing this blog post over this week, I’m settling in: trauma behind me, coffee in front of me, cookie inside of me. It is a dreary day at the end of a week of dreary days, but I got up enough energy to make my first Chemex of coffee in months. We’re tired, that’s what. Marie and I had to get up quite early this morning to make early appointments in Boston. It’s never a favorite.

Today I got my second Hickman catheter line taken out. I was very afraid of this. Terrified. The last experience of getting the right side out was…beyond traumatic. It was excruciating. The manboy performing the procedure clearly didn’t know what he was doing: he had to leave to get more lidocaine (local anesthetic: numbing stuff they syringe into you at the area) TWICE and even after all the lidocaine I could SOMEHOW still FEEL him snipping and cutting and hacking into my chest wall. I couldn’t control my flailing and screaming, that's how bad. And I have to tell you, that I have a pretty high pain tolerance. Apparently once it switches over into medieval torture, my reserves aren’t so deep…

All kidding aside, it was the. most. painful experience of my entire life. I could not do that again. Thinking about it would make me cry and panic attacks were trotting not far behind.

However, today for removal #2, the doctor assured me that it will be absolutely nothing like what happened last time; that he does multiple of these procedures every day (my rookie for #1 had probably just graduated high school.). If for some reason the pain came again as he’s going, we’ll stop and move to a procedure room, and they’ll give me some heavier drugs to knock me out. This sounded reasonable. So, properly Ativan-ed, I agreed to let the doctor take it out the way they usually do it. The doctor was very reassuring, he set the site, cleaned the area, gave my some lidocaine, told me to take a deep breath and hum, and viola it’s out. I was shocked. The last one took over an hour of this child-man hacking away into my chest and me crying out in agony. This one was over before I knew he was actually doing anything. Unmitigated Success. No More Cyborg.

So we came home, and I made some celebratory coffee and put on some trashy TV for the background of this post (Say Yes to the Dress, all day errday)

Now, for some catch-up. As you may imagine, a lot has happened since my last post, millions of years ago. Honestly, most of October was spent in the hospital for one thing or another. One week after I got out post-transplant, I was back in for dehydration (the most common cause of re-hospitalization. Believe me when I say it’s harder to stay hydrated than you would ever imagine! I can’t explain it). I also suffered from extreme body pains, muscle spasms, and lots of itchy rashes and fevers that make time go by at a confusing rate. Then suddenly it’s Halloween, which I spent in the hospital as well, sleeping most of the day as usual. After it all, they said the closest they could get to diagnosis for all the rashes and body aches etc. was some sort of viral meningitis. Because it was viral, we had to just let it run its course, treating the symptoms along the way. Honestly, most of October is a blur to me.

November. It’s hard to sum it up, but it was a more emotionally drained month, overall. I didn’t see too many people, I didn’t feel like socializing—which is very unlike me, so I knew something was up. I mean, cancer sucks, there’s going to be down days, and I accept that. But the trend had been moving toward the negative, almost exclusively. There wasn’t much to do… I waded through the muck, hoping to arrive at another side. I watched a lot of Netflix. I slept. A lot. I didn’t have the energy to write anything because I felt I had nothing to say, except maybe to whine, but that didn’t sound appealing or cathartic either.

So, even though it is corny to do so, I’m going to make a list of things that I am thankful for.

I need to remind myself that everything does not suck.

- Blood counts have been great! (no transfusions since before my transplant!)

- Liver counts are approaching normal!

- I can now take a shower without having the fuss of covering my lines that never worked to stay dry in the first place!

- we’re cutting down on some medications

- Marie, for her constant care and love towards me.

-  the towel warmer in the bathroom

- LUSH bath products, especially their bath melts. holy. holy. holy. cow.

- heated blankets

- 30 more days until I can eat salad. (day 100!)

- the bittiest amounts of grandpa hairs are growing in! (also wily eyebrows)

- tis the season for Christmas cookies

So with hopes that perhaps it will not rain for the rest of our lives, here’s to the sun. Hope we see you soon, brother.