Pathological

Pathology report: lymph nodes all clear. No chemo necessary. Woohoo!

My mom had to have a second, though minor, surgery because her skin wasn't healing properly from the first surgery.

My dad has been by her side every possibly moment, bringing much of his work to the hospital and actually taking his years of accumulated time off. He has been an absolute super hero. Under normal circumstances, he likes doing as many things as physically possible. He's mellowed down some so that he can now wait in line without exploding, but he used to send each member of the family to stand in a different check-out line and then we'd all join whoever got to the counter first. If there were fewer lines than family members, my father would bounce back and forth between lines, check things out at the front, go back and shop some more or do whatever he found to keep himself occupied. The man couldn't stand still. As adults, my siblings and I refuse to participate in the efficient but rude multiline blitz.

I try to be there for my mom as often as I can so my dad and my brother don't have to. My dad hadn't cleared his work schedule to take my mom home after the unexpected second surgery so I planned to be there Tuesday and Wednesday. Thanks to the migraines and everything I've had to do to fight them, I'm no longer bothered by blood and IVs and all that, plus I'm female and not modest so I can help my mom get undressed and dressed.

Driving back and forth these past few weeks, I've somewhat abused my Torodol: nothing that will kill me, but a bit much for keeping it effective.

Tuesday, HDS stayed home from work because the inside of her head burned. I went to the hospital to find my mother quite chipper. She was walking around before they had her out of recovery and wanted real food as soon as the nurse could find her an unplanned turkey sandwich. Considering how much trouble she had with the anesthesia the first time, we were all pleasantly surprised.
Meanwhile, I took one of the alcohol wipes and bandaids laying around and gave myself another shot of Torodol. My sunglasses never came off.
My mom, who had surgery, was doing fine and better all the time. I, who had all my parts intact, got worse and worse. Sound, smells, all the usuals but no amount of caffeine or drugs seemed to stave them off.
I wigged out. There was nowhere I could hide in the hospital that was dark or quiet. Everything buzzed and hummed and beeped. I'd find a dark hall or stairwell only to step in and activate motion censor fluorescent lights. It was light a bad nightmare. I curled up in a corner behind a doorway where at least no one was around and cried and cried because it hurt so much.

I cried because I felt like I had no right to my pain, here on a post-op hospital ward.
Mine can't kill me.
But my mom will get better. My mom will be a cancer survivor.

I went back to her room and sat in a chair in the dark part while my dad tried to fuss over making it darker for me. I'm not sure what I said or did at that point but I figured I'd just sleep in the corner until the pain blew over. Then my mom said my dad and brother were going to both drive me home so my car would be back at my house and that was what she wanted and they would deal with Wednesday because I needed to take care of myself.

Lots of gratitude and I was home. I give my family a lot of credit for this one.

That night it stormed so loud the lightning woke me.