dreams and sucking out the bad stuff

I don't really know what kind of drugs I was on during surgery. I know they gave me Versed right before I was wheeled down the hall. Just a little something to take the edge off, I guess. It also does a good job of erasing the memories. I recall seeing the OR but then the lights go out. The next few days have been like this Van Gogh painting...lots of starry naps and dim memories.

I've been taking Percoset since I came home. It does a good job on the pain but today it created some nausea. It also makes me fall asleep in the middle of conversations which some people find disconcerting. I skipped my 2 o'clock dose but decided about 6 that a little nausea is worth the pain control. I am not a hero when it comes to pain. I don't even like a hint of pain.

This is an interesting part of my post-surgical experience. It's a suction drainage thing. The tube end disappears into my skin under my arm and is fastened there with a couple of Frankenstein stitches.It operates by suction...you squeeze the bulb flat and all the bad stuff gets slowly sucked out of me and into the bulb. The stuff that collects in the bulb end looks like watered-down blood and floating alien embryos. It's probably not something you want to see (or hear about) if it isn't hanging off of you but I like it. It looks like a lava lamp.

This is a lava lamp in case you are too young to remember them. The alien embryos are not this large in my personal lava lamp but you get the idea. Regis has to help me dump the contents every few hours because I can't see the point of origin. This is a wonderful invention because if I didn't have this...where would all that crap go?

Tomorrow my surgeon should call with the results of the pathology whatever you call it. They took the lymph nodes and are growing them or examining them or something. What they find will determine if I only need radiation or if I have to have chemo therapy. There's that therapy word that makes this sound so...innocuous.  I'm not fooled.

Every time I wake up from a nap, which by the way, is frequently. I had three naps today. Two were about two hours each and one was a little more than an hour. I've slept more in the past three days than I have in the past two months. I swear. Oh, yeah. Got distracted. Every time I wake up from a nap, I have to lie there for a long time thinking about where I am and what day it is.

That's it. Big day tomorrow. I'll keep in touch.