Joy and Pain, starting again.

So this is the end of the story about my hospital stay. It's an end but also a beginning. I can't help notice that after years of back and stomach pain, it is gone. Physically I feel 10 years younger, but also sad that I've lost a month of my life. Then again if the back pain stays gone I'll save thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on physio, massage therapy, chiropractic, and IMS accupuncture. I look at pictures of myself from my honeymoon and even a few from my wedding and I can see a pained expression on my face. I used to see that in the mirror, but I don't see it anymore today.

I still hurt, but it's getting a bit better day by day. This feels like a chance to start again but before I start again, I'll tell you how everything ended.

The Friday before I left was full of up and downs. Only one doctor came to visit. The hand IV started swelling so that I didn't have knuckles and a breeze hurt so the nurse came to move it.

First he tried shoving a needle in my left arm but the IV didn't work so we left it until the afternoon. It hurt so bad and I was so tired of being poked at I started bawling and he left. My poor mom came an hour later and I hadn't stopped crying and knew it was upsetting her but she could see the big green bruises crawling down my arm.

When he tried again he gave me a cup of apple juice and cookies first. "I don't want you to cry again." He was as upset as me. The IV in my wrist hurt like hell but hadn't inflamed and I was willing to suck it up for a day knowing it wasn't going to be longer than that.

My sweet husband came for our final, going-away solid dinner hospital food. In the cafeteria he made me turn around and spread out a tablecloth and cloth napkins on the table behind me. It was like being real people again and I wanted to cry. He turned on one of those electric candles and we ate dinner by candlelist. I was in my double blue hospital gown get-up, my blue socks and navy blue granny slippers my mom brought for me. Him in his suit and Edward pumping me full of saline.

Saturday morning came and when they woke me at 5:30 am to give me my last Benedryl I couldn't go back to sleep. It was like a kid on Christmas except I was waiting until Edward, my IV drip machine was disconnected and the needle taken out of my wrist. (I still cringe thinking of it).

I went to the TV room, I came back to my room. I didn't even open the tray of the hospital food. No doctors came. The nurses didn't take my "vitals."

Finally one of the nurses came to take out my IV. "Why did they put it in your wrist? This hurts most of all places. Who did this?" When she left I cried again for all the poking and prodding and hurting and why would he put it in my wrist!!!

Chris came a bit early (thank goodness) and I changed into "real people" clothes. Not the clothes I came in, because they had been stolen. Did I mention that?

I felt my humanity returning a bit. You feel very nude and vulnerable wearing the "sick uniform". As I walked past the foot of my bed I scraped my leg on the metal clip from my chart. I scraped it hard and started crying. And though I knew it wasn't my crying that got me in the hospital I fell into Chris's arms "Don't make me stay, I'll stop crying, it just hurts but it will be ok." We laughed and I kept crying and he promised he'd take me home no matter what.

So with that we left. There's no ceremonial "leaving" that you have to do. I felt like I could have walked out as soon as they took the IV out. They don't even give you anything to take home.

It's weird of all the things that happened, the IVs were what caused me the most problems. They pulled and swelled and I hated having to walk around with the post. I hated the sound Edward made as he pumped liquid into me.

My hand still hurts. But I've come home with a new appreciation of pain. One of my roommates was asked what her pain was on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the worst you could imagine. She said in her sprightly English accent, "Oh well, I'd have to say it's probably, you know, a 10."

See and on the other side of the curtain I rolled my eyes. A 10 is really unimaginable, it's roll your eyes in the back of your head, unspeakable, horrific horror. It's not able to make a complete sentence pain. I didn't get there. But without hitting an eight or nine I never would have been able to comprehend what "pain" can really mean. I think of people who are tortured or the bodies at Pompeii with new appreciation.

Remember that song about "Joy and Pain" it was popular when I was in Grade 7.

Joy felt like my shower. It felt like drinking water from a real glass. It felt like lying on my own bed. I felt like people looking at me like I was a person, not a patient of interest.

I think that if people are in the hospital for more than four or so days they should really have a counsellor come and talk to them. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't going crazy -- but I felt it was my fault that I was there. I felt like I had been bad. I felt like the doctors and nurses were enjoying my pain. I felt like an experiment. I felt like I would never get out of the hospital. When I thought, I thought of all the germs on everything including me. For example they'd use the same finger clip that measured your pulse and blood oxygen on everyone without cleaning it once. I tried not to think and just live from vital check, to meal, to visitor and back to sleep.

Mrs. Poopy-pants didn't understand what the nurses wanted her to do or how to get better. I could tell that even though they were trying to get her to roll on her side so she didn't get bedsores, she didn't understand. She thought they were trying to hurt her. I felt the same way sometimes -- even though I knew everyone wanted to help, it felt like they were trying to hurt.

And when you leave everything stops and no one tells you what to do. Do you stay on bland icky foods, can you eat tacos? When can I go to the gym? When can I eat spicy indian food? How much sleep do I need? How do I "rehab" myself so I keep getting stronger -- while still getting the rest I need?

As I get stronger I realize the thing that made it all worthwhile were my friends and family. Waking up and finding someone coming into my little curtained stall just made my heart soar. I always knew how important they were, but they are the rocks our lives are built on.