I Want to Give You a Brief Trigger Warning

So here’s the thing: Every time I have a surgery...

This is a Part Three… A continuation of yesterday’s work.

(So if it doesn’t make sense or have a good flow… Be sure to read in congruence with yesterday, pretty please!)

Maybe it stands alone without the connective threads?

Writing can definitely be a choose your own adventure that way.

Thank you for a beautiful week together.

Hey, guess what?

If you’re reading this: We are both still alive right now on planet earth.

Thanks for being alive with me… and most of all, alive and reading.

Yours,

B

I don’t think we talk enough about how much it hurts the human psyche to have your body invaded “against your will” when it comes to surgeries, procedures and more.

Sure, I have surgical rituals… but I also fear that I am losing control of losing control.

Before an operation like mine most recent (SI joint related), I tend to do a last second silly dance IN the pre op holding dock, just because it’s my last chance to wiggle around in my body (pain holds no power in this moments), before it’s invaded by someone else, and I also tend to play really meticulously curated playlists on the drive to the hospital beforehand.

Generally, it’s something like a singular artist that I’ve deeply memorized (the panic of Deaf exclusion is not a feeling anyone needs on 3 AM drives to distant operating rooms). For this surgery, it was the Evita soundtrack [the film version].

I’ll even joke with the surgeon that they need to have a really good band playing during the operation, and not something like “bad pop country”, because even though I’m Deaf… I’ll KNOW if the music choice is trash.

(The surgeon almost always never finds that funny, IF I get to see them before being intubated at all.)

Which leads me to a larger, yet darker point:

I used the word “invaded”.

This is the moment where I want to give you a brief trigger warning…. Though I don’t even know exactly how to phrase what I’m warning you about.

I’ve been sharing about the odd superstitions or (genuine) obsessive compulsive coping mechanisms I’ve developed to handle as many surgeries as I’ve had and give myself the false feeling of “control”.

In actuality, the more operations I have… the more scared I become.

Sure, I know how to pack or plan better (a fluffy blanket, for example)… but our fight or flight would be intensely broken if it didn’t want to do either/or a sh*t ton more, the more and more it’s put to test.

Even WHEN I know I need the surgery and I’m grateful… my body doesn’t always listen.

So here’s the thing:

Every time I have a surgery, I don’t know what is happening to my mostly naked body when I’m unconscious.

That’s just a fact.

I wake up and I spend the first day or two trying to piece together what happened like a situation that many of us have possibly experienced (especially if you’re seen as a female, it’s tragic to say), to see if I can make sense of it all.

I figure out that my lip is cracked open from the intubation tube.

I wonder why I have bruised holes at various parts of my appendages, then figure out they put needles in different spots of my shoulders and legs amid neurosurgery to make sure my nerves weren’t messed up throughout.

I have bruises that weren’t there before I closed my eyes.

This is an ugly thing to say on paper, because it’s an ugly thing to experience and it comes with ZERO blame for the nurses and doctors who keep us alive.

This is the unspoken agreement we make when we sign forms and review risks and accept their much needed, and much cherished help.

But… it doesn’t mean that knowing my naked body is being moved around in a room like a lifeless puppet doesn’t bother me any less.

And even when we ask to keep our undergarments on because it’s scary not to, and even when we trust and respect the hands doing the sewing… it does not make waking up (in my case, at least 8 or 9 times just last year) without your underwear on does not feel any less invasive after enough times.

It is NOT healthcare’s fault.

But …

It’s near impossible to extrapolate the accumulative effect of this on your psychological well being.

I feel invaded.

And I don’t say it enough.

I don’t say it clearly.

And I can be grateful for those that save my life…

And still want to fight and flight at the same time.

Thank you for this week together. I’m so grateful for you.

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