Pain killers and anti-clotting needles
Pain. Pain is something I deal with a lot right now, with luck I'll have some pain free time after the surgical wound haa healed and before the cancer pain returns, but I know better than to hope for luck after the last year.
Just before I take my medicine (hydromorphone, 1mg), I know I'm feeling pain, but it barely registers as hurt. It's not a soreness, a burning, or a stabbing (cancer was stabbing for me), it's difficult to describe. But it is so intense that it blocks hunger and fullness completely, the need to use the washroom, thirst, even itchiness.
I the first ten minutes after taking pain killers, the numbing effect disappears. I begin to be able to tell what my colon and bladder are up to, but the main feeling in this stage is pain, in the traditional sense. When I was in the hospital, in the days following the removal of my epidural and pain pump, I didn't realize that the indescribable feeling was pain until the pain doctor (his words) told me so. The first time I recieved a hydromorphone dose, rather than continuously, the traditional pain at this point was unbearable. I nearly called for a nurse and doctor, I thought the cancer has done something terrible. My abdomin felt like a tangled mess, and each strand burned and stabbed independently. One by one they untangled, and with order came relief from the pain. By the end of twenty minutes, these new pains, the ones hidden by the numbness, are mostly gone.
Finally, I'm left with the pain that is most directly associated with the incision itself. This is mostly a soreness in the direct vacinity of the opening. By now, I can feel all body signals that are originally blocked. If the staples (I think there are 46 of them) have any discomfort to them, it's blocked by the numbness and the pain killers. By now I'm also as high as I'm going to get, which isn't a lot, but enough that I won't drive (I feel comfortable driving on T3s, but won't operate the forklifts, scissor lifts and booms at work) and I may have a nap. I take my one dose a half hour before bed to time it for this. After my experience in the hospital, it's not a high I find particularly enjoyable.
If you ever receive major surgery, they'll give you a shot to prevent blood clots. I've never liked needles, but lithium requires monthly serum level monitoring, so I've gotten over it. Which works great in the hospital. But I needed to take it for four weeks. I had to eject myself once a night for eighteen nights and I genuinely didn't know I had it in me. I may have had no choice, but I was still able to face and defeat one of my oldest fears. I don't feel a lot of accomplishment in this, but I do know I've promised myself a bacon cheeseburger at my favourite chip truck on Highway 17.
From the comments
James Petrosky: It's weird, I actually experience more pain on the hydromorphone than without it, because without it I don't feel much of anything, but with it I feel regular stuff. But the pain I experience is regular stuff, the creaking knees, the strain of stretching too far, Bessie stepping on your feet (she really likes doing this for some reason). Normal things. Human things. I don't want them to go numb for as long as I can hold off.