Earlier last week I tried desperately to make gluten-free cinnamon loaf, gluten-free bread, and gluten-free holiday sugar cookies all of which failed miserably. I used to love to bake as I felt accomplished in that I could still prove to others I could do something well. Yet, of all my failures the sugar cookies really crushed me as they're my favourite during this season and on a bad day they're sweet n don't hurt me.
On another note, thursday I had to go into a hospital for a colonoscopy, and so today will be a good day as it would have to take a severely drastic turn to be remotely worse than yesterday. However uncomfortable it is to be in a roomful of gassy strangers it was nothing compared to the sedative taking effect slower than usual as they had a hard time placing an IV. All of which making it possible for me to see my insides on the screen. I thought going in I hope they use the IV to knock me out cause the gas was gross for the endoscopy. I immediately regretted that hopeful idea, not that I had a choice in it.
You arrive nervous and fearful because well who wants to go through this? Only desperate people like me. So theres a large waiting area with a pretty painting and I'm waiting with my mom as 12:30 passes and I go check that they haven't missed me. Only to find out that the nurse has been calling the wrong person accidentally. So once I have a gown on and am told to wait at the nurses station, and as I sit I meet a nice elderly Italian women who had flown out from edmonton to get the same procedure done. I wondered why she couldn't have it done out there but it's hard to understand her through her broken english, yet she is kind and says that I am too young to be in a room like this. I agree, and as she leaves, I watch the other patients waking up from procedures and a chatty man talking to a groggy women. I think to myself, I hope no one talks to me after it's uncomfortable and awkward enough and in pain, not only do I not know what to say but I also know I will not have the strength to pretend to be fine and normal to talk to.
I am brought into the IV room, in the first chairs there is a bald man with a handle bar moustache, he looks like he's in a biker gang. After the nurse is done with him she makes three painfully unsuccessful attempts at placing an IV in my arm. The other nurse that has come to take me to the procedure room gets antsy and causes the nurse placing the IV to feel pressured. The fourth try fails, but the fifth is very very painful as my veins are small, the other nurse is pleased and takes the sedative bag with her while she directs me into a room and onto a bed. The sedative is hooked up to my IV but as they begin it has not taken effect soon enough and I can see the screen that shows the camera and it's showing something similar to those gross pictures on medical websites. I see something weird and asked the doctor what it was and coincidentally the nurse goes to my IV bag and I wake in a recovery room full of gassy strangers.
A 24 year old girl lays in a bed to my right and says how she wishes they gassed her cause she didn't want to see that. I laugh as I roll over and agree I never wanted to see my insides either. We talk about our symptoms and they're the same except that she has chron's and I have who-know's what, to add to my list. She's young like me, she talks of the struggles so similar to mine and I am glad that someone is there to talk to as I wake up. I don't have to act normal, or anything different from how awful I feel because she's just like me. It was refreshing to talk to her and I wished I wasn't discharged so fast n had more time to talk or at least keep in touch. The women to my left was just 28 years old with her husband and he says she has colon cancer. He tells me that she was diagnosed to late because doctors refused to test her for cancer claiming she was too young. It's true she is too young but now she has had to go in for an operation on friday and he tells the nurses that as great as they are he will be happy to not see them again.
On another note, thursday I had to go into a hospital for a colonoscopy, and so today will be a good day as it would have to take a severely drastic turn to be remotely worse than yesterday. However uncomfortable it is to be in a roomful of gassy strangers it was nothing compared to the sedative taking effect slower than usual as they had a hard time placing an IV. All of which making it possible for me to see my insides on the screen. I thought going in I hope they use the IV to knock me out cause the gas was gross for the endoscopy. I immediately regretted that hopeful idea, not that I had a choice in it.
You arrive nervous and fearful because well who wants to go through this? Only desperate people like me. So theres a large waiting area with a pretty painting and I'm waiting with my mom as 12:30 passes and I go check that they haven't missed me. Only to find out that the nurse has been calling the wrong person accidentally. So once I have a gown on and am told to wait at the nurses station, and as I sit I meet a nice elderly Italian women who had flown out from edmonton to get the same procedure done. I wondered why she couldn't have it done out there but it's hard to understand her through her broken english, yet she is kind and says that I am too young to be in a room like this. I agree, and as she leaves, I watch the other patients waking up from procedures and a chatty man talking to a groggy women. I think to myself, I hope no one talks to me after it's uncomfortable and awkward enough and in pain, not only do I not know what to say but I also know I will not have the strength to pretend to be fine and normal to talk to.
I am brought into the IV room, in the first chairs there is a bald man with a handle bar moustache, he looks like he's in a biker gang. After the nurse is done with him she makes three painfully unsuccessful attempts at placing an IV in my arm. The other nurse that has come to take me to the procedure room gets antsy and causes the nurse placing the IV to feel pressured. The fourth try fails, but the fifth is very very painful as my veins are small, the other nurse is pleased and takes the sedative bag with her while she directs me into a room and onto a bed. The sedative is hooked up to my IV but as they begin it has not taken effect soon enough and I can see the screen that shows the camera and it's showing something similar to those gross pictures on medical websites. I see something weird and asked the doctor what it was and coincidentally the nurse goes to my IV bag and I wake in a recovery room full of gassy strangers.
A 24 year old girl lays in a bed to my right and says how she wishes they gassed her cause she didn't want to see that. I laugh as I roll over and agree I never wanted to see my insides either. We talk about our symptoms and they're the same except that she has chron's and I have who-know's what, to add to my list. She's young like me, she talks of the struggles so similar to mine and I am glad that someone is there to talk to as I wake up. I don't have to act normal, or anything different from how awful I feel because she's just like me. It was refreshing to talk to her and I wished I wasn't discharged so fast n had more time to talk or at least keep in touch. The women to my left was just 28 years old with her husband and he says she has colon cancer. He tells me that she was diagnosed to late because doctors refused to test her for cancer claiming she was too young. It's true she is too young but now she has had to go in for an operation on friday and he tells the nurses that as great as they are he will be happy to not see them again.
Talking with these women who are so similar to me was the first time in a long time that I felt normal again. Which made me realize just how much effort and energy I put into trying to be normal. As well as the first time in a long time that I felt like someone actually did understand how exhausting it is to try and be normal when everything about me feels anything but normal. I left in pain from the procedure which even days later hurts but mostly I left feeling a little relieved because someone understood. It makes me realize how much as humans we need to feel understood and how much kind words can do. Talking with people who go through the same thing and use words like "us" n "we" causes me to remember what it was like to have friends and feel normal I haven't felt included like that in a long time. Too often I've just felt like a guinea pig to doctors and less like a person. "Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal." -- Albert Camus These words are all too true as I feel exhausted after going to school, or gatherings as I have spent tremendous energy trying to be normal. Which tomorrow I will wake up and do all over again, but I now have something to hold onto, the knowledge that I am understood by those rare people. “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” -- Mother Teresa. I guess it's been a long time since kind words, and understanding were extend my way and so this will echo. Now I am thankful for having met them, and sad to feel alone once again. But it's the little things to hold onto, as they can shine a tiny light to hold onto through all the rest of these foggy wanderings.
Tomorrow I will pull myself together, mustar up all my strength, paint on a smile, be optimistic, take my pills and go out to mingle in the world to try again. Yet, right now I will sit in uncontrolled pain, worn out emotionally and physically, and exhausted from trying for so long, from bucking up and dealing with it for so long as there is no other option. Its hard and it sucks and for five minutes as I switch from writing this to pushing myself onward to write a paper I will allow myself to feel all that hurts, and then I will turn that tap off because I can't handle feeling that intensity that bubble below my surface. Allowing that tap of raw feelings to flow through me creates some form of control so that the tap can be turned off without bursting.
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