Traveling Shoes

"All God's children need traveling shoes." ~ Maya Angelou

I woke up this morning thinking of my grandmother. One story in particular. My mom said that my grandfather would never allow my grandmother to have shoes. And that when one of my aunts, when she was a teenager, gave her mom some of her own shoes, my grandfather was enraged. The story makes me so sad. My grandfather was never around and so my grandmother had no one to rely upon to feed her enormous brood of kids. They all sharecropped; it's all a woman and kids could do in the 1930's. I can't imagine what picking cotton would be like without shoes. I don't know why I woke up thinking about that. It could be I was dreaming about her, I suppose.

Last night, I had decided to talk about my experience with morphine in the hospital. I was watching a television program about methamphetamine addiction and it reminded me that I thought a lot about addiction during the first couple of days after surgery.

I was a teenager in the 1970's, a time when all kinds of drugs were around in college and when lots of kids used them for a variety of reasons. I don't think I ever knew anyone who had heroin or used heroin, though I can't be sure about people using. I always knew that heroin would be the death of me. I was always hyper vigilant and revved up. The possibility of letting go and relaxing was very inviting. Too inviting.

I never used heroin. After my surgery, though, I had morphine to control the pain. It never controlled the pain, though. I remember thinking, "Why do people like this stuff?" It just made me feel mentally sluggish. I phased in and out of consciousness, making it difficult to carry on a conversation or focus on any activity, including eating. Of course, I'm sure I wasn't using as much morphine as recreational users.

When they made me get up and walk around the nurse's station, I was on a combination of morphine and dilaudid. I kept passing people who commented on how I looked like I was feeling no pain. It really made me angry because I was in excruciating pain. It just wasn't reflected on my face.

I'd get about three-quarters of the way around the circular open hallway, thinking that I was straight in front of my room. It never failed. Then I'd look at the room number and realize I was still a long way from my room. I only made the trip a couple of times before they discharged me.

When the nurses told me I was going to have to get up and walk the third day after surgery, I shook my head at them. I just didn't think that was going to be possible. As nurse after nurse kept insisting I was going to have to do it, I gradually managed to wrap my mind around the reality of the situation. "It'll be okay," I said, "I have a high threshold for pain."

The first day I walked around the nurses station, I encountered the nurse to whom I had made that comment. She looked at me with a lot of compassion in her face, smiled and said, "You're doing good. High threshold of pain." For some reason, that felt very comforting. Far more comforting than the morphine ever was.

Looking for a Panacea

I had a dentist appointment yesterday afternoon and I have an appointment scheduled with my psychiatrist for Monday morning. I'm so tired of seeing doctors. After these appointments, I won't have another until April 17, when I'll go back to see my plastic surgeon. My oncologist is in May and my oncology surgeon is in June. It would be great if I could get all of these appointments jammed in together in one week just to reduce the travel time, but that doesn't seem to be possible.

Recovery is going well. I'm almost all healed in both areas. The tummy incision is still healing on the inside, so I still have to be cautious about what I do. I'm still having some pain, but it's very bearable. My depression seems to be lifting. I've managed to crawl out of the deep, dark hole into a slightly sunnier hole.

I had a conversation this morning with a co-worker who's having some pain issues about how I've dealt with all of this, physically and emotionally. Without using the name, I told him that I practiced mindfulness meditation and that helped me get through most of the past year and a half.

Paying close attention to physical and emotional states definitely helped me get through the frequent anxiety attacks after diagnosis. It was also useful during chemo and radiation therapy. "This is what it feels like..." experience skin, muscles and bones one tiny bit at a time.

"I don't see how that helps," he said.

I told him I don't know how it helps, either. It's a paradox. We all have to find our own way of dealing with intense, ongoing physical and/or psychological pain. It's not magic, unfortunately. I try to stay focused on the moment at hand. Even if it's a really crappy moment. I have to confess, though, that the week after my surgery was not spent in the moment.

A couple of years ago, I would have scurried off to find on the web some techniques for coping with pain and send my co-worker the urls. I'm just not that helpful anymore. This co-worker would like a panacea that requires no work on his part and I think that, if he can't put some effort into it, neither can I.

I don't think I'd offer help under any circumstances. Sometimes you have to know when to take care of yourself. Sometimes that takes all the physical and emotional energy you can muster.