After Surgery

I don’t know how to say this or describe this but I’ll try.

I never realised just how discombobulating the following days and weeks are after surgery. Could it be the anesthesia? Or dealing with the huge impact of trauma that surgery brings.

I don’t feel like myself at the moment, like I am in some timeline that I am not meant to be in.  Or that I am dreaming this existence while still under anesthesias embrace. I am having weird episodes; seeing things out of the corner of my eye and generally not feeling like I have been so used to over the years.

This warm yet distant absence of all joy coupled with the realisation I can now see what others see - a sad excuse for a human. It’s like I can see just how horrible a person I am without reason. Discovering the reason I am so disdained.

I woke up at 1:45am unable to breathe. A tingling sensation not experienced prior before rushes across my body, and like a zap of electricity, I see my life flash before my eyes - so vivid in detail yet so quick, it was literally just a flash. Shooting up out of bed, I slammed my fists into my chest while screaming for Dad because these are my last few seconds of life.

Dad comes rushing to my room finding me naked and sobbing at the terror from avoiding death. If I had the lives of a cat, then this month alone I had used two, and the mental severity kicks in.

Cleaning myself up is when I notice this odd feeling lately like something isn’t all together here. Is it from the anesthesia part week? Is it because today was my first day without an after-surgery painkiller?

Whatever the reason, I have to write this down. This and the other thoughts I have had lately on life. Today being Christmas Day yet not being mentally present. Getting upset at family for no reason. Feeling a loss for everything I loved like music and the gradual increase in giving it all up due to age and personal perceived failure.

God has given me another chance - at what? Life? Ok well, not done great there. Love? I failed at that many years ago. Friendships? I never dreamed people I had known in my teenage years would put in writing how they would be there to support me and then avoid my calls or not answer my texts - this added a layer of complexity I didn’t see coming. Such a massive letdown.

I know the last few months dealing with the lead up to surgery have also been mentally taxing. Dealing with the news, where it’s located, what I do.

Men’s mental health is shat on by society. No one cares that it’s harder for men to open up. I don’t need sympathy. Just recognition I exist. And life.

2:05am. Time to sleep

...

Now it’s the morning, 8:33am. The clock on the stove is flashing. This only happens with a power outage.

My Dyson fan is still on yet I distinctly remember placing it on a 2 hour auto switch off at midnight to help combat the overnight heat.

Maybe I did timeline jump? Or am I really dead? Is this purgatory? What is Gods plan for me?

I know when something isn’t right. There is something rather off, rather odd and rather strange about today. Was it the puff of Billy before bed? Yeah, that wasn’t the smartest move one week after surgery. Or maybe it was the alcoholic drinks I had on Christmas Day? One champagne, a couple sips of pink moscato and one beer, 7 hours apart from each other. Not even drunk, not even tipsy, not even touching the sides yet could that be it?

Or maybe it’s was due to the decision that on Christmas Day I would forego after surgery pain relief in the form of Oxycodone. I have four left and decided that I didn’t want to mix alcohol and meds. So not taking an Endone allowed me to have a drink. I was no where near drunk, and my only alcohol in weeks due to doing everything right in preparing for the lead up to surgery.

This isn’t a suicide note. I could never, I love life too much and that is clear from the dried tear stains down the side of my bed.But something has died. I don’t know what. I don’t know how. Everything right now is just different. Like I am in some type of simulation; some Matrix holding zone where the System is deciding on what to do with me - assessing me to see if I am weak and expendable or strong and retainable.

I get that postoperative delirium is real and a heavily researched topic (1), with many a Reddit thread of people saying similar experiences (2) so it could be that?

I don’t know what is coming, it could be my Empath honing in on something that I haven’t quite worked out yet but for right now, this is all confusing and I need it to stop.

1: Colon, E., Bittner, E. A., Kussman, B., McCann, M. E., Soriano, S., & Borsook, D. (2017). Anesthesia, brain changes, and behavior: Insights from neural systems biology. Progress in Neurobiology, 153, 121–160. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pneurobio.2017.01.005

2: https://www.reddit.com/r/Endo/comments/17b5fud/anyone_else_feel_mentally_off_for_a_while_after/