"here's the
button that will be attached to your
morphine tap, dear. when you wake up, after
surgery, and you
hurt, just push it."
so said the gentle nurse just before i was wheeled into surgery. the tap wasn't attached to anything yet. i wouldn't let them. i'm deathly afraid of needles. i fear them more than almost anything else. i refused to let them jab my arm until they'd knocked me out with gas first. no IVs were going anywhere *near* me as long as i had a say about it.
many blurry hours, not truly remembered, except in nighmares later on.
*blink*
"i HURT!"
*push*
i sleep more.
"wake up, your
best friend is here to see you."
"hey, you... do i look as bad as i feel?"
"yeah"
"i dont feel good. im going back to sleep. talk to you later?"
"sure. take care."
*push*
it's not working. it's JUST not working. i can tell this now. it numbs the
pain the slightest bit. but it fucks me up more than anythign.
morphine is *alive* almost, it's
malicious. "push me, you'll feel better i
promise. it's so easy!". and i push, and only feel sick.
i can feel it gnawing away at my mind. gnawing, ripping, playing with my brain. i hate it, gods i hate it!. but i'm still in pain. i hurt too much to do this on my own. i'm too weak
*push*
i'm
sick. i can tell. i can
feel it. i dont know what it was. only that it involved a
fever. and enough of it, that, with the
morphine and the
fever togeter, the
hallucinations came.
i never verbalized them, never vocalized them. but they were there. my mind was tearing itself apart and recreating in ways more terrifying than i can express. i to this day do not remember what they were. but they were there. the drugs and the heat led me to them, and i was nearly lost in them.
"come on. you know i'll make you feel better. i'll make it all right!"
NO!
all i can do now is thank the gods i'm an intuitive and natural healer. that i *could* manage my own pain. and that i did. the fever subsided quickly. (fever is, apparently, fairly normal after certain surgeries. i still think it could have been a reaction to the drug. i don't know, nor do i care.)
i confused the nurses, i know that. i was off the button within three, four hours of regaining full consciousness. that never happens, not with that particular type of jaw surgery. patients usually are on it at least 8, 12 hours. more often over a day, and sometimes nearly their entire hospital stay. i refused to take more morphine, or codine, or anything that affected my mind. that dampened my healing and pain suppression too much. i stayed *only* on tylenol, from then on out. it confused them to no end. but it was, in the end, better, for me. the drugs never helped the pain, really. they only hurt my mind and hence my body.
morphine still haunts my nightmares sometimes. i still fear it greatly. and i will always remember its teeth in my mind. it never eased the pain. only left scars of its own...