As I prepare to turn the corner into my fourth week I have had highs and lows. I had a few days last week where I thought YES--THIS IS IT, but the end of the week has me thinking I might have done a little too much, too fast. Crazy things...like going on a 30 minute car ride with my husband to enjoy the sunshine and coming home utterly exhausted. Or trying to both take a shower AND dress in something besides a robe. My husband found me on our bed, clothing askew as if I'd been in an altercation, one leg and arm hanging off the bed and quite deeply asleep after attempting something so crazy back to back. So I've given up on some things that were once automatic. And I just don't care right now.
Things I used to take for granted, I no longer do. Waking when I'd like and staying awake for a television program or reading a magazine article and being able to recall anything about it at all, 10 minutes later. Not happening right now. Eating and drinking, what a rollercoaster that has become. I really can't bring myself to eat most of the day, I'm nauseated when I wake, the anti-nausea meds make me both sleepy and further suppress my appetite and by the time the evening rolls around I'll have a little something, and then again right before bed, but hovering at a 7 day average of 531 calories a day (thank you, My Fitness Pal!) on average and less than 30 oz of water is not good. I am a champion liquids person, I used to drink 150+ ounces a day without a thought, but it actually exhausts me to hold a large bottle of Powerade Zero and sip on it. HA--seriously? Now I DO care about my nutrition, but right now I'm peeing enough to pass the daily test and anything beyond that...I just don't care!
I was felled by an incredibly, mind-blowing and inescapable kidney infection and for four miserable days I laid in my bed, holding my hand pressed to my privates and crying during my waking and sleeping time and praying for the antibiotics to kick in so I did not have to be readmitted to the hospital. The Foley catheter that I disliked so very much had benefits, to be sure, because once it was removed I had to be catheterized 8 times a day and that is likely what led to the infection. Plus it was difficult and let's face it...no one ever says "GOSH, I'd give anything to cath instead of peeing like a regular person!" When I finally graduated off the cath, I wanted to tell anyone who would listen how happy I was about that, but since I really don't see anyone other than my husband and the dogs, there was little chance to rejoice publicly.
When I was younger I recall, vividly, being so amazed (horrified/shocked/praying I never looked like that) by how freely certain things were shared and/or shown by my elderly relatives. Now they'd whisper cancer like a stage mother and avert eyes as it left their lips...but get changed into a swim suit at the local pool? Heck yes, and none of my relatives were ever in the slim or petites section. They'd parade around in complete nakedness without a whim or worry and I found that so odd. I went so far as to nearly master the ability to hover so my bare feet and ankles were not visible under the changing curtain as I went from street clothes to swimsuit and back again. And I cared. Cared DEEPLY. Past tense. Just don't care right now.
But now that I am edging in on the ages they were when parading so fully absent of any shame or decency....I get it. I really do.
Once you've been splayed out like a suckling pig and had what feels like every single nurse, aide, doctor, resident, intern and paperclip counter see you fully naked, dripping with equipment, bloated and pasty and moaning...you just don't care. I really just don't care any longer. I realized when I answered the door, wearing my towel post-shower, holding my Foley bag in one has as I reached to to sign for a package with the other and seeing the utter horror in the eyes of my postman and wondering for just the briefest moment if that event would result in the much needed invention of mental bleach by him in the near future to erase from his mind's eye the picture of a saggy, wet headed, make up free, white as paper woman in the chocolate towel forever. And immediately after that moment of thought...not caring.
I know just about all of my older female relatives had a hysterectomy. That, by the way, was the least and easiest of my five surgeries according to my surgeon. And I know they'd likely been through the same great pain, poking, proding, public displays and just not giving a flying fig. And I don't. I just don't care how I look. Which is not to say I don't want to look good, I still do. But I just don't care. It's a very strange place to be. I have decided I can be clean and in pull on pants or I can be without a shower and have something a little 'more' on. Could not tell you the last time I used a blow dryer and my hair left to nature doing the drying well...let's just say if I were older and the movie had been created later, Mel Brook's Bride of Frankenstein would be a shoo-in for me to win a suit against for copying MY look. It's downright frightening.
But I just don't care.
Don't know if I ever will care again as much as I did the first 48 years of my life.
And that's okay with me.
Perhaps letting go of always having to be well turned out, always being ON, always being a YES person and pushing myself is a gift I'll get out of all this. That, and not peeing myself half a dozen times a day. :)
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